I know all of these posts about the new apartment must be getting boring, but I’m just so amazed at the difference between this current apartment and our previous one. For one thing, we have a ton of windows, so there is just so much more light. Luckily, they were are replaced a couple of years ago, so they’re pretty weather-resistant. It still gets chilly in the living room at night, but we’re making do with an extra sweater and afghans. While I woudn’t mind one of those Amish fireplace heaters to warm up the room (both in temperature and looks), I think we’re going to have a fairly warm winter here.
I’ve mentioned before that we have a very small bathroom. Everything works, nothing leaks, so it has that in its favor, but the size? Very very small. So now I’m constantly looking at bathrooms on TV and in magazines, imaging the day when we can have our own large, spa-like bathroom with glass tile and rainfall shower heads and heated towel racks and a double sink.
In the meantime, I’ll just give thanks that our toilet doesn’t run and our shower has decent pressure. And hey, a smaller bathroom means there’s just that much less to clean!
Our bathroom is small. Very small. We’ve pretty much managed to figure out how to store everything in it, but there are a few things we can’t keep in the bathroom on a regular basis. Like extra towels. And the toilet plunger (a regular one, not one of those fancy spring plungers). Luckily, we haven’t needed the plunger yet, and we are managing to find room in the hall closet and bedroom closet for the extra towels.
I just wish we had room to keep the extra toilet paper in the bathroom. For obvious reasons.
I have to say, one of the nice things about living in Louisville is the fact that the tap water tastes so good. I know that sounds like a strange thing to notice, but I grew up with good tap water. Then when I moved to the midwest, the water was, shall we say, stinky. I got used to buying water filters for most of the places I lived in Ohio, and then again in our very old apartment in Chicago (which had very old pipes).
The best part of the current apartment is that the tap water even gets cold when you run it for a very short time. Bonus!
It is so nice to have a separate dining room again at the new apartment! We have plenty of room to put the leaf back in our table, and have set up our side table as a coffee stand (since there aren’t enough outlets in the kitchen). Even with both of those pieces of furniture, there’s plenty of room to walk through without fear of stubbing your toe on a dining room chair.
The one thing that’s a little funky is the light fixture above the table. How long does it take to go from “old” to “vintage”? Because right now, the light is old, but it’s probably going to be vintage in just a few years. If we owned the place, we might want to replace it and buy a new light fixture. But since we’re renting, I think we can live with its funky 70s vibe.
One of the things I’ve done in preparation for this move is go over our utility expenses. I’ve decided to get the cable company’s bundle on cable, internet and phone, which will be much cheaper than the package we got through the phone company. I also did some research on some cheap insurance for renters, and then went through my current insurance agency to see if we could get any discounts (we could!).
It’s a good thing we’re moving, because I don’t think I would have taken the time to do these things, otherwise. Now we’re not only saving money on rent, we’ll be saving money on utilities as well. Nice!
We got the news today that our application for the apartment was accepted. Yay! Now comes the fun part of figuring out how to pack everything, how to get rid of the stuff we don’t want, and where the to put the stuff that we have once we get there.
I think that since we’ll have more room, I’d like to get more bookshelves and take a lot of books out of storage. Normally I’d consider putting these bookshelves in the office, but we have so much office furniture that I don’t think there would be room for them.
But I think there might be room in the living room, which might give it a more “library” feel, which is kind of nice. Hmmm. I may have figured this out.
We’re apartment hunting, and we saw a place last night that we really like. Now we’re just starting that back and forth process of sending in the rental application, waiting to hear back, figuring out a time to sign a lease, etc. etc. etc.
We like almost everything about this apartment except for one thing – the wall to wall carpeting. It’s old, it’s ugly, and it’s stained a bit in places. Since we don’t have the option of pulling it out and replacing it with floor tiles or hardwood, we’re trying to think of creative solutions to make it less noticeable. Our best idea is to buy some area rugs to put in the most conspicuous places. But other than that, we’re at a loss.
I suspect, though, that once we’re moved in, and all of our furtinture is in place, we probably will get used to the carpet fairly quickly. But until then, my imagination is running wild with potential solutions!
We’re trying hard to keep our belongings consolidated, and not bring too much extra “stuff” into our apartment. The reasons are several, including the fact that our apartment is very small and any extra item needs to find a home somewhere that won’t make us look like hoarders. The second reason is that we don’t really “need” anything, so unless something has a specific use or purpose, there’s no point bringing something into our home that I’m going to have to dust.
This has worked out well, and in the past year that we’ve lived here I don’t feel the need to rent out a storage facility or order one of those steel buildings to fill up with extra items. We could still reduce our belongings more, of course, but not adding to the clutter is helping a lot.
I have no idea what kind of paint we have in our apartment, but I swear it’s the most durable paint I’ve ever seen. This weekend I went on a cleaning frenzy, and scrubbed practically every solid surface in our apartment. And while our apartment is not outfitted with high end items by any means (no stainless steel backsplash or appliances for us) I can say that the surfaces clean up like a dream. I must have scrubbed down three different walls, and nothing happened to the paint or finish to make it look like they’d been scrubbed.
I was highly impressed. Who knew paint could be so indestructable?
