our apartment
Scott Bahlmann
Dear M,
I had a fantastic vacation with my fella’ in our new neighborhood. He’s been there for a week working at his new job, and sort of bacheloring it up with minimal furniture. He was able to snag a futon, which was a nice replacement for my leaky air mattress that he’d packed in the car when he headed out. I got to sign the rental agreement, and get keys to the place, but but the most exciting bit was actually seeing it.
Going from my four bedroom 1800 sq foot brick home, you might think a two bedroom 900 sq foot apartment would feel a bit cramped, but it felt wonderful! I’ve felt rather swamped in my house, and often commented that that it is too big for me. Getting all the belongings into the apartment will probably change the perspective a bit, but we plotted out what we’d like to do with furnishings, and think it’ll be just right.
There is an open central living area, with an attached kitchen (I love having them just separated by a counter). We’ll use a nook for our desks, and then the larger portion as the living room/general use area. The kitchen has a recessed window, another feature that I was hoping for, which will be great for some of my plants. There’s also a little patio, so we have an extra hang-out space there. Not really a view to speak of, but with so much greenery, it doesn’t really matter because you get to look out at trees.
We’ll each have our own bed and bath, using one of the rooms for guests when we have visitors. (with our varied sleep schedules, I don’t usually spend the full night with my fella’, just snuggle time in the evening until I go to bed, and in the morning before he gets up). Not expecting a large number of visitors at the same time, we think the single room should work, though our couch will be long enough for someone to sleep on as well, and if need be we can move furniture against the walls and blow up a mattress.
The apartment really was the highlight of the trip for me, aside from time with my fella’. We walked around the neighborhood quite a bit, and bussed to both the Central Library and the Ballard branch (where we got our library cards) to check my commute time. Getting downtown is about the same commute I make now, and Ballard is half as long. We had intended to do a walking tour of Fremont that I found online, but with the bitter cold, we decided to postpone. We’d actually seen pretty well everything on the list just in our roaming anyway.
I also love being within five minutes of the waterway. I think we walked along it every day I was there at different times. It is really pretty in the day, and beautiful at night with the lights sparkling on it. It’s great to be so close to the water, and so many fun shops! We popped into a furniture consignment shop and almost bought some bar stools, and got sized in a jewelry shop, as well as admiring all the options they had for men’s wedding bands (a meteorite ring in particular caught my fella’s eye).
The plane ride back was quite nice, really clear weather gave us a great view of Mt. Rainier. Even though the flight was crowded with people returning from Thanksgiving, it was easy to get into the airport, and the flight felt quite brief. I’m hopeful that my time before I get to return to Seattle will feel as brief. I have an application in for a position at the Seattle Public Library, so I get to play the waiting game to hear back about that. I’ve got a lot of faith that they’ll see how great a fit I am for the position, and I’ll get to do a post soon about a new workplace!
-S