Apartment Tour

Otherwise known as "Brouwer cribs, L.A. edition". I know I promised this long ago, but there has been so much other interesting stuff that I have finally just now gotten around to the tour. This post is really for my Mom, I hope you enjoy it too.

It's another long one so make sure you pour some more coffee, put on a video for the kids and do some finger stretches.

We are staying at Oakwood apartments in L.A., we are just on the border of Burbank and L.A. across the street from Warner Brothers studios. The apartment complex is on the bottom of mount Hollywood, the Hollywood sign is around the corner to the right of this picture.


This is a huge apartment complex, there are 26 buildings (A-Z), and two big club houses. We are in building M on the third floor. I am very happy to report that they fixed our elevator! Of course now that the weather is not 100 degrees I don't mind walking up the stairs anymore. All the buildings are three stories, and they are stair stepped down the hillside.


Here you are looking at our front door from the living room. The kitchen is on the left and the dining room is right.


This is looking in from the front door. The couches were arranged different when we arrived, however there is an open fireplace on the right that we could not seem to keep our toddler out of, so one of the couches had to go there to block it.


This is where I get my cook on. I am constantly whipping up delicious nutritous meals for my boys. Sauces, souffles, stuffed turkeys, wicked desserts, you name it. I am usually wearing a darling little skirt with heels, and my makeup and hair are always perfect too.


This is my "ode to mechanically separated, dinosaur shaped, processed chicken peices" dinner. I like to add a side accompanyment of canned mandarin oranges, and canned green beans.
Ok, not one of my prouder moments as a mother, but I have found it extremely hard to get motivated in the kitchen down here...... ok, ok, geez, I always find it hard to get motivated in the kitchen!


Around the corner from Hell's Kitchen is Sean's wing.


Here is looking into his room..


and looking back out.


This is Sean's bathroom, each bedroom has it's own vanity and shower/toilet area. All Sean does here is brush his teeth, he is not potty trained so having his own bathroom is really just excess. We don't have any guests either so I guess it is just the extra bathroom.


Across from Sean's room is the Master suite!


The rooms are actually pretty big, this is a king size bed with plenty of room all around it. The only problem we have been having is that the windows, from 1972, are single pained with metal frames (you remember!). We can hear our downstairs neighbors talking on there porch almost every night, it wakes us up. They are not being loud or rowdy, just sitting on there porch talking, having a smoke.





This is where I get all dolled up and gorgeous for the day.


This is our walk in closet, it is really big, so big you can sleep a toddler in it.


That's right, it's true confession time....Sean is sleeping in our closet! His room is too bright and too loud, so he is sleeping soundly in our walk in closet. True, he is too big for his pack n play, but so far this has been working quite well. There is enough room to walk around his "bed" and I leave the door cracked for ventilation. My mother is appalled at me "stuffing" my son in the closet, but before you judge me, just remember how valuable a full nights sleep can be... you would do it too.





This is were the magic happens, my desk. That's right, I sit here every nap time pouring over countless pictures, hand picking the perfect ones to show you on the post for the day. Your welcome.


And here is Sean, wondering why his silly mom is walking around the apartment taking boring pictures. He has his turtle, monkey, flip flops, and trucks all ready to go, "go to playground mom!" " hold on sweetie, I need to pack you a delicious organic lunch before we go" (insert sing song voice) (don't forget the high heels)


This is looking down from our balcony.


There are walk ways between most of the buildings. This is the one I take to go to the laundry room in the building up from us.


At each club house there is a pool, hot tub, theater room, multipurpose rooms, work out rooms, and sand volleyball courts. We like to call this the "beach", works for Sean. Oh, there is also a little convenience store. I hiked there last night to fill a ravenous licorice craving I was having.


The workout room. It is always busy.


Sean likes to come and pump some iron pretty regularly. Jason throws around weights like there made of styrofoam, and I like to do circuit training every day.


Of course there is the pool, otherwise known by Sean as "the cool".


Hot tubs


And the playground. There are wild bunnies that hop around by this playground, while this is super cute, they tend to leave little poop balls all over the place. Sean will be playing and I will hear him say "don't touch the bunny poop, don't touch the bunny poop", well at least I know he is listening.



This is looking up at Mount Hollywood (notice that the grounds of the apartment are green and the real landscape is dry and dead). Jason likes to take Knolly, his beloved wife, I mean bike, up and let her stretch her legs a little on the hillside.



And our sunset view!!! The best thing about the whole apartment, and L.A. for that matter.


Well you made it through another long post. Well maybe, my mom is probably the only one who stuck with this one, thanks mom.



Oh yea, I forgot to add that this can all be yours for $3,800/month! That includes the weekly cleaning lady, ouch! did someone just throw a mouse at me! Yes, it is true, I have a cleaning lady for a little two bedroom apartment. Now you see why I have time to write a blog :). Sean calls her the "clean lady", she doesn't speak english, but Sean talks to her anyway. The best part is that she changes the sheets and towels so I don't have to pay to wash them in the machines, I love that.



$3,800 a month, can you imagine the kind of house you could get if you could afford that for a mortgage! It is obscene and outrageous, but so are most things in LA LA land. (GE is paying for our apt)(thanks GE!)



Sarah