I am looking at a lot of apartments online. Apartments.com and others. It is very frustrating sometimes. You click on an apartment and there are picures, but half the time they are only pics of the outside of the building. Well hell, I’m not going to be living in the damn courtyard. Or you click on a floor plan and see a basic diagram but without any dimensions. Or you click on a floor plan for a one bedroom and you see a diagram and pics of a three bedroom. Even worse, some have no floor plans and no pictures. This is more common on Craigslist but it happens on other sites. Why would anyone list an apartment without any pictures? And some don’t mention the price. Another thread coming about that.
So I found an apt on Craiglist and it does have 3 pics. A little studio I might take for a year until I figure out if I am going to stay in this area for longer than that. I can’t tell where the 3rd pic is taken from. I found a free floor plan diagram program and drew one, but I am bad at using it and the very basic diagram I used doesn’t seem to jibe completely with the pictures.
Before anyone asks why I don’t just go and see the place, I will if they guy gets back to me. But it is Friday night and I am having a few glasses of wine. If it is not the type of layout I want, I can cross it off the list of places to see.
$595 a month. I was paying more than twice that in Jersey for a studio that looks to be about the same size.
Maybe it’s me and my tastes or maybe you just don’t like multi-family independent listing services, but that appears to be a very inexpensive area overall and I’ve seen some bargains on those sites you get frustrated with. If you need a place in the $600 range, this appears to be a much better deal to me. Sure, it’s $55 more a month and you’d have roommates, but compared to the pictures you posted, the two places seem worlds apart.
I would guess that the third photo is taken from the lower right corner (as oriented in the diagram) and what you are seeing there is a bedroom area and an opening to the bathroom on the left. That would put the bathroom on the opposite side of a wall from the kitchen, which makes sense for plumbing. So basically you have a living area in the front (I don’t see a closet in the photos), a kitchen and eating area on the left, and a bedroom and bathroom on the right. I think the second photo was taken by someone standing in the corner between the stove and the counter, and the third photo was taken from the opposite side. I’m a little puzzled by the gray wall in the third photo. Maybe the bathroom isn’t shown at all, and that door in the third photo is the other entrance to the kitchen, which would make it L-shaped instead of a galley kitchen.
Now that you have aroused our curiosity, I trust you will come back with the answer once you have seen the place.
thank you both, that was sort of what I was thinking but could not see it . Looks very good to me. Sort of makes my point above if you are renting an apt about taking more pics and showing dimensions. I would have been knocking on the door if I had seen that diagram
That looks pretty good to me and does explain that weird opening behind and to the left of the bathroom entrance in the third pic. If that’s it, it would make that the narrowest entrance I’ve seen, unless there is some weird shadow or something throwing me off. At a glance, it doesn’t look much more than a foot and a half wide.
Yeah, it might not be an entrance, but I can’t think what else it might be. It looks like the apartment is a house that’s been artificially halved, so a new front door might have been a kludged addition.
I can’t imagine that’s the entrance hall behind the bath – look at the ceiling tile. It’s less than 24" wide at that point. Cheap ACT – Acoustic Ceiling Tile – “drop in tile” is normally 24" x 48". I’m thinking an alcove/closet, but not wide enough for a door.
IF the two window walls are on the same side of the building (I’m not entirely convinced looking out the windows), then the “large window” picture may be the bedroom to the right of the “small window” picture. Then the Living Room goes across the two spaces, and the Kitchen is to the left of the small window photo. The ACT is in the same direction (a plus), but if it’s a separate (bed) room it could go the other way (a minus), but the ACT guy may put it in the same direction anyway to be more “pleasing”. That’s why this is an “IF”.
I’m also thinking the entrance is behind the camera of the kitchen photo – same floor tile at the entrance. That’s not a given, but what I would do in the situation.
I’m wondering about the different wall types, especially in small window photo. To the right is a greyer color wall (with a thermostat on the wall? Another hint it’s the Living Room and/or center of the whole apartment). The left wall is probably a painted over fake wall paneling – an original wall, perhaps? It’s also on the left side of the “large window” photo but doesn’t jive with my guesses above, so maybe the guess is wrong.
I’m not saying @GuanoLad’s plan is wrong, but it looks awfully generous for a 1 bedroom apt.
My only credentials is having done this for work for many years. I’ve gone 'round the world from my office chair with only crappy photos from field visits and google maps. I am curious, @Mike_Mabes, what the apartment really looks like.
It’s an efficiency. The carpeted area is the bedroom/living area, the parquet flooring is the kitchen/dining area. My guess is photo 3 is from the entrance. Bath is to the left, but you don’t see a door. Bath is in front of the kitchen area.
Good guess. But what is the difference between an efficiency and a studio? To me an efficiency is an apartment without a stove, when I first moved to NYC in 1992 my place didn’t even have a bathroom, it was down the hall.
Anyway, the guy renting that place which is no longer available has another one, I hope to see it tomorrow. It may be the other side of the house that “has been artificially halved” as GuanoLad said.
And it is $525 a month. May be just a studio, fine with me. I used to own a 3 bedroom house in Rhode Island, I usually feel asleep on the couch.
One thing you might want to keep in mind is that Blacksburg is a college town. Be careful you not living in an area with a lot of undergrad housing unless you want that. Traffic isn’t bad in that area, so if you had a car, you could get something a little out of town and still not have a bad commute.
I’m originally from Virginia and spend a lot of time in the Shenandoah Valley for outdoor activities. PM me if you ever have any questions.
It became available again and I went to take a look. It’s just like that except there is no seperate bedroom to the right, what you have labeled as living room is considered the bedroom. The 3rd pic was taken from the entrance. The living room area is ony about 8x10
You and StGermain win fabulous prizes.
I passsed but it gives me a good idea what I can get in this area
