In the never ending quest to make my apartment practical, functional and liveable, it's a constant fight to rearrange, rework, shuffle, and move stuff around to make actual living space, workable space, and convenience for my physical limitations. Some would call it a continual work in progress. I call it never ending madness.
I live in a town home (an OLD town home), with the bedroom and master bath upstairs. The downstairs is shot gun: narrow straight through from front door to back door...and small. Arranging livingroom furniture in this small, narrow space has been a nightmare for almost 7 years. Nothing I've come up with works and it has never been comfortable. It's always just a make-do situation and it is what it is, but it has never been a place of comfort and contentment.
Upstairs isn't much better. It's just one bedroom, but the bedroom is big and takes up 3/4 of the upstairs. That in itself is a great thing. I love a bigger master bedroom to make pretty and cozy. It has 3 closets - a good size walk-in closet, a medium size deep closet and a small coat-size closet. All that space is great...BUT...when I moved in here, I came out of a two bedroom apartment with a layout that was much better and had more room for 'stuff'. I have a lot of stuff.
It wasn't necessarily bigger. The floor plan was better and made for an easier time with furniture arrangement and storage all the way around...and it was all on one level. The second bedroom was used for my craft studio - sewing, art work, quilting, my yearly Santa's Workshop at the end of summer when I dug into making glitter ornaments for the upcoming holiday season, crochet, knitting, reading, writing...most of the things I enjoy doing. That room kept most of it out of the rest of the living spaces. From 2013 to 2016, it was a great set up. It was absolutely my happy place and always offered creative inspiration and freedom. When I moved in to my current apartment, I had to dedicate half the bedroom upstairs for all that and it was okay...for awhile.
When I first moved in here, I had things fixed up kinda cute, upstairs and down. I finally settled on a furniture arrangement in the livingroom that was semi-liveable with the furniture I had at the time. Same upstairs with the bedroom. I focused on getting the bedroom part comfortable and workable. It was dedicated to rest and rejuvination at night...and that was priority. That part of it wasn't difficult. It was comfortable and restful. Once it was fixed up the way I wanted with what I had to work with and I knew it was something I could live with, I focused on the other half as my studio.
That part wasn't so easy. Didn't have nearly as much room for an old (big) armoire, several free standing bookshelves, a modular wall shelving unit, a big soft easy chair, a dress makers dummy, the ironing board left standing for easy access, my big desk with a big comfy office chair, a smaller desk I used as an extension of the big desk, and ALL the supplies I had to do all the aforementioned activities. It. Just. Didn't. Work.
After many weeks of messing with it, I had to make some concessions, pare down and 'make do' again. I donated the big easy chair, gave the smaller desk to my nieces, took my big comfy 6 month old Serta desk chair to work to use at my desk (which I still use today), bought a used, slimmed down version of that chair in great shape at Goodwill to fit in my now teensie work space, shoved the big armoire on the landing at the top of the stairs, put one book shelf at the bottom of the stairs, kept the sewing machine in a closet, my dresser became dedicated storage for much of my craft supplies (I have a tall chest of drawers I use for clothes), and much more of those supplies and books I didn't access as much were packed away in boxes and stored in the medium sized closet...and all this still had to accommodate two extra large crates for my two little dogs who had to spend their days crated while I was at work all day, every day. They were almost 2 years old at this point but still needed crating, especially after the trauma of moving and upheaval of their normal daily routines. There was zero room for them downstairs.
After much configuring, head scratching, conundrum sitting, and shuffling everything around repeatedly, I finally settled on a studio space arrangement that was workable and a fraction of the size I had before. I used it quite a bit the first two years I was here. It took some getting used to, but eventually I was productive in that space...and it was okay.
Fast forward to 2019. In August of that year, the A.C. went out and it forced me to live downstairs for about 6 weeks. August in Texas. Triple digit temps every day. 80 degrees at night. Air conditioner bites the dust. You get the picture. I slept on the couch. I was given a window unit for cooling until the HVAC could be replaced. It was put in the dining area window. It worked well to keep downstairs cool. Upstairs was a furnace. There was no sleeping upstairs. There was no using the craft studio part of it. The only time I went upstairs was to shower, get ready for work, and get ready for bed at night. Even a fan plugged in in the bathroom didn't help.
