Solo apartment living

[indiana_j]

It's - a little weird.  In all the time living outside of my parents house, I had never gotten my own place.  Being in your 20s and, especially, in this area, it's pretty normal but the fact that I have this place all to myself now is sometimes a little overwhelming.  I have complete control over how the apartment will look, how I use it and also the care of it, too.

There was a space of time, about four or five months, between when Frito moved out west and when I moved into the Maryland house, that I had the apartment in Dumfries to myself.  It wasn't the greatest of experiments but, emotionally, I don't think I was ready for it and I was living in an area that was really not great - I ended up hermiting pretty badly, really throwing myself into WoW and other things without doing much outside of the apartment except for visiting my parents and seeing Ben on occasion.

I think, I hope, this'll be different.  I see a ton of people on a regular basis from the DC area and my parents are much closer.  I am within walking distance of a number of shops, restaurants and two bakeries.  I am, generally, a pretty different person than I had been in my early to mid-twenties.

I am a pretty social person, so the one thing that'll be interesting / a challenge, is learning to be okay with being by myself.  I'm pretty sure I'll figure it out but, when I have tough days (I cried when I swept today, thinking of Heather and the fact that when I have those moments, I'm alone now), I can call or e-mail or drive to someone.

-

Ugh, sleep sofa shopping today was kind of rough.  Thanks to the layout of the apartment, it'll look better if I have something like that as oppose to a bed in the bedroom as people would be going into the kitchen when visiting.  A sofa bed will allow me to sleep on something not a couch but hide the bed aspect when I have visitors or need more room.  Of course, generally speaking, most sofa beds suck as they aren't made for someone to sleep on them constantly - most are made to encourage visitors to, you know, not stick around.

The first two stores were a complete bust (one had a thing to make it a weird inflatable mattress but my feet hungover, sooo...) but I think we finally found something at the third one.  *sigh*  It's expensive but nowhere near as expensive as buying a bed and the little daybeds were kind of strange looking.  Nothing's been purchased but I'm pretty sure I'll be going with the one in the third store.  They actually made it to be comfortable.

Shocking, I know.

-

So, emotional things aside, some of the things I love about this place:

a. It's so quiet!  For being right on the main street and for being on the ground floor, the apartment is amazingly quiet.  I hear people when they walk into the house and up the stairs and occasionally someone walking around, but that's it.  I've seen it through the workweek and two weekends and no one seems, *knock on wood*, to feel the need to blast rap music at stupid hours of the morning.

b. Yeah, I have to pay for laundry again but they only charge 75 cents a load, which is such a change from the $2+ a load we were paying at the apartment in Alexandria.  I just have to remember to save my quarters now ...

c. Oh god, it's so walkable.  I ducked out last Monday to go to the bakery to get dad and I something to eat and I was back in 10 minutes with food.  Ben and I walked to the pub and it took, what, 5 minutes?  (I have no problem walking around Warrenton when it's light but I won't be doing much of it one dark hits.  It's pretty safe but there have been some moments that it wasn't, so best to play it safe when I'm by myself.  So no late night pub crawls unless I'm with someone!)

d. INTERNET.

Comments

[technophobia.livejournal.com]

INTERNET.

FOREVER...

[daroos.livejournal.com]

So I have a bed-in-the-only-room thing going and have had great success with simply setting up a row of bodypillows down the middle and pretending like it's a double-sided couch when I have more than one or two guests. Not necessarily relevant to your apartment but a thought?

[indiana-j.livejournal.com]

It's so weird but I really don't like having a lot of pillows laying around. A few for the couch and a few for the bed but not enough to do what you're thinking.

[gollumgollum.livejournal.com]

As someone who moved their bed into the living room (at the top of the stairs into my apartment, where it can't be missed, because the room that had been my bedroom got too much light and as a converted porch was too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer) i vote for comfort and good sleep over What People Might Think. If you can find a sofa bed that's comfortable, go for it, but if not, get a bed you love and sleep well. Nightly sleep's not worth sacrificing for the occasional hours people spend in your apartment, and your friends should understand. When i rearranged my apartment, it was so much better to sleep in a dark, warm room, and my friends all shook their heads at me in amused exasperation when i asked if they thought it was weird that they had to walk by the bed. People get it, especially when you're dealing with a small or awkwardly-laid-out space. You work with what you've got. You can always get a headboard and have a bunch of throw pillows on the bed if you want to make it look less bedlike, but seriously, i think that if you're anything like me (and your friends there anything like mine) you'll discover that you're way more concerned about what people will think than the reality of what they actually think ends up being.

And i find the trick to keep from hermiting when living alone is to have a place that you like going--one of the bakeries, maybe, or a coffeeshop--and an indulgence that you allow yourself on mental health grounds. For me, it's the teashop down the street; yeah, i'm spending 3 bucks a day there, but it's three bucks that gets me out of my house most days. Even if that's the sum total of my human interaction--and there are days when it is--it's money well spent to keep me grounded and in touch.

Hope this doesn't come across lecture-y! Just some thoughts from living alone. <3!

[indiana-j.livejournal.com]

Not lecture-y at all! I'm really keen on the sofa bed aspect more for myself and how I like to have the apartment look. It's also, thankfully, an investment - when I move again, like in 2015, I'll have a bed for people to stay on. And buying a bed and then a mattress and box spring seems to be almost, if not quite, as expensive, so ...

Luckily, there's a number of advantages to keeping the look that I'd really like for the apartment but, man, it was just discouraging to find how many sleeper sofas generally suck. And the one we found is pricey (but worth it), so it was a bit of a long day.

We've got two bakeries in town and both are in walking distance, though one is much farther away. I'd like to make it a habit to go down to one of them, at least, a few times a week especially as the days get warmer and lighter out (and there's not a billion tons of snow *glares out the window*).