Finding a home

Today, Mark, Zoe and I continued our Sunday pass time activity of looking for an apartment to buy in Stockholm. The place we live in now is temporary; it is owned by a very nice lady who has ME (a chronic tiredness disorder) who needed to get away from the dark and cold Stockholm autumn and is therefore kindly letting us stay here for a reasonable price. She is coming back in the end of December so we need to buy an apartment before then. The past two Sundays and on occasional weekday evenings we have looked at places around the area where we would like to live. The system here is that the apartments for sale keep an open house at a specific time during Sundays where potential buyers can come and take a look. I am not going to bore my reader with financial issues but one of our surprises have been just how expensive a cozy little two bedroom apartment can be if you want to live in a nice neighborhood with cafes around the corner and an appropriate train station within walking distance. Basically our dream place is about 700.000 SKR (the equivalent of 110.000 USD) more expensive than what we can afford. We have seen close to 20 places now, all just within our price range, some slightly above it, and so far there is only one that we really like, unfortunately it is slightly above our range, but we are considering bidding lower. It is not perfect but it encompasses minimalistic cosmopolitan living and has a really nice feel to it. And it has high ceilings. The latter has ended up being one of the most difficult things to find within our price range and within the area we want to live. I grew up in an apartment with high ceilings and it is the one thing that, if missing, makes me completely claustrophobic. High ceilings come in apartments built in the 1930s or before, the more modern complexes has much lower ceilings, often just 2.5 meters. But I am realizing that we might have to compromise somewhere. Perhaps size?

Zoe is enjoying the viewing, walking around opening cabinets and sitting on sofas. Today she made herself home in the bathroom of one place, inside the shower cabin where she enjoyed pulling the curtain back and forth until another viewer asked around if anyone were missing a child. I hadn't panicked yet, but had started looking for her, so I was grateful for the discovery and got her out of the bathroom with a few objections. When I asked Zoe if she would like to live in that apartment she shook her head and said "nooo". Yet another reject. Apartment hunting continues next Sunday.