Curiousity killed the landord?

[junesrose.livejournal.com]

Hello all,

I have a question, an informal poll of sorts.

I'm at the beginning stages of remodeling my mother's house (she's not living there anymore). It's a two family home. The downstairs apt right now is a one bedroom.

Here's where your sage wisdom/expertise comes in:

I have the ability of making this space a nice, big, one bedroom apartment with a huge eat-in kitchen, large living room and bedroom; or I can take that "extra" room (the kitchen, believe it or not) and turn it into a second bedroom, and make a smaller galley-like kitchen, open to a common room/living room area, which, overall, would not be that big.

I know that it's difficult to visualize, and ultimately, it's my decision, but I"m just looking for what YOU ALL would be looking for in an apartment as a single renter, or with one other roommate.

As a single renter, is the kitchen important to you? The bigger the better? I know that kitchens in homes are massive these days, but do you all look for that in apartments too? Do you young'uns spend time in the kitchen like us old folk?

And, if you were to move in with someone else (have a roomate), how important is a larger kitchen for you? Do you consider the size of the living room/common space or are the bedrooms more important when sharing an apartment (these two bedrooms would be a good size).

Ok, I'm being redundant on both questions, just humor me.....


Also, in general, how important are laundry facilities on-site (ok, I think I know the answer to this one, but I'm throwing it out there as well...)??

Thanks in advance!

:D

~@~@~@~

ADDENDUM-DUM

Er... I know I should be asking a realtor this question, and I have fair idea, but what's the going rate these days for a large one bedroom apt close (VERY CLOSE) to Davis sq?????

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Our home inspector led us to believe that "lots of outlets" in the kitchen is actually required by the electrical code; you don't see it in older places that have been grandfathered in (*cough* our kitchen *cough*), but I expect any substantial renovations would require this condition to be met anyway. (I am not a housing inspector, et cetera.)

Also, you can renovate my kitchen any day.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I suspected as much but hadn't bothered to look it up until now, and your inspector seems to be right. The code dictates:

- No more than 4 feet between GFCI kitchen receptacles
- Countertop sections more than 12 inches wide are considered a "wall" and need a GFCI receptacle.

Source (http://homerenovations.about.com/od/electrical/a/artkiteleccode.htm)

My current kitchen is the first one I've lived in that hasn't been grandfathered in as it was substantially renovated just before I moved in. One caveat, however, is that there is one wall of significant width that they didn't bother to put a countertop on, so I went out and bought a substitute from Ikea but, of course, it does not come with electrical outlets, so I still have at least one permanent plug strip + extension cord arrangement in here.