So, I've mostly survived moving - our amazing local movers were, yet again, AMAZING, and the actual transfer of packed stuff from one apartment to the next went smoothly. I say "packed" stuff advisedly, because the old apartment still holds some stuff we either didn't want movers to move (for instance, my collection of perfumes. Yeah, you don't want to know how much perfume I own. But also, Eldest Cat and Youngest Cat's ashes and the little totems we have associated with them), or stuff we just didn't quite get into boxes (all the silverware but one spoon is in the old apartment. As is the food processor with the broken bowl we really need to replace. And a variety of bathroom crap), or stuff we need at the old place to clean (broom, vacuum, that kind of thing). Thankfully, we have the apartment through the end of Monday, and while I don't want to spend Memorial Day weekend cleaning an apartment, so far I haven't managed to make it back to the old place after spending more of the day than advertised listening to the BarBri lecturer try to make review of things like contracts and future estates fun, so we just might need to do that.
Not very much unpacking has happened yet, but I've started. I've been figuring out the jigsaw puzzle of where to put everything in the kitchen, and I've unpacked hanging clothes. I think the books and decorative stuff may have to wait for a WHILE, but that won't hurt anything. (Because I will have PLENTY of reading material thanks to BarBri. Thanks, BarBri!)
I say "I've" started unpacking not because NLLDH is making me do this, but because I am 1) a control freak, 2) mildly OCD in a way that manifests as severe twitching when things are Out Of Place & Not Where They're Supposed To Be (Even If I'm The One Who Decides Where Something Is Supposed To Be), and 3) a bigger collector of *stuff* than NLLDH is. So he takes care of his stuff and lets me deal with much of the rest, and I try to remember to consult with him on big stuff.
I have to say, this apartment is AMAZING. (Mostly.) It is WAY bigger than our last place, it has a wonderful wrap-around balcony facing east and south, generous AC, the neighborhood is gorgeous, we have a DEN, and, maybe MOST amazing, we have our OWN WASHER AND DRYER in a laundry room big enough to hold the litter box and store various stuff! (The vacuum cleaner will have somewhere to LIVE besides the corner of the living room!)
The "mostly" is just in recognition that all rentals have their little quirks.
I thought at first my mailbox key didn't work, but I think I just didn't wrestle with the lock long enough.
There are AC units in each room, including the little den/flex-space (which is mostly open to the living room, so I didn't expect it to have its own unit) - and this is great, from a comfort level (and we pay a flat utilities fee so there's nothing stopping us from running AC all the time!). However, they are large-ish units that jut out from the fall quite a bit, AND they're all midway down the wall - so they tend to be EXACTLY where you might want to put something against the wall (e.g. in the living room, because of the wrap-around balcony, the one wall space for a TV is taken up by... the AC unit. In the den, it would be lovely to put a desk against the wall next to the window...which is where the AC unit is. And in the bedroom, which is somewhat small, if you have a queen bed in the room, the one space where you'd put a dresser is...in front of the AC unit. We may have to have the dresser at the foot of the bed, meaning I'll have to squirm past to get in and out of bed. Or get kind of unorthodox, and put the dresser in the spacious entry/hallway. Which would be better if we had a sleek and pretty dresser, rather than the pseudo-colonial one my parents bought sometime in the mid-late 70s).
Our parking space is...cramped.
Lastly, the large towel rail in the bathroom isn't secured properly (the brackets are secured to the wall, but the rail isn't secured to the brackets - which means that if you pull at all roughly the whole thing comes off).
Which all sounds like a much bigger deal than it is - it's all perfectly manageable, and WAY better than our previous place. But rentals are rentals - if you don't build it and maintain it yourself, you can't control everything.
The biggest problem with having a bigger, nicer place is that it makes us (okay, me) want to go out and buy a ton of stuff to make it perfect. First, we'd like a really big rug to put under everything in the living room. But it needs to go with our furniture, which leads to the next thing: Personally, I would love to get a new slipcover for the sofa (we have this sofa, which we've had for 10 years, and it's holding up decently, but the slipcover is faded and wearing down and has a few stains). I would really love this in sky, but the sofa's currently red, and we have red-patterned chairs to match, which would look awful with blue. But that leads to the next next thing - the fronts of the chairs are sort of shredded because the fabric was VERY cat vulnerable, so I'd love to get slipcovers made for the chairs, too (and to match the new blue slipcover I don't own).
And then there's the fact that there are no overhead lights in the apartment (except at the entryway/in the kitchen) - which is actually great, because I hate overhead lights, but it makes me want to buy table/floor lamps.
Which makes we want to buy new endtables on which to put said lamps.
Never mind wanting some kind of hall table/console for the entry.
And patio furniture for the balcony.
And flowers to hang around the patio furniture on the balcony.
And tomatoes, to grow on the balcony. (Less covetous aside: my mom has a total green thumb and has grown tomatoes in pots for years. I asked her for advice about this and she got quite excited talking about what I could do and how to do it. It was sweet.)
So, yeah, I am a greedy consumer bitch. In theory, of course, because it's not like we're doing this any time soon. Maybe possibly a rug (the apartment's kind of echo-y with the floor bare), but I think NLLDH has a much higher tolerance for inexpensive rugs than I do (I favor this or this or this), so I don't know (although the longer we go without a rug the more likely we are to not get one at all).
Did I mention I don't get a paycheck till September sometime? Sigh.
Anyway. It's all very exciting, but I have to confess I haven't the slightest idea how to arrange our furniture in this bigger space, what with the windows and the AC and wanting things to look symmetrical and/or otherwise comfy and appealing. Anyone have any good suggestions for basic design principles for furniture arrangement? Where you're supposed to put stuff in relation to windows/doors/TV etc?
All right, gotta go sleep before BarBri tomorrow!
