The Ones That Got Away

This could have been the guest room where you stay when you come visit us.  This apartment was rejected because though it was quiet, it was in an area devoid of any cafes or patisseries, and really only immediately interesting if you wanted camping gear or scholarly books.  The owner wouldn't let us swap the double bed in the master bedroom for a queen, and though there were 2 toilets, she told us one didn't work very well and should only be used very, very lightly, if you get my drift.  It certainly wasn't bad, but it was at the top of our price range and not something we loved (interestingly, it stayed on the market for months, which must mean it was overpriced.  Everything else vanished in days or even minutes):

This could have been our view.  Yes, we could have had all of Paris as our living room, but the actual living room furniture was modern, heavy, and oddly tall (we would all have had to climb up for dinner, even Anthony).  Convenient location in the 5th, but not a charming street or entry way and an elevator so tiny, that if we moved here, I was planning to measure the elevator's interior dimensions to warn you all about your luggage.  The agency fee was unusually high, making this also at the very top of our price range, assuming it would be amertized over about 2 years.  But truly, the view couldn't be beat:

 

Following is the living room in the most bizarre of our apartment tours.  It was a 5th floor walk-up, very strange layout and shabby, old furniture.  We were given the tour by the portly older gentleman that owns it, who was both chewing on a cigar and seemingly drunk.  He was a former professor of Russian and French history, and told us all sorts of interesting details about the flat and the area.  Then at the end, he casually mentioned that there was a 3rd bedroom locked up behind a door off the living area, and that it would be no problem for us while we were renting his flat when he would sometimes stay there.  We could regain privacy simply by locking off the living room doors -- thereby separating us from our children whose bedroom would be on the other side.  He planned to visit with his American girlfriend, who, we were assured, we would like very much.  This was good considering they would occasionally need to use our bathroom and shower.  For these prices, you'd think we could rent an apartment without somebody already living in it (needless to say, this flat also has been on the market a long, long time, and the landlord told us he wasn't sure why, but he had a couple really crazy renters in the past).  So, this is the living room that we could have shared with an insane landlord: