I have no useful suggestions but I want to say that I’m impressed how organised you are and how you have thought everything out. I’m sure even the cats will be happy in your new place.
Sounds similar to ours, but about half the price. Our building is downtown, and in a high-end neighborhood, which jacks the rent up quite a bit. We also have free cable TV and internet, once-a-week cleaning, full maintenance service, meals seven days a week, either delivered or in the dining room, one ground floor patio and a second floor terrace (for the building), medical staff on station 24/7, a van for “outings”, plus the usual assortment of activities including an exercise class, which is the only one I attend. There’s a library and a DVD library. Our 2-bedroom apartment is on the 3rd of 15 floors, and is ADA compliant. There’s also underground parking equipped with a car wash station. Each apartment is fully updated or remodeled before a new resident moves in, and we are free to do whatever we want to it within structural limitations.
All that said, I miss our house like you miss yours, especially the garden.
My heart went pitty-pat when I saw that you had posted on my thread. Hi! 
I checked the new address on the T-Mobile website coverage map, and it said the coverage there is excellent. The new place is only a mile south of where I live now.
This I don’t know. And frankly, I doubt if anybody I ask among residents or staff will know. There’s probably some techie person on the staff who does know, but I likely won’t meet them til I move in. Most of my friends (who, admittedly, are old ladies) don’t have any idea how their devices are set up-- wireless, ethernet, HDMI-- Greek to them. I’m pretty much the techie-head in my group. 
This is what I’d ultimately like to be able to do.
Remember when I first got the Gateway, I was getting kicked off the internet a lot, sometimes a couple of times a day. That has stopped and now I might get kicked off once in a week. The beauty of that is I just have to reboot the Gateway and it connects again, even picking up TV programs where they stopped. Some people have said when they lose internet connectivity they just have to wait until the Internet Gods get done with their coffee/booze break and decide to make it work again.
Elsewhere in this thread someone said that I may get a hard sell from the cable company (Spectrum, I think) to sign a multi-year contract. But the cable is bundled in with my rent. I’m guessing I will have my own account of some kind for purposes of saving favorite programs and stuff, but I won’t be an account involving money. Is that how it works with your GMiL?
I may rub my genie bottle again after I get relocated and ask some more questions. Or possibly PM you so I can get more specific. 
Thank you, my friend.
Sounds like you’re getting at least twice the services.
Thanks for adding that. I do understand… I can’t believe I’m going to miss the progress of plants in my little back yard… my little bit of heaven. I’ll have no outdoor space of my own at all, not even a patio. 
And no more crazy bugs crawling around your gas meter at night!
I’ll be watching this thread. Mrs. Cretin and I (77 and 73, respectively)* are expecting to face similar decisions in the future. Not there yet but we can see it from here.
- Having been together 54 years as of day before yesterday!
Wow! Congratulations! 
Very true!
@TreacherousCretin FYI and apropos of nothing: if you want an asterisk at the beginning of a line to remain an asterisk and not turn into a bullet point, but a backslash first, then the *, then your text thusly:
*Here’s how that works.
So…lots of mentions of the “dining room”.
I’m curious about how this is set up.
You describe a college dorm…Well my college dining hall (a half century ago) was an institutional, almost industrial, looking place—long rows of rectangular tables. During meal times, the rows tended to fill up in order as more and more people walked in. The menu changed every day, but was limited,and based on one main course, several sides, and one or two deserts.
But I’ve seen nicer setups nowadays. I know somebody living in an independent-living complex, but it doesn’t have a “dining room”.
It has a restaurant, called the “Bistro Grille” or some such (silly) name, designed to make you think you are at a sidewalk cafe in Paris.
. It is a full-scale restaurant. The tables are set for 2 or 4 people, scattered randomly in a large room with plenty of space between them, and planters with with realistic-looking flowers and green plants between every few tables.
The menu is very full and varied. Although there is one main dish “the special” which varies each day, the rest of the menu is a constant, and complete restaurant-style. Several soups, pastas,ravioli, spaghetti, etc in various sauces, several salads–Tuna, Salmon, Cheeses, Caesar salad with grilled chicken strips, pizza slices, hamburger, Mexican burritos, a variety of good sandwiches, and five or six different pies and cakes, which vary every day.
There are no set meal times; the restaurant is open non-stop all day from morning to late evening.
The facility is large–about 400 apartments, so there are enough residents to offer the large menu every day.
Visiting there made me re-think my prejudices against “old-age” homes, and I can see myself moving into such a place
Yeah, we put a lot of time and money into what started out as a truly ugly yard. My wife saw the possibilities and was responsible for the amazing transformation into a place where pedestrians stopped to look at all the floral varieties. And then there’s the loss of my little workshop. . .sigh.
Always happy to help. But others in the thread are also giving you well earned support and love and solid advice. So credit to the team!
