How do I describe my place?
One visitor asked me, "How long have you lived here?"
When I replied, "Three years" she looked puzzled.
"I thought you'd just moved in."
My apartment consists of two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. The bedroom has become a huge closet/den for me because it has a carpet and is bad for allergies so is no good for sleeping.
The other room is our bedroom, dining room, tv room or whatever else room.
As a system, it's not perfect, but it's what's going on.
But my furniture is as follows in that room: a massage chair (which is like a torture rack to me so I view it as a huge grey eye and backsore), a coffee table, a keyboard, two bookcases about a meter long each, a floor chair and futons (japanese folding style not american on a wooden rack like a sofa style).
My curtains don't match. They're not even in the same remote color scheme or pattern so I can't even pretend it's shabby chic. One part isa nubby textured maize yellow, another section is pale blue swirl ith shiny threads, the last part is brown and peach floral print on off white. It's too bad, as the windows in this place go across two walls and really is the main focus of the apartment. I have 4.5 meters of wall to ceiling window on one wall and 3 meters of window from waist to ceiling on another. Getting even cheap, plain white curtains is going to cost me a couple hundred here.
I'm grateful to have had second hand curtains from my father in law, but after three years... it's time.
If we have guests, we all sit on the floor. Not so bad as it's japanese style, except that we don't have any cushions to sit on and we have a hardwood floor.
Nothing matches. I finally bought matching linens last year but try getting my husband to use them! And as the futons sit out in our living room (no closet to hide them in) even folded up or hanging nicely on the rack... the pink floral pattern on one futon doesn't match the blue and yellow geometric on the other and niether match the blue and red diagonal stripes on the futon mats.
My light fixtures don't match. I have two hanging lights. One is a neat bamboo/plastic fixture which I can tolerate, the other is this plastic dome thingy which makes me annoyed every time I look at it.
I could go on but from here it starts to get into housework issues.
The main problem is that my husband doesn't see anything wrong with it and (I think) even likes it! Not that he is cheap. We eat out a bit, take some trips. But he says (and I can see this point) that we are only renting so it is not so useful to spend money on a place we might leave in a couple of years.
But I can't stand it. I end up buying stupid little fix it pieces that make it junky because I can't get the cash to spend money on useful things (except for my tansu(japanese dresser)-- that was very useful! but it's in the bedroom/den).
It stresses me out to come home sometimes. If I have all the curtains open, I can ignore them and pretend they don't exist. Hubby comes home and first thing he does is close the curtains so he can have privacy from the houses that face our windows but DONT have windows themselves!!! Grrr.....
I've decided... I am going to hold his soccer shoes for ransom until he forks over the cash to get some curtains!!!!
And I'm throwing out all extraneous junk... except his soccer trophies which will no longer be displayed unless he washes the dust off them.
grrrrrr................