stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2020-07-09 09:07 pm
stevenpiziks) wrote2020-07-09 09:07 pm
Entry tags:
The Plague Diaries: Unpacking
Unpacking took a full week. The kitchen stressed me out the most. We had a whole bunch of pandemic-shopping food and I didn't see how it would fit into the little pantry. But in the end, I managed it. Then it was the bedroom/office and the bathrooms and . . . and . . . and . . .
The condo was built in the early 70s, but was incredibly forward-thinking. The main area is a great room--living room and dining room that open onto a balcony. The most striking feature of the kitchen is the bar that separates it from the dining room, so there's even more open space, and you can look from the kitchen across the bar through the sliding glass doors onto the lake. A pair of French doors in the dining room open into the main bedroom, which is so huge, Darwin and I decided to make it into our office as well. This was mostly my insistence--the smaller bedrooms look over the parking lot, and I told him I wasn't going to spend most of my workday in a lakeside condo and not be able to see the lake.
The main bedroom has no closets, however. Instead, another door opens into a large dressing room with Jack and Jill sinks (or, in our case, Jack and John sinks). The dressing room has a great deal of floor space, and it took me some time to work out that the big empty area in one corner was meant for a lady's vanity table. Off this room is a walk-in closet big enough to be a bedroom of its own--a good thing to have in a condo without a garage or basement. The dressing room also has a bath tub and toilet room, which is nice because one person can be using the toilet while someone else is at one of the sinks. However, that room has ONLY a tub. No shower. We're planning to fix that later.
Yet another door from the dressing room opens into a hallway, off which are the other two bedrooms (one of them for Max, the other for my harp and the exercise equipment) and the main bathroom. Follow that hallway down, and you arrive at the front door on your left. On your right is a shorter hallway with a long closet along one wall. This takes you into the great room--a full circle!
We discovered that if you open all the windows and the sliding door to the balcony, you get a constant breeze from the lake. You can also hear redwing blackbirds chirruping and bullfrogs chugging in the reeds. The lake is lovely to look at, and so far, we haven't had a problem with loud people or loud boats.
We spent a great deal of time working out what would go where. What do we do with these bookshelves? What do we do with all the DVDs? Should this table go in this room or that one? This sparked some more arguments, with apologies afterward.
On Monday, Darwin went back to Albion and Max had to work. This left the rest of the unpacking to me. I was working literally from sunrise to sunset. It was tiring--constant decision-making and stressing out over where to put everything.
By Wednesday afternoon, though, there was only one chore left, and it's always the last one whenever people move: hanging the paintings and pictures. It's always so tempting to put that off. They aren't NECESSARY, after all, and we're always so sick of doing stuff. And I was supposed to go to the house in Albion for a couple days. But . . . no! I wasn't going to stop. I put all the pictures and paintings on the floor under their spots on the new walls and went around with hammer, nails, and measuring tape to hang them. It took forever, but when it was done, I was DONE!
I wandered around the circle of the condo, admiring how everything was in its place and all the walls were decorated and relishing in the fact that it was FINISHED.
The condo was built in the early 70s, but was incredibly forward-thinking. The main area is a great room--living room and dining room that open onto a balcony. The most striking feature of the kitchen is the bar that separates it from the dining room, so there's even more open space, and you can look from the kitchen across the bar through the sliding glass doors onto the lake. A pair of French doors in the dining room open into the main bedroom, which is so huge, Darwin and I decided to make it into our office as well. This was mostly my insistence--the smaller bedrooms look over the parking lot, and I told him I wasn't going to spend most of my workday in a lakeside condo and not be able to see the lake.
The main bedroom has no closets, however. Instead, another door opens into a large dressing room with Jack and Jill sinks (or, in our case, Jack and John sinks). The dressing room has a great deal of floor space, and it took me some time to work out that the big empty area in one corner was meant for a lady's vanity table. Off this room is a walk-in closet big enough to be a bedroom of its own--a good thing to have in a condo without a garage or basement. The dressing room also has a bath tub and toilet room, which is nice because one person can be using the toilet while someone else is at one of the sinks. However, that room has ONLY a tub. No shower. We're planning to fix that later.
Yet another door from the dressing room opens into a hallway, off which are the other two bedrooms (one of them for Max, the other for my harp and the exercise equipment) and the main bathroom. Follow that hallway down, and you arrive at the front door on your left. On your right is a shorter hallway with a long closet along one wall. This takes you into the great room--a full circle!
We discovered that if you open all the windows and the sliding door to the balcony, you get a constant breeze from the lake. You can also hear redwing blackbirds chirruping and bullfrogs chugging in the reeds. The lake is lovely to look at, and so far, we haven't had a problem with loud people or loud boats.
We spent a great deal of time working out what would go where. What do we do with these bookshelves? What do we do with all the DVDs? Should this table go in this room or that one? This sparked some more arguments, with apologies afterward.
On Monday, Darwin went back to Albion and Max had to work. This left the rest of the unpacking to me. I was working literally from sunrise to sunset. It was tiring--constant decision-making and stressing out over where to put everything.
By Wednesday afternoon, though, there was only one chore left, and it's always the last one whenever people move: hanging the paintings and pictures. It's always so tempting to put that off. They aren't NECESSARY, after all, and we're always so sick of doing stuff. And I was supposed to go to the house in Albion for a couple days. But . . . no! I wasn't going to stop. I put all the pictures and paintings on the floor under their spots on the new walls and went around with hammer, nails, and measuring tape to hang them. It took forever, but when it was done, I was DONE!
I wandered around the circle of the condo, admiring how everything was in its place and all the walls were decorated and relishing in the fact that it was FINISHED.