New Avalon condo

Technically we've lived in the "new" condo for almost 2 months now but I was here just one day after move-in before leaving for 3 weeks, so it still feels fairly new.  I really like it - there's definitely some disadvantages compared to the old place, but the advantages outweigh them by a lot!  Here's a little photo tour.

This is the view when you walk in the door - kitchen is to the left, dining table right in front, living room behind it.  It's definitely darker than Zenith was, but....we have real curtains, and a rug on the floor, and we can actually hear the TV when it's on!  That's a real bonus.

The next two are views of the kitchen.  It's pretty standard, hotplate instead of a stove/oven but we have the little oven I bought (it's on top of the fridge) and of course, no dishwasher. 

There are 3 bedrooms in total, and only 2.5 bathrooms so it is smaller than the last place but much more homey and comfortable.  This is just a bit of the master bedroom with my desk.

And the master bathroom.  It has a bath/shower unit that you can't see in this photo but it's a pretty typical bathroom.  The only interesting thing is that it comes with a bidet faucet - you can see it on the wall next to the toilet.  So far it's only been used for cleaning the floor drain (as far as I know that is) but it's very handy for that purpose.

So, that's the unit - pretty standard.  

Oh, I almost forgot 2 of the 3 best things about it -- another reason we can hear the TV is that the aircon units are quiet!  We can actually have them on and hear each other without yelling - that's very exciting.  And finally, in the bedrooms, there are real drapes so if we want to sleep in past 5:00am (which is when it starts to get light...every morning of the year), we can.  

When I said there are 2.5 baths, the .5 is not the typical powder room that you would expect.  Did you notice the door next to the fridge?  In behind there is a tiny room with a lot of stuff in it -- a small bunk bed, washer, dryer, sink, toilet and shower.  It's technically the maid's room and came with just the bunkbed, toilet, washer and dryer in it.  We had them add the shower and sink to give us a 3rd bathroom that Nena uses.   

Now for the other features, which is really why I like this building.  The gym....it's not huge but it's quite well appointed and Cyrus, my PT, comes here when we work out.  No more trekking through the mall in gym clothes for me!  I'm working on weights, as usual, and also running without stopping - I'm up to 33 minutes as of this morning.  

Here's another great feature, although I've only been in a couple of times.  In the first picture, you can see the corner of my old building behind the pool as we are literally right next door.  The treadmills look out over the pool and it's nice seeing the kids playing in it.  

Here's the kids pool and some of the deck chairs.

Finally, there is a rooftop deck that I quite like.  There's a couple of little sitting areas and a function room. 

 The next two are pictures of the city that I took from the rooftop.  The first one shows the ocean in the background and the greenspace where we go walking most weekend mornings, and then head to one of the many coffee shops nearby to cool off.  This whole area surrounding the mall was a golf course at one time and this is one of the last pieces of greenspace left (and they're putting up new buildings on it already).

This last picture is from the other side of the building, facing my office with the mall expansion below.