Snarkhaven

So I've been back in Boston for two-ish weeks now.  I moved into an unfurnished house, so we had to come up with nearly everything.  This is kind of stressful when you are living 1500 miles from home and don't have the same freedom of movement that you would at home with a car.  I need to go to the grocery store and buy eggs, milk, flour, sugar, mixing bowls, lettuce, peanut butter, olive oil, frozen chicken, oranges, a hammer, light bulbs, toilet paper, batteries, twine, a knife, an absorbent mat to go under the dish drainer, etc. -- all that crap you don't realize you don't have until you don't have it.  And then you want me to carry it home on the subway and then up the hill to my house....what?  But it has all worked out beautifully.

Emma schlepped us around the first weekend to do all the basic grocery shopping.  People brought us furniture, kitchen goods, bathroom mats, tables...so many tables..., cups, dish rags, cleaning supplies, lamps, a DVD rack, a 13" TV/DVD -- so many things.  I'm not good at asking for help, or asking for support.  I tend to do things on my own, so for me this has been a real blessing.  It's wonderful actually.

I painted my room the first weekend I was here.  And we finally got almost everything situated after the pre move-in cleaning happened on Wednesday night (from 8:40pm to 1:15am...13 days after we moved in...).  So now that things are mostly situated, here are photos of my new digs!

This is the front of the house.  The porch on the right is all ours!  Also, this is my first day of school photo--don't I look excited!

For you visual types, here's a floor plan of the abode.  It's mostly to scale. 

So this is my room.  The green walls have been banished!  I painted it a nice, neutral, relaxing, cool gray.  Hopefully whoever moves in next can live with it.  The only piece of furniture in here that I purchased was the bed/mattress.  Everything else was given to us, left here, or found.  The desk is really great, and the built in is WONDERFUL.  As you can see I don't have a closet, but we found an over the door bar, so I'm using that for the few things that must be hung.  Everything else goes in the built in.  I'm using the music I bought at last year's library sale for decorations.  When I have a hammer I'll probably hang them, but I also like them as they are.  I need natural light to feel like a human being, so I'm excited to have so many windows.  I'm also pretty in love with the orange chair I found in the basement.  And of course, the weird blue pillow that Mom made me.

Here's a close up of the built in.  I'm pretty sure this room used to be the dining room.

This is the living room, complete with piano that badly needs to be tuned -- just like home!  There's also a card table and four folding chairs back there.  Finally my high school geometry pays off!  The brown chair by the french doors came from the chapel at school.  The couch (a sectional we've separated) came from a friend as did the coffee table and TV.  Eventually the chair will go into the Great Hall where you currently see the filing cabinets from the old church...you should always let your tenants have access to your church records.

This is the hallway to the kitchen and the kitchen.  We painted the hallway and the back of the door to the basement with chalkboard paint.  Desi picked up a toaster oven on the side of the road -- it's sitting next to the sink.  This is approximately 13,000 times more cabinet space than we had last year.  The windows look out onto a tiny yard with a deck and patio furniture.

The top left photo is the Great Hall looking out into the entry way.  There are 4 doors in the 3 square feet of that entry way.  The bottom left photo is looking into the Great Hall from the entry way.  I hate that red color.  The glass fronted cabinet was here when we got here. The doorway there goes into the bathroom -- I didn't take photos.  I'm sure you've seen one before.  The statue of John Wesley at the top right was also here when we moved in.  He's making sure we stay out of trouble.  And lastly, I just love this chair.  And the pillow.

So that's the new place.  It's in a great location in a neat part of town.  It feels a little like the area behind Drury, which is nice for me.  We're near a really neat historic park with easy access to public transit.  The commute into school (and then further in to work) is kind of a bummer, but not the end of the world.

Oh, and we've decided to call the place 'Snarkhaven'.  Which makes a lot of sense if you know us.