It. Was. HOT.
In that six week period, it suddenly became much more difficult to go up and down the stairs. I came into this place with some difficulty already, but it was manageable. I couldn't stand up straight or walk without assistance. I needed adaptive equipment to stay mobile on my feet...equipment that was not condusive to stair usage. I won't get into all the diagnosies and recommendations going forward here. Moving was not an option.
Little did I know at the time the A.C. went out that it would pretty much be the last time I slept in my own bed upstairs and used the studio part of it. Navigating the stairs mutiple times a day wasn't happening anymore and dictated where and how I would live in this space from then on. The livingroom was suddenly my bedroom going forward. The downstairs was now akin to an efficiency apartment and my whole life became contained in that tiny, narrow space.
That winter I was determined to be able to do some of the crafting things I was missing, so I hauled the big desk, the office chair, some of the supplies I knew wanted to work with at the time and many of the books associated with those things down to the livingroom and shoved it all in wherever I could. It was not pretty. I tried to make it usable. I did that for about 10 months. It drove me absolutely nuts and I couldn't live with the jam packed mess in the livingroom any longer. The livingroom was now also my bedroom...supposed to be a place of rest and peace. Those things, it was not. It was a big, chaotic, cramped disaster.
I hauled most of it back upstairs. It still sits...un-put together, stacked, boxed, empty wall shelf unit because I can't climb up anymore to put it all back together. Desk just stacked with stuff. Bookshelves only holding bagged and boxed supplies and books. The bedroom and studio area is just a catch-all for things I can't manage up or downstairs anymore.
I've had plans for several months to rework all 3 closets upstairs. I've been home with covid for the past two weeks. Initially I thought this was going to be a major opportunity to get some major stuff done at home. I didn't take vacation time this year...and that's when I take time to do the bigger projects around the house that don't get done otherwise. Covid kind of took the wind out of my sails and I haven't felt much like doing anything except keeping up with the necessary daily tasks...and those were done bare minimum.
Three days ago I finally felt somewhat like my old self and started in on reworking those closets. I got the walk-in done the first day. It's something I use every day and desperately needed an overhaul. It was almost an all day job. That definitely sucked the energy out of me and doing another just wasn't happening yesterday. This morning I felt quite a bit better and tackled the coat-size closet. Sounds like a smaller job, but it wasn't.
That closet is where most of a whole year's worth of holiday decorations are stored: Easter, Independence Day, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Halloween, Christmas, and the Christmas tree. I have a LOT of Halloween and Christmas. Today's job involved repacking all the Christmas stuff in boxes where I can see exactly what it is. For years, its all been stored in miscellaneous cardboard boxes that didn't make much sense when it was time to pull them out during the holiday season every year. I brought home some empty red and green printer paper boxes from work a few weeks ago that I knew would be perfect. Most everything Christmas packed in those boxes just right. It was a chore but it's done...and I'm fairly happy with the job over all. Need to do the same with Halloween. If only work would order printer paper that comes in orange and black boxes. Hmmm... 🎃
I didn't include photos here of what the dedicated spaces I talked about today looked like in my previous apartment. I didn't include photos of what those spaces here looked like after I finished putting them together. I didn't include photos of what those spaces actually look like today. It's just a sad commentary on the downward progression of my life. Not only is this space tough on me physically, it really does a number on my mental and emotional well being. Again, it ain't pretty.
I go back to work tomorrow and no, I didn't get the third closet done. My energy lasted just long enough to do the one today. It was a one-and-done day again. Once the 3rd closet is tackled...eventually, it will involve swapping all the contents with the closet I tackled today. A work in progress? Not really, but I can go back to work knowing I was productive during my time at home, even if it was just a tiny fraction of what I really wanted to accomplish. That's two closets down, one to go.
This post is long, sadly only covering a small portion of the nightmare that is my apartment. Someday I'll blog about the bottom half of this place and all that it has seen, what goes on down here, and what it takes to actually live in and function in this mess.
Now, ready to get back to normal routine tomorrow and walk among the living again.
