Gorgeous friendly flat overlooking Clissold Park 🌳

Hi everyone! I’m El (she/her) and my housemate is EJ (they/them) and we're looking for a third person for our lovely little Stoke Newington flat! We're a neurodivergent and queer friendly household with a big love for houseplants, cooking, gardening, coffee, Lucy & Yak, trinkets, crafts, books, and kindness! We’re not a party house, but rather a warm, friendly, wholesome home to share with lovely people 🌟

About us: We both love cooking, reading, coffee and walks around Clissold Park. EJ has an interest in queer fiction and concerts, tours London bakeries searching for the best baked goods, and sometimes babysits their dad's dog Wazowski at our flat (he's very lovely and well behaved). I love wild swimming at the reservoir just down the road, am crazy about swing dancing, and volunteer at a soup kitchen in Hackney once a week. I work for an education charity and EJ works as a pastry chef. I’m 25 (but emotionally a 52 year old mum) and EJ is 24 (but feels 25). There’s a nice balance of together/alone time in the flat - EJ works shifts so they are often either up early or home late when they’re working, and will often work on weekends; I work from the office 2 or 3 days a week and work from home the rest. This means we see each other most days at different times and love catching up, but everyone also has quiet time in the flat.

The vibe: We really value creating a warm friendly open community in the flat, and putting in time and love to make our flat into a home. For us communal living is a choice not a necessity, and while personal space is super important for us, so is having a warm fun community to live with! 🧡

We love filling our home with art, houseplants, trinkets , books, origami and any and all weird and wonderful bits and bobs we collect. For us this is somewhere we have really settled, not a transient place we are passing through, and we would love for it to be the same for you! We enjoy sharing our food, so if you like cooking and/or want to meal-share you’d be very welcome. We host craft nights every month or so with our friends and regularly have friends round for dinner or coffee (all of which you would of course be welcome to join!). We also love to sit out on the balcony together for morning coffee or dinner if our schedules line up, or read together or watch a movie on the couch. Since the weather has been getting warmer, we’ve been much more involved with the garden, growing tomatoes, beans and peas on the balcony, and potatoes, courgettes and pumpkins out the back 🍅

There are always challenges that come with living with new people, and that’s why communication is really important to us. Especially when we first move, we’d like to meet semi-regularly as a flat to talk about how things are going, any issues anyone’s experiencing and going over any admin or changes that are needed. Plus this can be combined with a flat dinner to make sure we all get time to hang out together! 🫶

The flat: The flat sits in a gorgeous art deco block looking directly onto a crescent with roses and a koi carp pond, and behind that is Clissold Park (we're very lucky!). The street is a cul-de-sac so there is very little traffic, mostly just bicycles and pedestrians. We have a vegetable patch at the back, and a gorgeous south-facing balcony, as well as extensive communal lawns and flower beds at both the front and the back. We've got some lovely neighbours we call friends and a wider community of people in the big Clissold Court group chat, which is very active and people look out for each other. There are summer, Halloween and winter parties every year! 🎃 The flat does not have a lift so unfortunately is not wheelchair accessible or suitable for those who cannot navigate stairs easily.

The area: If you don’t know it, Stoke Newington is gorrrrgeous - a very lovely green safe community-centred area in North East Zone 2 🌻The vibe is hipster professionals and young families - imagine the yummy mumminess of Crouch End combined with the slight edginess of Hackney. Directly opposite the flat is the wonderful Clissold Park complete with duck ponds, deer, and historic house with a cafe in the basement. If you walk through the park you will find Church Street which is full of adorable little shops/delis/bookshops/cafes/bakeries/charity shops. The flat is an 18-minute walk to Finsbury Park station and 14-minute walk to Manor House (or a shorter bus ride). There is a Sainsbury Local a 3-minute walk from the flat and a large Sainsbury a 16-minute bus ride (although we usually do a big online order together). Stoke Newington is very accessible by bike and I cycle everywhere - there are bike sheds you can rent a bay in for approx £70/year.

Guests: We love to have guests and everyone is welcome to bring their friends and family over (ideally with a heads up so no one's caught in their undies!). We're both single and dating so that does mean there are sometimes folk staying overnight, again, with a heads up 💏

Cleanliness: We both value the flat being clean and tidy but we're not super strict with it either. We have a chores rota and aim to clean the flat bi-weekly and generally keep the communal spaces tidy and free from clutter. Of course, this is life, and we're all busy professionals so there are times where things get missed - the important thing from our perspective is to avoid getting passive aggressive or resentful by communicating clearly and kindly.

The room: The room on offer is the largest of the three (the first bedroom shown in the video below, 4m03s), with large windows facing back onto a beautiful back garden and trees 🌳 Dimensions are approximately 4.57m x 3.56m.

Rent and bills: We are planning to offer the full asking price of £2,950 per month. The rent breakdown by room is £1,100 for the large bedroom and £925 for the two small box rooms (mine and EJ's). Bills are approximately £120pm per person per month on top. We're not sure yet how much the deposit will be.

The offer: It's a bit confusing - we currently live in this block, however we're looking for a third person to put in an offer on an identical flat in the same block as ours (for £400 cheaper!! You see why we want to move…). A link to a video of the new flat, which is currently undergoing refurbishments not shown in this video, is below. We can provide a list of works that are being done, but generally it's routine maintenance e. g. regrouting bathroom, replacing blinds, repainting walls. Unfortunately the flat apparently comes unfurnished (although waiting confirmation from the letting agent). If this is the case, we will need to buy beds, wardrobes and a sofa as a minimum (although I’m sure we can find nice cheaper second-hand options). Most other things (e. g. kitchen implements, smaller items of furniture etc) we already have. ~video sent on request, Spareroom won't let me post it~

Timeline: We need to move fast to secure this flat, so the timelines are quite tight. We currently have a headstart due to knowing the landlord, as it’s not officially handed over to the letting agents or advertised. I believe the ad for this property will go live from the week commencing 8th September, so we would love to have an offer ready to go by then.

We will be doing in-person and virtual interviews on the evenings of Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th September. This may be extended to Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th of next week when we hear back from the letting agency on their timeline.

Our offer will be for a move date of 20th September, although this may be subject to negotiation.

Interested? If you are interested in the flat, please can you respond with the following information so we can get a sense of you and whether we’d be a good fit. Thank you for taking the time to read the above and answer the below - I know how exhausting applying for rooms in London is, so good luck!! 🧡

Name
Pronouns
What are your hobbies and interests?
Any pets?
Are you comfortable with a dog visiting the flat?
How do you feel about guests?
What do you do for work?
What is your work/daily schedule like (e. g. in-office, WFH, shift work)?
What’s your preferred level of cleanliness?
Have you lived in a houseshare before?
Can you work with a move date of 20th September?
Would you be able to attend an interview in the evening on Wednesday 3rd or Thursday 4th September? Online or in-person?
Will you be able to sign a contract relatively quickly if we manage to have our offer accepted?
Do you have any accessibility requirements?
Anything else you’d like us to know?