Apartment Living

I'll be the first to admit, that when we moved into our apartment on May 1st I had less than a positive attitude about the whole thing. I was SO frustrated with packing up our 3 bedroom house and squeezing everything into such a small space.

I've never lived in an apartment before, so the whole experience took some getting used to. Over the past few weeks though I have really grown to like it.

When we packed up our house our belongings all fit into 1 of 4 categories:

A) Can't live without it so it's going to the apartment
B) Can live without it so it's going to storage
C) Can live without it but won't fit in storage
and
D) Can live without it but might get ruined in storage

SO... as a result of these categories we have quite an odd assortment of stuff here with us. Basically we have all the daily accessories along with a ton of pictures and plants. We managed to keep most of the clutter out of sight -- just don't open any closets or drawers!

In lieu of a dining room table (can live without it so it's going to storage) we opted to place my desk (can't live without it so it's going to the apartment) in our dining room. Not something I would want to have forever, but so far it's been working out great!

The kitchen is the worst part. I've done my best to be positive about it, but I'm just not sure it's possible. The appliances are disgusting and the sink smells horrible anytime you pour something down the drain. One GREAT thing though is that the apartment has indoor washer/dryer connections and the space was large enough that our own set fits in just perfectly.

Granted, the floor is very uneven so everytime I do a load of laundry my desk shakes... but it sure beats having to go to a laundry mat!

The bedroom is a great size, and fits all of our furniture (which is good... because it definitely would NOT have fit in the storage unit) -- the bathroom is small, but more than enough room for Rob and me... and we haven't argued over the sink once! :)

My FAVORITE thing about the apartment though is definitely the fenced in patio. They call it a yard but basically it's a wooden porch with a 2ft strip of dirt around it. We bought some sod at the nursery and, though it took them a few days to adjust, the dogs have all settled in very well.

Really, we are so blessed to have found an apartment that works so well for our little family! When we checked for subleases on craigslist there were over 100 postings and this was the ONLY one that had a yard and the time frame happened to be exactly what we were looking for.

We're getting so used to the 5 of us always being in the same room that when we get into our new house here in a couple of months, we probably won't know what to do with ourselves :)