Moving In

I finally posted online pictures of moving into my new apartment. When I took these, my boxes had just been delivered, so nothing was yet unpacked. My apartment looks sparse even now because I still don’t have any new furniture, but it looks a little more lived in with the boxes unpacked.

The entire apartment building is five years old, so everything feels new and seems in good condition. Everything was well-cleaned on the day I moved in. My windows look out on a courtyard formed by the U-shape of the building. I can see a tiny sliver of Lake Union from my living room windows. The building is LEED-certified, so the windows are double-paned and the walls are well-insulated. The walls absorb a lot of sound; it’s quite amazing to walk into the hallway and not hear any of the music I’m playing inside. My entire apartment, except for the kitchen and bathroom, is carpeted light-tan, and it feels good on my feet.

My apartment comes with two snazzy blue lights that hang from the ceiling over the counter, which the other apartment that I toured here didn’t have. All my stuff is in the boxes on the left. The track lights overhead provide adequate lighting for now, but I’ll have to get some lamps eventually to better light up the area for reading and whatnot. There’s electric heating, but I’ve only had to use it a couple times. My apartment stays room temperature on its own most of the time. It might have something to do with being on the top floor, or the LEED stuff.

The black counter tops that rim the kitchen are granite, but the regular kitchen counters aren’t. There seems to be plenty of storage room for dishes, plates, pots, pans, utensils, devices, and so on, although the cabinets are only about a foot wide, which is too narrow to fit wide things like my crock pot, sadly. My crock pot rests comfortably atop the fridge. The appliances are still in great shape.

The den, or office area, is next to the kitchen. It’s big enough to fit my desk and computer and a few other things. I plan to put a bookshelf in there at some point for all my books. There are two closets, not counting the one in my bedroom, so I have plenty of storage space. I still haven’t filled it up.

My short hallway connects the living room, the bedroom, and the bathroom. There are also doors for another closet and a small, square room that contains my stacked washer and dryer. Thankfully I won’t have to run to a laundromat once per week, although the washer is pretty noisy and it always stops in the middle of the permanent press cycle.

My bedroom is oddly shaped. It has six sides that roughly form a triangle. I moved my bed since I took this picture to sit against the right wall to open up more floor space after I put in a dresser and a night stand. The window looks out on the same view as the living room windows. The fire alarm in here is brutal on my ears, like a shrieking banshee straight out of hell—in my brain.

My bedroom closet is a walk-in, although it’s not big for a walk-in, and it’s curiously also roughly triangle-shaped. Notice the plastic bag just inside the closet door—I use lots of bags when moving.

My bathroom is pretty sweet, I like it a lot. The shower has lots of places to put things like shampoo or whatever, and there’s lots of storage for bathroom and linen things under and next to the sink. The mirror is huge and spans almost the entire wall. I have a spiffy towel, rug, and shower curtain set that all match, but I somehow lost that picture. Go to Bed Bath & Beyond and you’ll see it.

More pictures.