Would You Rent Your Dream Apartment?

How apartment-hunting is a practice in self-worth. Plus, feel-good rewatches, sleep essentials and the 'best' hand cream.

Last week I wrote about my two-month apartment search. After eight weeks of seeing several apartments a day and one rejected application, I still hadn’t signed a lease and my move-out date was fast approaching. I was under the gun and paralyzed with decision fatigue so one day after seeing several apartments, I sought a moment of solace in a church. When a church attendant advised me “you’ll know when you see it,” I almost laughed out loud. After seeing so many crappy apartments, I’d come to the conclusion that no apartment would be perfect. Every apartment would involve sacrificing something, and so making a decision hinged on weighing what I was willing to give up the most.

And yet, to my surprise, she was right… well, sort of. A couple days later I knew when I saw it. It was a stunning corner one-bedroom unit in a restored old schoolhouse in Crown Heights. It was shiny and new but still had character, as they had preserved the original details from the school house. The corner unit…