Zillow and the future self
THE SEARCH
For the past two months, I’ve been nervously avoiding re-signing a lease to my current apartment. The pandemic rent deal I secured in 2020, though increasing each renewal period, still puts me below market-value (narrowly, but don’t tell my landlord I agree with this).
I’ve logged hours on Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist, Domu, Redfin, Facebook Marketplace, Apartments dot com. In this latest pursuit, I discovered new sites yet unturned, like “Zumper.” I’ve kept myself awake until 2 am, turning over apartments, using AI to engineer Google queries yielding archived Zillow listings for desirable units that may become active again soon. I’ve compiled a spreadsheet of beautiful lofts in Wicker Park, Bucktown, Ukrainian Village, and West Town whose archived dates were one or two Julys ago.
Despite the grunt work, I’ve only toured one unit–last week, 6:15pm, $1850/mo, 1bd + den in Bucktown. It was gross and the newly renovated hardwood floors felt paper-thin. As a courtesy to the Tesla-owning landlord I took three videos of the space, promised to think it over, and deleted all evidence from my phone upon walking away.
I have a message burning in my Zillow inbox for what would be my final hail mary, a 1bd loft in Wicker Park on a street I love for a fair price, $1999/mo. It has a peculiar corrugated metal bay window and a fireplace with tile that would grace the Chili’s tables of yore. I’m into it but can feel myself wanting to want it more than I do.
MEANING
Which calls into question why I’ve been urgently, anxiously scouring for a new apartment when I have a decent deal on a beautiful one I’ve lived in the last five years. Would you not want to know you exhausted your options at a better life before resigning to your current one?
QUANDRY
Staring down the barrel at another couple years, I’ll find myself nearing 30. I’m not at all fearful of this, more so aware of the gulf between that me and the previously-partnered 23 year old who first stepped foot inside. Both in the same full bed.
INT.
I live on the second floor of a Logan Square greystone. It’s nestled off a main boulevard, and is mostly quiet despite recent highway construction forcing a daily rush hour bumper-to-bumper block party.
I have two narrow bedrooms. One is my actual bedroom and the other for workouts slash clothing storage.
In front, the den I use as an office opens onto a balcony through a window. Bay windows face the street and a maple tree hugs them more each bloom. A living room and a dining room with original coffered ceilings and a large built-in. I used to have a clawfoot tub but the bathroom was renovated per landlord request early on. I still grieve the loss of tub depth. Original hardwood throughout, vinyl tile in the kitchen, original hexagonal tile in bathroom.
I learned to decorate here, have replaced all the furniture three times over, have spent a million hours puzzled by its quirks, striving to find a perfect spatial relationship between things, working backwards from its dark stained wood and off-white walls.
LOFT
In “tiring” of the classic Chicago layout, my desires turn toward the timber or brick loft. “Enough with rooms with doors,” I exclaim. I am a modern woman, a thinking woman, a woman who has gotten rid of a lot of stuff lately, who knows vaguely what she wants, a woman of the city.
I’ve come to depend on my ability to change my interior environment as a means to change, you guessed it, my interior. To an extent, I find this healthy and of spiritual and emotional significance, but after five years here I’d be spinning my wheels to continue attempting reinvention. My options are then to move, rely less on redecorating as a means of control, or to redirect the creative energy outward to help others become more certain of their homes.
THE RELIEF OF DECISION
I decided to not tour the aforementioned Wicker Park 1bd loft. As much as I enjoyed imagining the chic, transformed me who lived there, I cast the lines from the dock. The ship sailed and I found myself relieved.
The path narrows because it has to and I trust I’ll move forward joyfully from the same walls. A two-year lease turns to one. Another decision made, anxiety softens. One more summer with the maple tree.
Who was I going to be in the loft? A place’s power to change me, to propel me through something, is not inherent to its place-ness, but to my openness to see things differently. To imagine anew, to problem-solve, to allow myself to be wrong, to let go of the stagnant.
NEW PROJECT
After a few years of vintage reselling, I’ve recently started taking on design sourcing and styling clients. This is something I want to do more of. If this appeals, please hit my line and we can cut a deal.
Last week, though not really looking, I found a gorgeous studio/office on FBMP within 15 minutes of its posting. I toured it the next morning. You can see the skyline from the east-facing windows.
Still finalizing the details. Maybe I’m in over my skis, or maybe I’ll create the discipline required of me to keep changing more rooms.
Design studio timber loft *loudest knock-on-wood possible* coming summer 2025. Meeting-space, inventory showroom, monthly events, talks, and more. I’ll be there and I want you to be there.
THANKS FOR READING and sorry if my writing is too didactic. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN etc. I know you get it.