Our New Apartment

(this post was written by Kyle on August 21, 2007, and it concerns life & poultney & vermont)

As I mentioned last week, we’ve moved into our new apartment, and since I know you all hate the thought of me being in a new apartment without you having any conception of what that apartment may look like, I’ve gone and done you the favor of taking some pics of the new place.

So who’s up for a little tour?

We’ll start on the first floor.

On the south-side of the apartment, we’ve got the kitchen. It’s roughly the size of our old one, except this one has double the counter-space, triple the number of cabinets, and an old porcelain battletank of a sink.

Outside of the kitchen is the stairwell that leads to the second floor.

We’ll head up those stairs in a second, but before we do, we’ll spin to face the north-side of the first floor.

On the other side of the stairwell wall is our dining area.

Note the swatches on the far wall. The reddish swatch — which is actually the color “persimmon” — will be the color of our new couch, which won’t arrive for another six to eight weeks.

If we continue spinning through this room, you’ll see our “living area.”

As you can tell, we REALLY need a couch. For those book lovers out there, the bookshelf in the above picture contains only those books that Dawn and I (both individually and separately) recommend that everyone on the planet read.

If you look at the top picture of the dining/living room, you’ll see a little doorway that leads into small hallway. The following picture is what you see when you stand in that hallway and face south.

And since I know at least a few of you are interested, the bookshelves in this one are arranged in the following way. On the top shelf, we’ve got fiction by Europeans and Asians, most of whom fit the “postmodern fiction” label in some tenuous way. Below that, we’ve got American writers who fit that label (and a misclassified copy of Angela Carter, who’s British). Below that, laid out horizontally, some more American writers, and below that, on the shelf with the picture at the west end, is the science fiction-y shelf. The middle shelf is kind of our catch-all shelf (keys, coins, etc.), and then below that, is our nonphilosophical nonfiction shelf, below which is a shelf filled with books focused on feminist theory and/or minority theory. And the last shelf, which is actually the floor, is our big-book shelf, for all those books that, regardless of topic or author, don’t physically fit anywhere else.

Next to the bookshelf is our bathroom. You can’t see it, but there’s a bathtub in there.

If you stand in the same place and face north, you get the following view of the office:

Again, the bookshelf you see in the back: it contains all the books I’m reading (or have read) as part of my graduate program. Just to the west of the door and not visible in this picture, is a tall, thin bookshelf that holds most of our philosophy books.

If you continue through the hallway, you’ll visit Dawn’s favorite room of the house (this view is from our back door; the hallway door is the one you can see).

I know it sounds bad to say my wife’s favorite room is the laundry room, but I’m only repeating what she says to everyone who takes a tour of the place.

And that’s the first floor. Now, let’s take a trip up those stairs I showed you earlier.

First of all, this is the light-switch at the bottom of the stairs (it was here when we got here). It’s one of the two South-American-styled light-switches in the house (the other is in the kitchen).

This is the hallway at the top of the stairs. The view you’re looking at is from the door to the master bedroom, with the stairs on the south-side of the hallway.

That’s the cat-tree in the corner (thank you Lindsay!), and in the other corner is another bookshelf (this one is our “miscellaneous” bookshelf, and it holds those books we couldn’t place anywhere else; which reminds me, at the bottom of the stairs, there’s a small bookshelf that holds all of Dawn’s South American fiction, as well as some cookbooks, since the shelf is right outside the kitchen too).

The door on the north-side of the hallway leads to the “chill spot”/guest room.

This is where we watch DVDs, play Super Smash Bros., knit, read, and watch the sunsets.

And finally, here’s the master bedroom:

That amazing quilt was made by my Aunt Lisa and given to us as a wedding present. It is, without a doubt, the coup de grace of every tour we’ve conducted of this apartment.

And that’s it. Hopefully, you’ll come up and join us for a couple of beers sometime.