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Name: Shannon and Alicia
Location: San Francisco, California

Perched atop a sunny corner in San Francisco's busy Castro neighborhood overlooking both mountains and cityscapes, Shannon & Alicia's two-bedroom, deceptively Victorian flat is bright, spacious and, as their friends attest at every dinner party, a former dump.

After renting the boxy, cramped one-bedroom apartment on the bottom floor for two years, Shannon and Alicia's upstairs neighbors finally moved out, leaving behind a ramshackle but spacious diamond in the rough. After convincing the landlord of Shannon's mad interior design skills, he agreed to let them rent at a lower rate in return for taking the place in as-is condition and sprucing it up on their own dime. Pink laminate countertops, moldy shower, faulty switches and all.

After numerous coats of paint, undoing what had haphazardly been done years before, and hovering acrobatically over the hallway staircase to reach that tiny little corner, they finally have their dream rental. What Shannon and Alicia saw beneath the hanging light fixture sockets and broken everything was rental potential. And laundry. And views. And plenty of space to call their home, no matter the price.

~ Shannon

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