Yes that is a question mark in the title. Yesterday we got a call from our new apartment complex to inform us that they were mistaken, and our future apartment does NOT have a balcony. Wop,wop,wop....
So sad. On the flip side we did get to go to the apartment and look around. I still think it is nice, but the husband is not so convinced. We'll have to consider what our next steps are.
In the meantime, one thing we know for sure is we are not staying in our current place. Yay!!! Time to start packing. We are very excited to realize that we will be moving out with less belongings then we moved in with.
This weekend, we will be taking our guest bed and my old desk over to my mom's for her spare room. We will also be taking our China cabinet to a consignment store so our spare room will pretty much be empty. My only regret at seeing the China cabinet go is that our cat Fiona loves to sleep on top of it. We are planning on putting up some high shelves so she should have some perches to make up for it.
We will also be getting rid of our wooden kitchen cart - which leans about 30 degrees forward and doesn't shut all the way. It was a hand me down so no tears there.
Ryan is most excited about getting rid of our current couch. We actually took a window out of our current apartment to get the couch in, and he swore we would not be taking it with us when we moved. I agreed, plus taking the couch up the fire escape, across the roof, into a window, around a corner and into our living room pretty much ruined any support the couch previously had. So I can't wait to get rid of it either.
Basically all we are taking is: our bed, a chaise lounge, a two book shelves, a small kitchen table and two dressers. Plus various boxes of clothes, and kitchen stuff.
We are hoping to be able to make it with just a van, since there are just blocks between the two apartments.
I am excited to see what we will be able to purge as we pack up! Just a little over three weeks until the big move!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
We're moving!
And we couldn't be more excited. To be blunt the past 2 years in our current place have been in a disappointing. When we first moved in we loved this place. We had wanted more room, since we went from living separately to living together.
We first realized that our place was too big was when we had our first ceiling leak, and yes please note I said 'first', because there were many.
My husband was sleeping on the couch (at that time he worked at night so he generally would crash on the couch during the day, very comfy couch!) He was awoken by drips of water on his face. At this point I will let the video below speak for itself (at the bottom of the post)
I love how our normally skittish cat is unfazed by water pouring from the ceiling.
Ryan being the quick thinker that he is moved ALL of the furniture from that room into our dry sun room. (within seconds, he is like a puma!)
Since it was a while before we were able to put our place back to normal, we settled ourselves in having our living room in the small sun room. What we found was that this was so cozy we liked it even better than having our living room being in the actual 'living room area'. We left it that way.
Soon the 'living room' became more like a hallway. Space that was never used. I think this is really what made us begin to re-evaluate our space needs.
After visiting many, many, apartments (we aren't ready for a house yet! It's just us and the cats) we settled on a one bedroom in our beloved Ambler. I will save the details on the new place for when we can really show it with pictures and stuff.
Right now we are focused on packing, purging and saying goodbye to our I love it/I hate it apartment!
We first realized that our place was too big was when we had our first ceiling leak, and yes please note I said 'first', because there were many.
My husband was sleeping on the couch (at that time he worked at night so he generally would crash on the couch during the day, very comfy couch!) He was awoken by drips of water on his face. At this point I will let the video below speak for itself (at the bottom of the post)
I love how our normally skittish cat is unfazed by water pouring from the ceiling.
Ryan being the quick thinker that he is moved ALL of the furniture from that room into our dry sun room. (within seconds, he is like a puma!)
Since it was a while before we were able to put our place back to normal, we settled ourselves in having our living room in the small sun room. What we found was that this was so cozy we liked it even better than having our living room being in the actual 'living room area'. We left it that way.
Soon the 'living room' became more like a hallway. Space that was never used. I think this is really what made us begin to re-evaluate our space needs.
After visiting many, many, apartments (we aren't ready for a house yet! It's just us and the cats) we settled on a one bedroom in our beloved Ambler. I will save the details on the new place for when we can really show it with pictures and stuff.
Right now we are focused on packing, purging and saying goodbye to our I love it/I hate it apartment!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Just discovered my dirty little secret
I have just returned from the depths of our living room closet where I attempted to pull out our Christmas stuff. To my surprise our "Christmas stuff" turned out to be 5 large tubs and a medium sized fake tree of stuff.
