Moved to Korte Amstelstraat

Our house on Bilderdijkkade was lovely, but our itches to improve added up to a major investment. Considering a possibility to expand by buying a neighbor’s apartment, we began seeing rennovation a single, large project. Then the pandemic happened and on a whim in May went to see a canal house that was for sale. We talked about rennovating it, instead, and renting floors out; we weren’t terribly serious but treating the imagining as a substtute for travel.

What we found, though, was that imagining leaving Bilderdijkkade was a big relief. The house was good, but there was so much work we wanted to do to make it “right” and the neighborhood was too loud for lockdown and our neighbors in the VvE were too frugal and…it just felt good to imagine starting over somewhere else. So we began looking for real.

Just over a month later I pushed the higher limit of our search “just to see” and found this apartment with the top two floors and a roof terrace. The building is newer (2005) but has a fairly classic style and sits at the corner of two canals. The neighborhood is quiet but adjacent to the Grachtengordel and University. The previous owners rennovated the interior already to make the floorplan open, leading to an abundance of natural light.

Like The Artifical’s Herengracht office, it is one of those rare finds that is worth stretching the budget for.