10.23.2012

Planning, buying & nerves.

Welp tomorrow is moving day, AGAIN.

Wanna see our place? Click here.

R and I have spent the past few days measuring and purchasing items for our apartment. We sold all of our couches and large furniture items in Florida to lighten the cross-country load.

We are in a studio, the main room is about 300 sq ft. We have a full kitchen (with smaller appliances & a bench/table build-in), a vanity area with a walk in closet (that is only 2' 3" and 5' long) and a bathroom with a really awesome clawfoot tub.

We had to embrace two things with this move: Purging and Functionality.  

Before we left Florida we got rid of all of our bulky items to lighten our cross country move, and set the money aside to buy new items in LA. We got rid of our couches, beds, large desk, and anything else that was useless, bulky or not valuable enough to justify hauling it 3000 miles across the country.

Then we committed to a minimalistic lifestyle, especially while we are living in L.A. It is expensive to live here, so it is important to make every square foot count.

Having lived in studios before (one of which was a whopping 350 total sq ft) I know that excess stuff can be the killer. In our case, we had a lot of excess clothing that we never, ever wore.. and I am beginning to think I had a bit of a linen hording problem.

I had 5 sets of white king sheets, 5 full sheet sets and 2 twin sets. THEN I had about 5 sets of towels/wash clothes, plus a bunch of random towels/wash clothes and no idea where they all came from.

So having said that, each square foot in a small space needs to count and hording towels and bed sheets is not a good use of space.

Last night I made a floor plan of our new space, measured all the furniture we are bringing with us, and tried to plan out how (I hope) everything will fit into the apartment.

Just ignore that I typoed MANTEL and SEATS, k?


Tomorrow we will find out if I did good, AND we will see how easy the Manstad from Ikea is to put together.. Bed, Couch and Storage-- Gotta love IKEA!

I'm pretty excited about our move-in, but I am also a little nervous. Anyone I DO know here works like a dog (along with Rob)and I am feeling a little nervous about putting myself out there!


That's all folks,

Namaste!

r






3 comments:

  1. We went from a pretty big place to a tiny house and it was great. I've asked Rob a few times if he wants to move when the lease is up, and he said "no, the good thing about not having a ton of space is that we won't be tempted to accumulate more crap. When we leave we'll have the same amount of shit we came with."

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  2. I just want to let you know that I am seriously giddy that I've found your blog. You're pretty much doing exactly what I hope/plan to be doing next summer. My boyfriend and I are both applying to grad schools in Cali (L.A. and Berkeley areas respectively), and we'll be making a cross-country trip from Maryland. Your studio is ADORABLE and gives me hope that we'll be able to find something decent. And ohmygod... you traveled with three cats. Okay, so the thing is I'm terribly allergic to cats. But my boyfriend has three of them, and we've talked about the possibility of bringing them along. I don't think we'll end up doing it because they're so used to roaming free outside, and they literally make me want to scratch my eyes out (although I love them dearly). Plus, they'd be able to stay behind in the same house with family, so they wouldn't be abandoned. We'll see. Still, your journey seems eerily similar to our impending journey, and it's exciting! Wishing you the best of luck-- sounds like you're off to a great start!

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  3. Small spaces don't scare me at all. There are so many neat ways you can organize your stuff, and like Caitlin said, you don't accumulate crap that you don't need. You'll be nice and cozy :)
    How is everything else going for you?
    Rach

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