A friend’s mom moved into a similar retirement home, and although she had anticipated being unhappy there, once she’d settled in, she loved the place. The loss of private garden space is the one thing she still really misses, but she and her friends lobbied the management and they started a communal garden space where residents can get dibs on a plot and plant whatever they like in that one space within a large decorative garden that’s maintained by the facility. It’s not the same, certainly, but there’s at least a nice place to sit and enjoy nature, even if it isn’t private.
You don’t sound too worried about the shift from outdoors to indoors for your cats, but if you are, I can tell you I had to keep a cat who’d been indoor-outdoor for his entire ten years of life into an indoors-only one, and after a few weeks, he’d accepted it entirely. A cat tree or shelf in front of every window was key.
Like many others in this thread, I’m in awe of your preparations, and I’ll bet you’re going to thrive!
Is there a community garden anywhere in the area where you might be able to get a garden bed?
Or maybe you can get such a thing created, if it doesn’t already exist.
I called it a dining room for lack of a better term. It’s a cheery place with lots of windows. Not “institutional” at all. There’s a nice patio outside if the temperature ever becomes bearable. You order at a counter and use your key fob to record the meal. I think there are limited dining hours, and I don’t know what they are yet. There are only 60 residents at this whole property so they couldn’t operate exactly like a restaurant. By college dorm (and I never lived in one) I mean people talking at tables, coming and going, maybe a couple of people reading by themselves or using a laptop. Like a coffee shop 
“where everybody knows your name.” 
Ouch! That really hurts! I am so sorry. How’s the kitchen at The Home? Mine is a tiny galley kitchen, but presumably I won’t be cooking as much except on weekends.
Definitely.
I don’t have a green thumb, so I don’t miss a garden as such. My cute backyard was done by a landscaper I use every year. (Gonna miss him, too.) But I used to go out in my very private back yard and watch the sun come up (before it got too hot) and listen to the birds. Utterly idyllic…
That is excellent news! Now that both cats are 10 years old, they’re a little more settled. I’ve already started bringing them in earlier. I used to leave them out as long as they wanted to stay out-- sometimes until 10 PM.
BTW I’ve arranged to board them for two days and one night. The packers come on Tues Sept 5, and I’ll take the kitties to the boarding place early that morning. I’ll spend the night in the house and the next day the movers come and move everything to the new place. I’ll pick up the kitties at the end of that day- Sept 6. These two aren’t the best of pals, but I’ve told the vet to go ahead and put them in one enclosure. I hope they’ll be too stressed to fight. Both of them have only ever lived in this house. Imagine their surprise! 
Actually, one of them spent the first few months of her life in the country, but I’m sure she has forgotten.
Very tiny, but I’ve installed some shelving in there that holds all my appliances and pans, along with cooking utensils. There is a pantry also for dry goods. Cramped, but functional. We have two bathrooms with walk-in showers, which is good; I hate tubs.
You may have some very freaked out cats at first. But the chances are very good that they’ll get over it within days or weeks.
Make very sure that they can’t get out, to start with. Boarding them while things are actually being moved in should make that easier. And (although of course it depends on the cat) 10 year old cats are less likely to be frantic escape artists after the first few days than 1 year old cats would be. – the advice above to make sure they can see out the windows is good advice. They need to know that what’s outside isn’t what they were used to.
Give them as much familiar stuff as you can – but you already know that. And there’s you, of course. You’ll be there.
Don’t worry if they hide a lot to start with. And they may hide somewhere you can’t find them at first – cats can fit in remarkably small places. I once couldn’t find a cat immediately after a move; but eventually did find him: underneath a dresser that I had been entirely sure was too low to the ground for a cat to fit under. Eyes in the flashlight beam, looking back at me –
Do give them a place to hide. The walk-in closet’s a start, but I’d also put a couple of boxes in there, especially if the furniture doesn’t work to hide under.
(Now after all that advice you’ll probably find them both immediately sprawled out on top of the bed.)
I love tubs and would be unhappy without one; but people vary. Which is good.
The really critical thing here is that the cats get to come along. Which they do.
One thing I like about this facility is that it is not part of a large corporate entity that owns multiple cookie-cutter facilities. This building was built and is still owned by two brothers who live in Chicago. The staff has a free hand to do what is necessary for the good of the residents. They are dedicated (some have been here for 20 years), responsive, and knowledgeable. The chef is actually a chef who does some great things on a small budget. One of his assistant cooks makes the scratch biscuits and gravy they serve every Sunday.
I did not know that. 10-Q veddy much!
Meant to comment on meals. Our dining room is restaurant style, with meals brought to the table by staff (or to your room, if desired). Other than breakfast, meals come with a cost. We also have a terrace off the DR with tables and umbrellas and a nice flower garden planted by residents.
Here, you’re given a meal allowance of $150/ mo and you draw against that when the key fob is read. Each lunch is $6-$7. I don’t know if there is a charge for breakfast as it’s just rolls and coffee. No dinner and no meals on weekends. My friend who lives there never spends the whole allowance.
Heh. This reminded me of my parents, who also had a monthly charge for meals at their retirement facility. It was a ‘use it or lose it’ charge, and they never used all of it. My wife and I were always invited for lunch late in the month.