A little tour

Sorry for the radio silence. Tom and I have been focused on moving out of and cleaning our old apartment, so not much has been done in the house. Our landlord was nice enough to give us an extra couple of weeks to get everything cleaned up (he was out of the country and wouldn't be able to get to the between-tenant cleaning until now), so of course we procrastinated. We're finally completely out, so I guess I'll show you where Tom and I have lived for almost a year. Here's a floor plan, courtesy of the Historic American Buildings Survey (if you love historic architecture as much as I do, this is an invaluable resource; check out your hometown!):

We lived in the apartment at the top half of the floor plan (the part with a lighter lineweight - it was built at a later time than the original circa-1845 house). Here's the living room:

That fireplace was the only heat source for the entire apartment (which I'm pretty sure isn't to rental standards - I think you're supposed to have a heat source in each bedroom). The doorway you see leads into one of two bedrooms:


For a 10'x10' room, it has a lot of storage - three closets! My former roommate stayed in this room. There's no door into it, so he gave me the room with the door and hung curtains in his doorway. I neglected to take a picture of my bedroom, but it was also about 10'x10', with one tiny, shallow closet. It wasn't even deep enough for a hanger to hang correctly, and the one dresser we had kept the closet door from opening completely, so it was a dumping ground for rarely-used items.

And here's the lovely kitchen:

Across from the refrigerator is the stacking washer and dryer. Who says the fridge needs to be in the kitchen?

The lack of counter space was endlessly infuriating. And exactly how metal cabinets with magnetic latches can fail to stay closed remains a mystery to me. Don't be fooled by the apparent cuteness of the sink, either. The basin was tiny (18" I think), and the drainboard wasn't big enough to hold much. Consequently, the sink always had dirty dishes in it (even though I'd do dishes twice daily). Plus it stained like crazy. How do you like our undercabinet lighting (it had that sickly yellow cheap-outdoor-lighting glow) and our outlets (the surge protector plugged into who knows where)? Did you notice the absurdly small ceiling fan in the kitchen? No?

I wasn't kidding. Absurdly small.

The last stop on the grand tour is the bathroom:

Awkward layout but (generally) functional.

The bathroom also had an odd amount of storage. Other than the medicine cabinet over the sink and this built-in by the toilet, there was also an alcove to the left of the tub. We ended up storing our kitchen linens in here, too.

So there it is, our luxurious 2-bedroom apartment in an historic home. Despite our landlord's apparent love for wood paneling (which covers every wall surface in the place), it was an OK apartment, but we are glad to be out and in our own home.