Portland: The Apartment

Maybe it helped that Chuck had the furniture moved in before I arrived, but I've never felt so instantly cozy in an apartment before. It's just right. It's got just enough storage (of course one could always use more, but all of our stuff fits.) This includes a storage closet, his and hers closets and a set of cabinets along the hallway to the bedroom.

We've were able to start unpacking right away and quickly moved on to hanging our art. We've currently got the dining nook, bathroom and bedroom figured out. The living room is going to take us a little longer to sort out. There's talk of another map, this time of Portland, over the couch, we're also waiting on an Ork Poster of Portland to complete our collection. We also need to figure out what kind of desk area we will be creating in this apartment, so we're holding off on some of the art hanging until that is figured out. Meanwhile, the bathroom has a sort of water theme, which includes some photos I took of Seattle in my photography course and a great cat-in-a-sink print by Leia Bell from Flatstock at Pitchfork music festival in 2008.

Lastly, we moved on to the bedroom. Back in Chicago I took apart a 2008 calendar by Herman Yu. The images were just too lovely to toss, and we were in need of some wall art. In the Chicago apartment these were hung over the Expedit shelf, in sort of an entry area between the kitchen and the main living space. For this apartment we decided to hang them in the bedroom, and figured out a layout (using our AutoCad skills!) that would span the entire wall above the bed. I'm extremely please with these in the bedroom. They have a softer look than some of our other artwork and that seems perfect in that space. The opposite wall I think we will keep simple, with just my jewelry trees from Ikea.

Now that most of the art is up (as I said the living room will take a bit longer) I've started to move on to thinking about curtains. We have this great dining nook with corner windows! I forgot to mention that the proportions of the windows in this apartment are great. Just about shoulder width with nice deep window sills just big enough to sit on. I think our cat misses the floor to ceiling windows, and she's had a little trouble jumping into these sills, but I think once she gets the hang of it she will really like them too. Anyway, I found this pattern for knit curtains on knit picks yesterday and now I'm having trouble picturing this space with anything else. I remember seeing a pattern for knit curtains early in my knitting career and thinking that was a little bit crazy....and this would be a big project. Of course they wouldn't be full length here, maybe down to about the height the light fixture hangs. Regardless, it sounds like it will be a while before that is completed!