My Apartment: Floor Plan

I love floor plans. When I was a little girl, you'd often catch me toting around my spiral-bound notebook of graph paper in which I sketched up big castle-like dream homes, small city apartments, and sometimes ancient Roman villas. While driving past houses, I immediately imagine what the floor plan could be like - especially in older homes. And even today, one of the first things I do when moving into an apartment (or even apartment hunting) is to make a mock-up floor plan to see how I could fit my furniture.

I finally got around to measuring out the lovely Victorian apartment I've lived in for a year now. The 511 square foot space is a gathering of three rooms on the 2nd floor and at the back of a big, beautiful Queen Anne house. Here's the rundown:

Entry / Stairs / Hall

My door is at the bottom of the stairs. You walk up a (quite steep) set of stairs and come to another door - this one with glass panes and just for pretty. There, you're faced with a long hall that I imagine once ran most the length of the second floor. Branching off of this long hallway with gorgeous hardwood floors are four doors: a door to the bedroom, a doorway to the living space, a closet door, and the door leading to the bathroom.

Living Space

While it's a good sized room (about 15' by 13') it combines my kitchen, dining area, and living room into one space. It's a light tight, but I prefer to say it's cozy. ;) Plus, it's turned out to be quite convenient to be able to cook while entertaining or turn the record over during dinner.

Bedroom

My bedroom is a bit smaller than the kitchen / dining / living room - which makes it feel massive since it only serves the one purpose. I love that it's spacious and open though. The bedroom closet oddly has a window in it. Not a little window to let in a bit of light, but a large window like the ones throughout the apartment. So I turned this closet into an office nook. It's nice to keep my desk area somewhat separate from the bedroom, but close enough that I can jump out of bed with a great story idea.

Hallway Closet

The closet in the hallway is quite large and has a built in dresser and shelves - perfect for a clothing ~~collector~~ hoarder like myself. (Although at the moment, it's storing much more than clothes.)

Bathroom

My bathroom is ridiculously large. Really. I'm absolutely spoiled here and I love it. (I don't know how I'll ever make do in a tiny typical bathroom again.) You can see just how big it is by comparing it to the bedroom. And I'm pretty sure I've rented apartments with bedrooms smaller than this bathroom. Anyway, it also comes equipped with a nice long vanity, cute little shelf ledges around the walls, and an antique claw foot tub. (Swoon!)

Bathroom Closet

Not to be left out, this is the biggest closet in the place. It's a walk-in with shelves built in down one side and overhead. Currently, it's jam-packed with boxes from my last move that I never got around to unpacking, going through, and downsizing. I have big plans for this big closet though!

Take a quick photo tour of my apartment here.

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DIY Cat Barrier for Under $100 (See-Through, Climb-Proof, and Too-Tall-To-Jump)

ICYMI: I gave up Cotton after deciding that after trying so many things, my two adopted cats Dahlia and Cotton were just never going to get along. Long story short: I missed her. And Cotton's back. And Dahlia's not going anywhere. My heart is big enough to keep trying. And my apartment is big enough that if I need to keep them separated long term (or permanently), it can be done.
I'm going to write-up a separate post about some of the solutions I've tried, how they worked, who they worked on, and what I'll be trying next. But in this post, I wanted to share the main 'piece de resistance' of having both cats in my apartment: an un-climbable, un-jumpable, see-through barrier to separate Cotton and Dahlia.