Big Living in a Small Town

Granted, if you come from a major metropolis like Detroit or Indianapolis, Terre Haute is a small town. But for the people who live in the Wabash Valley, going to Terre Haute means going to the "city". Now, before people get really confused... we do NOT live in Terre Haute yet. We will continue to live in Rochester Hills, MI until mid-August. So we haven't quite taken Terre Haute by storm yet... but we certainly have started to create a stir. ;-)



Alex has always dreamed of living in a downtown loft. I just wanted a place to rent until we became familiar with the area and sold our house here in Michigan. During our first visit to Terre Haute, we learned of two great places to live downtown. One was the most modern looking building downtown (pictured above), which had a very long waiting list for two bedroom apartments, but had a 750 sq. ft. one bedroom apartment that would be available in July, and the price was right. The space was a lot less than what we were hoping for and later in the day we did a mini interview with someone from the local schools (who I would potentially be working for) and his office window looked DIRECTLY into that apartment... which, I have to admit, made me a little uneasy. :-)

The second space was exactly what Alex had dreamed of - beautiful, hard wood floors, tall ceilings, old building, great design, great layout, tons of space, and a very downtown Chicago look. The price was also like living in downtown Chicago and the apartment was not available to just anyone because the owners are very selective about who they would allow to live in their beautiful building, and rightfully so. Alex wanted this beautiful place more than anything, and with the only other acceptable downtown option being the small one bedroom apartment, there seemed to be two extremes and no in-between option.



Luckily, at the last moment's notice after we were getting ready to cash in everything we had for the beautiful loft, the company that manages the smaller apartment called to tell us that they had a two bedroom available. I'm not sure what happened to that long list of people waiting for two bedroom apartments, but I'm not going to ask! Not only did they have a two bedroom available, but it is the best apartment in the entire building because of the ammenities and placement within the building. We'll be taking over the apartment from the first person who moved into the building.



We still had to pay for an extra month that we would technically not be living there, but to us it was worth it to secure something that was both affordable and had enough space combined with the ability to walk to Indiana State University where Alex will be teaching, we can walk to Coffee Grounds which is quickly becoming our favorite coffee shop hangout, the super cheap movies at the beautiful Indiana Theatre, to church - and there are a LOT of historic churches, to Orchestra concerts, events at the Hulman Center, live music at The Verve, downtown festivals, and even the Farmer's Market on Saturdays. There aren't a lot of cities where you can do so many awesome things all within walking distance of your front door!! So, we're happy that we finally have a place to live in Terre Haute, even if we won't be there for a few months.

A small sample of the places I'm sure you'll find us hanging out when we get there...