M and I grew up in the suburbs and lived most of our adult lives in suburbs. We thought that was the thing to do. Raise kids in the suburbs was the expectation. Good schools, playing in the neighborhood, sports, scouts, and all the kids activities seemed like it was the way to go. But as our kids were growing older, we began to spend more and more of our free time in Seattle. When our youngest graduated, we moved to a rental townhome on Beacon Hill to see if we really were city people.
After a year, we were sure we made the right decision to rent on Beacon Hill. We were really having fun in 2018 and 2019 being right in the middle of everything. But were we really ready to pay the crazy high prices of buying a home in Seattle for a place that would most likely be a lot smaller than the suburbs? We were getting ready to retire so we could really live wherever we wanted, and there are a lot of places that are a lot cheaper. Also, we plan to travel a lot in our retirement… did it really make sense to buy a place that we only lived in half the year? We had to take a look at what really mattered to us.
We are outdoor people and really enjoy parks and biking. Seattle has the best bike trails in Washington if not the whole country. Yes, there are some big holes in our network, but things are getting better and I’m convinced that eventually you will be able to ride a safe bike trail to most places in the city. We spend a lot of our summertime relaxing on the lake. It is so great that we can pack up our cooler and camp chairs in our bike trailer and be at Seward park after just a 15 minute bike ride.
We also dream about being car free. Right now we still have our trusty Durango in case we want to get to the mountains or the family beach cabin, but most of the time it just sits in our parking place. With the light rail just a couple of blocks away, and very frequent buses, we don’t have a need for a car in the city. It is faster to bike or ride transit and we don’t have to worry about having an extra beer before it is time to come home.
That leads us to what we like to do in the city. We love to eat… and drink…. We love finding new places all over the city as well as being regulars at our favorite places in our own neighborhood. It is so great to be able to walk to our 20 or so restaurants in Columbia City. We have Ethiopian, Kenyan, Mexican, BBQ, Vietnamese, Caribbean, Filipino, Hawaiian, Italian, Sicilian, Thai in just our 3 block restaurant row. In the suburbs, I never was able to walk to any restaurant or bar.
We also have a lot of other things in walking distance. Within 5 blocks we have my barber, my dentist, the library, the movie theater, the butcher, the baker, the grocery store, the drug store, the post office as well as the multitude of bars and restaurants. On Wednesdays we have a wonderful farmers market only a half block a way. Columbia Park, Genesse Park, Lake Washington Blvd parks and Seward parks are all visited but us weekly in the summer.
Another thing we enjoy is music. We like watching live music and typically see about 2 shows a week. We like the Royal Room and the Columbia City Theater in our neighborhood but also take the light rail to the Neptune, Triple Door or Neumos. We also are regulars to the Seattle summer festivals and have seen a lot of bands free in the parks. We have our favorite Seattle bands and love discovering the new upcoming future acts. As light rail gets expanded, it will open up other neighborhood shows. We rarely go to West Seattle, Fremont or Ballard at night because the late night buses home would be a pain.
We also have great sports in this town and was a big factor in choosing Seattle over smaller towns. Some towns like Bellingham, Bellevue, Oly, or Tacoma do have walkable areas but none of them have major league sports. We like taking light rail to the Mariners, Sounders and Husky basketball. It is easy to make last minute decisions buy tix and go see a game. We don’t watch much football anymore but sometimes it is fun to watch the games in Pioneer Square sports bars.
We also like our art museums and galleries. The first Thursday Pioneer Square art walk is fantastic as well as the Georgetown Saturday art attacks. We have been Seattle Art Museum members for years and rarely miss a new exhibit. We also go to the Henry and the Frye and other special exhibits quite a bit.
So all these factors made in clear to use that we were ready to buy in our favorite neighborhood (Columbia City) in our favorite city. We don’t know how long we will be here but hopefully it is a long time. We are really enjoying ourselves and wish we made the leap from Suburbs to the City living much sooner that we did. As long as our bodies continue to let us climb up and down our tall and skinny townhome, we will stay in Columbia City Seattle.