I really had no idea we had that much. And I am using the term "we" loosely since it's pretty much all mine.
Oh the shame...
Now to get it down to 1...maybe 2 bins.
A girl can dream...
I really had no idea we had that much. And I am using the term "we" loosely since it's pretty much all mine.
Oh the shame...
Now to get it down to 1...maybe 2 bins.
A girl can dream...
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Clutter series: Where stuff hides...
Since Ryan and I have started to try and pair down our belongings I have begun to notice all the crazy places that my stuff hides. I will be focusing a couple of posts on where I found stuff and what I did to sort and get rid of it.
The first place we tackled was our 2 bookcases. We decided that we wanted to get all of our books down to one bookcase. This doesn't seem like a huge goal at first glance, but for us it was a place to start.
The first thing we did was a quick first sweep of the shelves and pulled out all the books that first caught our eye and could go. For me this included books I had already read and didn't want to read again, books I had for a long time and had still never read, and books that I had borrowed and could be returned to their original owners.
Just by doing this we got rid of probably 20 books.
Next it got harder. My mom is a librarian by trade, so she imparted to me a great love of reading and books. So I had a lot of books that I had read many, many times, but didn't want to get rid of, because I love them, they mean something to me.
I remember packing my copy of Pride and Prejudice when I went to France in high school. I remember reading it sitting on a bench outside Notre Dame : that EXACT book. How can I let that go? For now I didn't, I couldn't.
I believe being a minimalist doesn't mean getting rid of everything you own, it means getting rid of the stuff that doesn't matter to you, that doesn't deserve the precious space of your home or your heart. For me Pride and Prejudice was something to save. For now.
I kept going through the shelves over and over. A book a couldn't get rid of on the 3rd pass, by the 5th pass got tossed. It started to feel really good.
Ryan had a different kind of debate. Most of his books were instructional text books. When going through his books he asked himself "how often do I reference this book" or "what use do they have for me now or in the future". Books about hobbies he was once interested in got tossed, out of date books that now had more current information got tossed.
Using this method we ditched 4 boxes of books and now have just one book case with all of the books we own.
One of the other benefits was that now we had space on the shelves to display some of favorite items and family photos. Also there is now a place on the bottom shelf for our cats to curl up on, they love to snuggle in tight places.
Everyone benefits!
The first place we tackled was our 2 bookcases. We decided that we wanted to get all of our books down to one bookcase. This doesn't seem like a huge goal at first glance, but for us it was a place to start.
The first thing we did was a quick first sweep of the shelves and pulled out all the books that first caught our eye and could go. For me this included books I had already read and didn't want to read again, books I had for a long time and had still never read, and books that I had borrowed and could be returned to their original owners.
Just by doing this we got rid of probably 20 books.
Next it got harder. My mom is a librarian by trade, so she imparted to me a great love of reading and books. So I had a lot of books that I had read many, many times, but didn't want to get rid of, because I love them, they mean something to me.
I remember packing my copy of Pride and Prejudice when I went to France in high school. I remember reading it sitting on a bench outside Notre Dame : that EXACT book. How can I let that go? For now I didn't, I couldn't.
I believe being a minimalist doesn't mean getting rid of everything you own, it means getting rid of the stuff that doesn't matter to you, that doesn't deserve the precious space of your home or your heart. For me Pride and Prejudice was something to save. For now.
I kept going through the shelves over and over. A book a couldn't get rid of on the 3rd pass, by the 5th pass got tossed. It started to feel really good.
Ryan had a different kind of debate. Most of his books were instructional text books. When going through his books he asked himself "how often do I reference this book" or "what use do they have for me now or in the future". Books about hobbies he was once interested in got tossed, out of date books that now had more current information got tossed.
Using this method we ditched 4 boxes of books and now have just one book case with all of the books we own.
One of the other benefits was that now we had space on the shelves to display some of favorite items and family photos. Also there is now a place on the bottom shelf for our cats to curl up on, they love to snuggle in tight places.
Everyone benefits!
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