You had me at the sidewalk

I know it has happened to you when you're house/condo/apartment shopping - you get that feeling when you walk in the front door, or maybe even before, when you're searching the Internet - that this is home. The house seems to call to you, "live here, be mine". I didn't expect that to happen yesterday while searching for our weekday home in Alexandria (VA). We were just hoping to find something decent, mostly commuter friendly that we could perch in Monday-Thursday.

We started in Parkfairfax as stated in my post yesterday. The first apartment is housing an adorable family of four that has been there for ten years. Not much has been done to it in that amount of time, except for amassing a large collection of house plants. I'm sure once they move out and a coat of paint is applied, it will be a cute place. But it wasn't speaking to me. There was a long walk from the parking lot to the front door, too, which makes schlepping groceries more of a chore than it already is. Okay, we'll keep it on the list but let's move on.

We popped into another model - this time a vacant one, thank goodness.
This condo had the same floor plan as the other and has had some updating over the years.
I love the patio and the Adirondack chairs. It would be easy to let the dogs out from this entrance.
The bath looks like it has the original tile and tub but the rest has been updated. I'm okay with that.
I like the wall of windows in the Living Room, the two colors of paint, not so much. I'd need a new paint job, for sure. There were nice wood blinds on the windows - bonus. These pictures were taken when things were still green - yesterday there was a good coating of snow on the ground. I guess I can see myself here, after some paint. Moving on....

We did a quick drive-by of the Fairlington condos. We weren't in love with the location of either so we headed into Old Town.
You had me at the sidewalk. The home pictured above is in a section of Old Town called Yates Gardens - town homes built in the 1930s. A closer look at the listing read "no pets". Yikes, how did this one slip through the filter? My old and dear friend, Liane, who is also my real estate agent, said she often can convince people to take pets - and was willing to go to bat for us. Meanwhile, I was trying not to fall in love. Too late.
The living room which takes up the entire second floor has windows on both sides of the room. You can see above the light streaming in. The fireplace is a bonus.
The kitchen and dining room are on the lower level along with a door out to the garden - yeah - letting dogs out at midnight won't be too hard.
Charm was oozing from every nook and cranny. Add to that the super location near the Safeway, the river, the bike trail, the restaurants, it is perfection.

This morning, back in Richmond, I wrote a lengthy email to my agent with all the reasons why they should pick us as their next tenants. I guess it depends on how much "no pets" means "NO PETS".