Now that we have less time remaining in St. Paul than we’ve already spent here, I thought I’d finally post some pictures of our apartment, so my mom can picture us in our home—at least for the next eight weeks or so.
The apartment is basically a split-level townhouse. You enter on the landing of the staircase, then you go down for the kitchen and living room and up for the bathroom and bedrooms. This is the first time the kids have had to share a room, and it’s a questionable practice at best. They did well for awhile, until Jonathan started to crawl out of his pack-n-play and then started to sleep on a little air mattress like Clara. Then most evenings were spent slamming doors and yelling, and the kids also caused a ruckus. Our “compromise” has been to have Jonathan take his nap on our bed and also to fall asleep in our bed at night. Now we have basically no conflict at night. The kids just fall asleep after reading, etc., then we move Jonathan to his bed before we go to sleep. Everyone wins. Except for maybe Jonathan, but he doesn’t seem to notice he has the shorter end of the stick.
The downstairs is basically L-shaped, with the kitchen, dining area, and living room flowing into one another (how’s that for the ever-coveted “open floorplan”!). As you can see, there’s lots of natural light from the abundant window, and the backdoor opens onto a soccer pitch and a nearby playground, which is, in a word, awesome. We’ve been really blessed with an extended pleasant fall, and I’m happy we’ve been able to spend so much time outside.
The kitchen might be the world’s smallest. It boasts about one square foot of usable counter space, which isn’t ideal, but whatever. It also has a quaint “fisher price” stove/oven, which—word to the wise—is not big enough to fit a Costco take-n-bake pizza. (Also, if you cut said pizza in half, you should be aware that it will ooze and drip copious amounts of cheese onto the bottom of the oven, which will then burn. Just saying.)
The bathroom is about what you would expect in 60 year old family housing, in that it is not super spacious, particularly for four people sharing a bathroom—even if two of those people are pint sized. I’m proud to report that only once in the last 10 weeks have I knocked Jeremy’s toothbrush into the toilet.
Our bedroom is just the right size for a queen size mattress on the floor and a small bookcase. I could stand to have a bit more space, but really it’s perfectly serviceable (I’ve never understood the need for an opulent master bedroom, since I primarily use a bedroom for sleeping, but to each his own). The kids’ bedroom is actually bigger than ours, but they spend more time playing and making messes there, so they might as well have the bigger room. Also, their room has this fab raised closet that they dubbed the “kids’ clubhouse.” It’s a good time.
After living in a basically amenity-less apartment for the last few months, I’ve decided that the only thing I really miss is a garbage disposal. The sooner I can stop fishing smooshy grains of rice out of the drain strainer, the better. I do miss having laundry in the house, although our laundry room is quite close, the weather has been fine, and there’s something to be said for having access to basically as many washers and dryers as I want. But the biggest thing I miss is not being able to control my own heater. We have radiators that basically run on each side of the apartment, all the way down our entire building. It was turned on, against our will, on October 1, when the outside temperatures were in the mid 70s. The maintenance staff claims to try to keep the heat at 70 to 72, which sounds fine in theory, but rarely does the temperature drop below 75. When I wrote this, for example, it was a pleasant 58 degrees outside and a whopping 77 degrees inside. Seventy-seven. Let’s just say I wear a lot of short sleeve shirts. Word.
