When we lived in Oberlin, B and I had a huge apartment. An entire floor of a huge building, a long and skinny unit, with closets and cupboards and cubby spaces galore. We also had a huge amount of stuff. We lived in that place for two years, and in that time, we acquired A LOT OF THINGS. Like the old saying goes, like goldfish, we expanded to the available space.
In packing to move, I knew we were going to be moving to a smaller place, and now that I'm here, I LOVE IT. But at the time, back at my parents' place, the thought of going through all of my belongings and having to choose what was most important, what was worth keeping...that was hard, especially since we went through that whole process before we moved out of the old place (I took two car loads of things to the nearby Goodwill) and so part of me felt like, "Okay, not fair. I already did this!"
Part of the problem was that I was facing an epidemic at home, too. My parents are not hoarders by any means. But they are antique collectors, and so my childhood home has always been full of cool old things. As I've mentioned before, my dad is a tinker, a builder, an encourager-of-power-tool-use, and we have always had the spirit of "upcycling" instilled in us - way before upcycling was a thing. Find something old, take it home, and ideally actually follow through on the repurposing project you had in mind when you acquired the thing, but...as things often go, as many projects lay dormant in the same state they were when they came to the house. Anyway. When we went off to college (and every year that we come home with more things), my parents have always said that they don't mind storing stuff for us, antique or not. As a result, I have box after box of memorabilia, every binder and textbook from every course I took in college (although to be fair, those will be useful when I get a teaching job!), instruments, classroom decorations (?!), family items I've inherited...oh, and CLOTHES. SO. MUCH. CLOTHING. You would think that after I moved out my room in my parents' house would be empty, right? Well you would be wrong.
Fortunately I've changed my ways in terms of organization: I've gone from high school - every inch of floor covered in clothes, books, bedding; never able to find anything; not home often so basically living out of my car - to what B jokes about being obsessive about keeping the house picked up. He's always been somewhere in between, and we definitely experienced some atrocious periods living together in our last place, like when I was student teaching and he was finishing up exams and we couldn't use our oven because it was full of dirty dishes? Dark times, not going there again.
SO. In a smaller (but still quite large, especially for two people) apartment, how are we faring? I love it. I actually love having to economize and think about whether I really want or can afford to have something - not only for monetary reasons, also for space reasons. People here get rid of furniture and things they don't want by putting it on the curb - the free section on craigslist is barely used because people know that their things will be picked up by other people, far before the garbage truck comes. When we first got here, I was super tempted to stop and look at every table, bookshelf, etc. that we came across, because I felt sure that I needed a proper desk in order to work from home. Now I realize that the kitchen table works fine (great, actually), and that we don't need nor do we have the space for anything else. Things are going great. It's easier to keep this place clean (don't mind B's "cave" in the pictures below, that's another thing entirely) because it is smaller, but in all honesty I think it is the perfect size. Not too big, but it's no studio apartment for sure.
And now, a very cursory overview of the house...
First of all, a note about the lighting: Notice in all of these pictures that there are no lights on in the house! Lighting au natural, ladies and gentlemen. We have beautiful windows, a skylight above the kitchen, and two fire escapes that provide a nice place to sit in the evening and listen to the neighborhood. We're also subletting from some friends, which is great since it meant that we didn't need to haul or acquire furniture for the most part.
Kitchen! I LOVE the counter with the stools. So nice to sit there and eat breakfast, and the cats like to sit on the stools and watch while I prepare meals. Too cute.
Our galley kitchen, complete with (busted?) dishwasher, lots of cupboards, tiny pantry.
Side of bedroom. To the left of the frame is a closet, in front is a full bath, book shelf that we're using to store B's summer clothes.
In packing to move, I knew we were going to be moving to a smaller place, and now that I'm here, I LOVE IT. But at the time, back at my parents' place, the thought of going through all of my belongings and having to choose what was most important, what was worth keeping...that was hard, especially since we went through that whole process before we moved out of the old place (I took two car loads of things to the nearby Goodwill) and so part of me felt like, "Okay, not fair. I already did this!"
Part of the problem was that I was facing an epidemic at home, too. My parents are not hoarders by any means. But they are antique collectors, and so my childhood home has always been full of cool old things. As I've mentioned before, my dad is a tinker, a builder, an encourager-of-power-tool-use, and we have always had the spirit of "upcycling" instilled in us - way before upcycling was a thing. Find something old, take it home, and ideally actually follow through on the repurposing project you had in mind when you acquired the thing, but...as things often go, as many projects lay dormant in the same state they were when they came to the house. Anyway. When we went off to college (and every year that we come home with more things), my parents have always said that they don't mind storing stuff for us, antique or not. As a result, I have box after box of memorabilia, every binder and textbook from every course I took in college (although to be fair, those will be useful when I get a teaching job!), instruments, classroom decorations (?!), family items I've inherited...oh, and CLOTHES. SO. MUCH. CLOTHING. You would think that after I moved out my room in my parents' house would be empty, right? Well you would be wrong.
Fortunately I've changed my ways in terms of organization: I've gone from high school - every inch of floor covered in clothes, books, bedding; never able to find anything; not home often so basically living out of my car - to what B jokes about being obsessive about keeping the house picked up. He's always been somewhere in between, and we definitely experienced some atrocious periods living together in our last place, like when I was student teaching and he was finishing up exams and we couldn't use our oven because it was full of dirty dishes? Dark times, not going there again.
SO. In a smaller (but still quite large, especially for two people) apartment, how are we faring? I love it. I actually love having to economize and think about whether I really want or can afford to have something - not only for monetary reasons, also for space reasons. People here get rid of furniture and things they don't want by putting it on the curb - the free section on craigslist is barely used because people know that their things will be picked up by other people, far before the garbage truck comes. When we first got here, I was super tempted to stop and look at every table, bookshelf, etc. that we came across, because I felt sure that I needed a proper desk in order to work from home. Now I realize that the kitchen table works fine (great, actually), and that we don't need nor do we have the space for anything else. Things are going great. It's easier to keep this place clean (don't mind B's "cave" in the pictures below, that's another thing entirely) because it is smaller, but in all honesty I think it is the perfect size. Not too big, but it's no studio apartment for sure.
And now, a very cursory overview of the house...
First of all, a note about the lighting: Notice in all of these pictures that there are no lights on in the house! Lighting au natural, ladies and gentlemen. We have beautiful windows, a skylight above the kitchen, and two fire escapes that provide a nice place to sit in the evening and listen to the neighborhood. We're also subletting from some friends, which is great since it meant that we didn't need to haul or acquire furniture for the most part.
This is what you see when you first walk in the door, living room, our bikes, kitchen table. (And the big, beautiful windows!)
Walking further into the room, you can see the fireplace (gas - not sure if it works?) and our awesome hack coffee table (rubbermaid container, conveniently holding all of my yoga gear, B's soccer equipment, bike trainer). Notice the beautiful wood flooring!
View of the door and entryway...
Bedroom (and cat).
Stairs to go down to the lower level...Almost like a spiral staircase in that the stairs in the turn are triangular - thus, I almost tumble down the stairs every single day. Still not used to it!
B's "cave," our friend's boxes that we're storing for him until he gets in town, washer and dryer in that closet (WOO!), ikea lofted bed (and cat), and all of the stuff for the kitties.
The weather is lovely we're off to take a walk and do some exploring!
No comments:
Post a Comment