Living Downtown Austin - One Month In

We have been living in our condo in downtown Austin for just over a month now. In this post I'll cover some of our observations from this settling in phase, including what has gone well and what has not.

Austin City Limits

We started out with a bang. The very first weekend in our condo happened to be the second weekend of Austin City Limits (ACL). Our condo overlooks South Lamar Road and is pretty close to Barton Springs road. For those of you that are not aware, this is less than a mile from the main ACL venue at Zilker park. At about 10:00pm on Friday night, we sat out on our balcony and watched the first of about 15,000 people walk by on their way home from the event. There was non stop action for over an hour; Pedi cabs weaving in and out of traffic blaring their music; groups of people from young kids to concert veterans making their way home in various states of disrepair. Nose to tail traffic added to the color and the atmosphere, it was mesmerizing and voyeurism at its very best.

The Impact of Big Events on Downtown Austin

It seems that something is going on in Austin's downtown area almost every weekend. In the month we have been here, there has been ACL, Fun Fun Fun Fun Fest (sorry but it is almost impossible to stop typing fun when you get started), The Formula 1 US Grand Prix, The Texas Book Festival, The Texas BBQ Festival, The Austin Film Festival and even Wizard World to name a few. Some events have more impact than others; ACL, Fun Fun Fun Fest & the Texas Book Festival for example closed down streets for days at a time. While this sounds annoying, in my opinion, Austin has the reputation of being a great place to live because of these events not in-spite of them. We should embrace them and celebrate them. For those of you not of the same opinion, my recommendation is to have a good grumble about the roads being closed and the noise. Once you have done that, take a road trip to downtown Houston, it will make you feel a lot better.

Walking Downtown Austin

According to my Runkeeper app, I have walked 84 miles in November. When living in Westlake, I
was averaging about 25 miles per month.

There are a couple of reasons behind this remarkable increase in walking mileage. 1) We are living less than quarter of a mile from the downtown trail so it is just plain easier to get to the trail and we find ourselves going for quick two mile walks in the evenings as well as our usual longer weekend walks. 2) The other reason is that we have been walking to restaurants and grocery stores. It is amazing how quickly it builds up, half a mile to Whole Foods, quarter of a mile to Chuy's, Black's BBQ, P. Terry's… As you can see from the places we are visiting, I am not promising you will lose weight but you will get more exercise.

Eating Out Downtown Austin

We have not eaten out as much as we initially thought. Having said that, we have gone from four or five times a month to eleven times in November. There are a ton of great places to eat out in downtown Austin. As you can see below, however, not all of them are diet friendly so you should pace yourself. These are the places we have been so far: Casa De Luz (very healthy), Chuy's (great Tex Mex), P.Terry's (all natural burgers), Austin Beer Garden ABGB (great pizza and great beer), Alamo Draft House (movie and a meal served at your seat), Toasties (tasty fresh sandwiches), Blacks BBQ (excellent BBQ, served on paper), Three Forks (great steak in a formal setting), Threadgills (southern cooking, hard to beat but starting to get a little pricey), Whole Foods (can be healthy, can be deadly) and last but not least Magnolia Cafe (pound for pound, the best breakfast in town).

Coffee Shops Downtown Austin

You will want to pick a spot that is close by and where you can sit comfortably for an hour or so. Living in a smaller space, sometimes, you just need to get out for an hour. A coffee shop offers somewhere to sit and Wi-Fi for the price of a cup of coffee. We compromised our favorite coffee from Cafe Medici for the convenience of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf which is a few hundred yards away. We do still head to Medici at the weekends. Austin is a bound with coffee shops and there is a coffee shop for every personality and taste. We have tried the following so far: Austin Java (relaxed atmosphere with food), Coffee bean & Tea Leaf (your basic coffee, relaxed atmosphere), Cafe Medici (high end coffee, cool downtown atmosphere), Hounds Tooth (very high end coffee, high end clientele).

Traffic Noise Downtown

We knew going in that our condo was about 150 yards from South Lamar and that there would be significant traffic noise. We really have not noticed this in our day to day living, watching TV, reading, working etc. It is noticeable on the balcony where it can be quite annoying if you want to just sit outside and relax. What I have been doing is wearing my noise cancelling headphones when sitting out on the balcony to work, read etc. When we sit out there in the evening, we are there to see what is going on around us so we don't notice the noise so much then.

The biggest impact has been at night when we are trying to sleep and this is what we were most worried about. I am told you get used to it but as a country boy, sleeping for me requires relative peace and quiet. For example, when I am sleeping at hotels (which I do a lot) I always wear ear plugs. What has worked best for us is to use white noise. We have an older Bose Sound Dock speaker which I plugged in an old iPhone. I installed the free White Noise Free Sleep Sounds App and we play the sounds of Niagara Falls. For us, this almost completely blocks out sounds from outside the bedroom and we have been sleeping just fine so far. I have noticed I need to get up to pee in the night more often but that may just be old age.

Space

To be honest, I have not missed the extra 1,400 sqft. that we had in our old house. Our new living room is very large and has a large floor to ceiling window at one end which makes it feel like the condo is bigger than it is. It is a great place to sit and read or just watch the world go by. I think this is very important to have a great main living area as this is where you spend most of your time.

We have a balcony off the living room which is about 12 feet by 4 feet. Although it is pretty noisy because of the traffic, this offers a nice extension to the condo and provides instant access to fresh air when you need it.

We do cook most of our meals at home so we have been using our kitchen extensively. Our kitchen is nicely equipped and has enough space for two people to be actively working (not that that ever happens). If you do cook, this room is pretty important so I would not skimp on space here. Having said that, you should also have applied your clutter/downsizing rules to kitchen items. You only need one machine for making coffee after all (well maybe two, ok three and that is final).

My wife and I both work from home sometimes so we double up the kitchen table as an office table. This means we have two large monitors on display all of the time. This is ok with us but is not for everyone. We have a cabinet close by that we can quickly move the monitors into if we have visitors, although no one had been important enough to warrant this yet.

To my mind the bedroom can be smaller than you think you need, enough room for a bed, side tables and a piece of furniture and that is about it. Our bedroom is 30% smaller than it was in our old house and I have not missed the extra space.

Our bathroom is a decent size and has two sinks, this allows my wife and I to brush our teeth at the same time and generally speed up the morning routine. We only have one toilet which had us a little nervous before moving in but this has not been a problem yet. This may become inconvenient when we have friends over for an extended period of time.

The laundry room is basically a cupboard with a washer and dryer one above the other. No need for this to be any bigger.

If you have done a good job with reducing your clutter, storage space should not be a problem, even in a small apartment. We passed that test in most areas, although the built in closet is busting at the seams and still needs some work.

Conclusion

It has not perfect by any means and we still have some kinks to work out but all in all the first month has exceeded our expectations of living in downtown Austin. I am looking forward to deep diving into topics such as delivery services (Instacart, Favor, Postmates etc.), getting around (Bus, walking, biking, Uber etc.) and much much more.