AnnaCossack

I’m super excited to share with you The News of the Century: two weeks ago we became the owners of a flat in Paris! It’s not a secret that I love this city with all my heart and have been dreaming to buy a flat here since a long time ago… I remember myself strolling on the streets of Paris, looking at the windows and imagining how would be the life behind them. Could I possibly live in this or that building one day? And drink my coffee looking at that window? Or enter one of those doors every evening after work and go up to my floor?

Now dreams came true and together with my sweetheart we moved to our love nest in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. I have a weakness for this calm district where I have lived for years and I know it pretty well. It’s not a vibrant area full of bars, coffee shops and tourists, not a fashionable spot where you can cross the stars and find the newest restaurants but it’s a truly Parisian arrondissement where the true life happens. I love the atmosphere of good old Paris with its traditional brasseries and comptoirs, large streets and lots of green spaces. The Seine River is just around the corner, and I can’t wait to do my morning joggings along it…

To sum up, I’m really happy with these life changes and have a feeling to finally be at home. I cannot exclude the possibility of leaving Paris one day – life is long and offers so many opportunities – but at the moment I’m in harmony with myself in this beautiful city, sometimes cold and snobbish but always so inspiring and passionate.

There were three most important criteria of choice of the flat: district, natural light and surface. Anyway our final choice was ruled rather by our emotions as well as by our reason. It’s important to have a warm feeling about a flat. Sometimes you can’t even explain it but you should just listen to your internal voice and follow its advice. That’s what happened in our case: we visited dozens of apartments, some of them were really nice but there was always a little something here or there which we didn’t like. We hesitated, couldn’t make a decision and finished by losing an opportunity (you should know that in Paris the flats are sold in a flash, so one has almost no time for reflections). But things weren’t like this with this spacious apartment in the 16th arrondissement. As soon as we entered the luminous living room with an American kitchen and a huge stone bar counter, we felt that was it. We liked how bright the apartment was and how cleverly the space was organized. We liked the absence of the vis-à-vis (a big luxury in Paris!) and a lovely green courtyard. We also appreciated the fact that the apartment was situated on the last floor, which means no neighbors above the head. To sum up, we found plenty of arguments for this apartment and any arguments against it – but the true reason is that we felt good there and immediately started to imagine our life together in that place.

In Paris choosing a property that you like is only the first step which should be followed by a long closing process. In our case the process took three months and was quite stressful but we got through it, as well as through the moving adventure, unpacked the boxes and started to adjust to our new home and neighborhood. For example, we have already tried the Italian restaurant nearby and found it really good – a good start for feeling at home in a new district;)

Here are a few photos of the apartment just after we have moved in…

And here’s the view from our living room :