But I won't pay fifty bucks
for a TV stand.
I've written many times about the ups and downs of living in a cheap Seattle apartment, Readers, but what I HAVEN'T written about is the delight of living among the excellent and admirable people of Capitol hill.
It's loud. It's crowded. It's a bit pretentious, and it's not uncommon for us to be awoken by drunk people screaming at each other outside of our window at 3 am. But, for all of its imperfections, John and I have fallen in love with our neighborhood.
One of the best things about the apartment building where John and I live is what is known as the "free area". In our building, there is an un-spoken consensus that if you want to get rid of something but don't feel like making the trek to Goodwill or Value Village to donate it, you can leave it in the laundry space for someone else to take.
I'd say that about a quarter of our furniture has come from the "free area", as well as a great deal of our apartment's decor. In addition to that, about half of everything John and I own was either found, gifted, or bought at a thrift shop.
Let me give ya'll a rundown on how our excellent neighbors, friends, and loved ones have furnished our apartment:
1. The living room has a television stand that was given to me as payment for a day of babysitting two summers ago. It's one of those stands that's designed to fit into a corner, but our apartment doesn't really have any square corners to fit it into. It takes up a bit more space than we'd like, but since we didn't pay for it, we won't complain.
2. On the topic of living room furniture, we have a gorgeous coffee table given to us by a dear friend after she moved. Next to it, we have the futon that my husband used to sleep on, now made into a couch/guest bed. He found the frame for it years ago on the side of the road; he later procured a mattress for it via Craigslist. Since the mattress doesn't fit the frame as well as we'd like, it's a pain in the putuckus to get the damn thing to go from "sit and watch TV" mode to "guest bed" mode. But, it was *mostly* free.
3. About a year ago, the office where I work went under a major re-modeling project. When they made over the reception area, they sent out a mass email that pretty much said that all of the old seating was fair game. Free bright orange chair FOR THE WIN!
4. In the corner of the living room is our computer desk, which I got from my sister when she moved to California.
5. Our dining room table was left in the room by the previous tenant. FREE!
6. We bought our dining chairs from a church rummage sale for 20 dollars...FOR A SET OF FOUR! WIN!
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| This chair was the only one of the set with arm-rests, so it went into our living room. |
7. Our walls are decorated with an assortment of oddities. Included in this assortment are paintings, prints, old photographs, and a large macrame owl that I found in my parent's basement. A few childhood relics have found their way into our decor; a framed sunflower picture has been hung next to an old Spider Man poster.
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| This thing used to give me nightmares when I was little. |
8. While most of our dishes were given to us as wedding gifts, John and I take great delight in scouring the local thrift shops for little pieces of fabulousness. I found a set of four smoked glass tumblers that are just gorgeous, at a dollar each. SWEET!
9. We have two lamps, two GORGEOUS lamps, that were found in the "free area". AWESOME!
I love our apartment. I love it so much.
I think that Macklemore sums it up nicely:
Fun fact: a few parts of this music video were shot at the Value Village were John and I shop!
Until next time, Readers!
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