Renting: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly....

Hello, my name is Sarah, I'm an artist currently living in an apartment in Mobile with my husband and two dachshunds. I'm also the creator of the blog and website Sworley Thoughts. Below is my rental experience...

The GOOD

The good about renting an apartment is that it gave my husband and I a chance to figure out our style as a couple. We are newly married and this is our first place together. Living in an apartment has given us the time to adjust to living together, combine our things, and to think about what kind of house would fit into what we both are looking for.

It has also forced us to be clean and organized. Space is limited so I have to be creative in how we store our things. We don't have room for junk, so we had to purge through our things and get rid of everything but what we really truly needed. We don't have anything in our apartment that doesn't have significant value to us. Life is so much better once it's de-cluttered.

The BAD

The bad part of renting is the obvious lack of privacy, paper thin walls that you can hear everything through, and no free space for our dogs to run around in. There's no creative freedom as far as flooring, light fixtures, cabinets etc. As mentioned before, space is limited. The cabinets are small, the closets are small, it's all small. We've only lived here a few months and it already feels like we've outgrown this space. We also had to give up our tradition of grilling on the weekends since our apartment does not allow grills or fire pits of any kind to be used on the property.

The UGLY

The ugly portion renting, for us, has been the horrendous parking situation. The parking lot is way to small for this property and there aren't enough spaces for the amount of cars that park here every night. It's a daily battle for a parking space, and since Mobile doesn't have any kind of reliable public transportation set up, it's a necessity to have a car.

Despite the bad and the ugly of renting, I think we made a good decision in renting before we go and jump into buying a house together. Us living here doesn't have to be permanent and we have the option of leaving whenever we feel the time is right.

Are you renting?

If you'd like to share, the good, the bad, the ugly of living in a rental, email me your submission with 3-4 pictures of your apartment! Pls use the same format as above!