I've been in the same apartment for two years, and I'm about to sign a lease for the third year - all three years of law school! I've never spend a year here the same way. During the first year, I was living with a couple who shared the second bedroom. During the second year, I was living with a young woman and then all on my own during the second semester. Each of these living situations were very different, and each made me think differently about "my" space.
For the past two years, I've had the "smaller" bedroom in this two-bedroom apartment. It's not technically smaller, but it has some weird parts that jut out, this way and that way, so that it's hard to fit things in the space to make the most of it. I didn't mind having that room. The first year, it made sense that the couple get the "bigger" room. The next year, I was already moved in and settled in the smaller room, so it didn't make sense for me to move - plus it was a nice selling point for potential roommates. :)
When J and I decided to keep this apartment for another year, it was a pretty easy decision to move into the bigger room. On top of being easier to fit things into and perhaps even being technically bigger, it has about double the amount of windows than my old room had - a fact that my cats never stopped reminding me of! It also had a walk-in closet and another side closet, while I'd been stuffing my whole wardrobe into a dresser and a tiny closet.
The question remained about what to do with my old room. I kept telling people that we didn't need it - what was I supposed to do with a whole extra room? Then one of my friends suggested that we make it into kind of a tv/movie room, and J and I were sold! Since there's a living room in between, J could stay up later than me (as he is want to do) and watch tv or play video games without disturbing me!
We originally wanted to move the loveseat into what we're calling the "Playroom" (Get it - cause there's actually an x-box in there? Anyone get it? Anyone?), but it physically wouldn't fit through the door! Such a shame. Instead, we've tried to just put a lot of pillows and blankets on the floor, and just recently added a folding chair that I got from my friend Erica!
We kept my desk in the living room, but moved the loveseat into a different spot, thereby making it a "reading" chair. J and I just picked up a desk for him today, which we're hoping to paint this weekend and put in the living room as well!
If you don't remember what my room and the living room used to look like, here's a refresher:
Without further ado, here's how we've "moved in" to our little apartment!
That's everything that's changed! To be honest, the rest of the kitchen was a mess, and the bathroom hasn't changed at all, so I decided you guys really cared about seeing those. ;)
In my experience, changing up where things are located really changes the feel of the whole apartment, and it was important to me that my apartment really felt like our apartment. It really does - I think it has a lot of elements of both J and me, and I love how we've mixed our art on the portrait walls. One of my favorite pieces in the apartment is the new shelving unit we got from Ikea a few weeks ago. We finally have room for all my books and all J's vinyl, and I've tried hard to really mix them together. That's what moving in together (again) is, after all - mixing your lives and your hearts and your stuff.
Luckily, the hardest part about living with J again has been that I can't watch whatever I want to whenever I want. I'm used to being able to marathon 3 seasons of "GIRLS" whenever I felt like it, and now I have to... ask his opinion. The horror! ;)
