Don't get me wrong. I am JAZZED about moving into my little studio.
But I have some worries.
So I'm making a list. *
1. I am not a neat person. My husband is. This has already caused several sessions of energetic discussions in our marriage. In an apartment with no doors, I'm afraid my messiness will get out of control. The flip side is, this might cause me to be neater...
2. We currently have a dishwasher. We are moving to an apartment with no dishwasher. I'm the type of person who can (and has) leave dishes sitting in the sink for a week. I'm also not as through a dishwasher as my engineering husband.
3. Storage. I like stuff. I have a lot of tchotchkies and stuffed animals and photos. I want to make our apartment feel grown up and pretty and not like a college dorm. I'm just not sure how to achieve that.
Mainly, I'm worried about the neatness and the stuff. I mean, we are definitely getting rid of a ton of furniture before we move, and I'm excited about using the porch as a second living area** but I'm worried about containing my "ness" without making it feel like I'm cleaning all the time.
Susannah do you have any older and wiser thoughts? :)
Susannah here! Since we both love lists, let me move through the thoughts numerically. But I'm not any older or wiser! Just been squished in a smaller space for a teensy bit longer.
1. For the record, I have the same problem! My husband is kiiiiind of a neat freak. And by kind of, I mean he can't sit down and relax until the apartment is reasonably picked up. Which drives me crazy because then he can't relax with me on my time table. In my mind, the cleaning could happen later. Or tomorrow. Or any other time than relaxing time.
(As a small side note, I have a few personal areas of neat-freak-ness. I have to have a clean bathroom. Must have. It's weird, I know.)
The short (hah) version is the smaller apartment has helped me figure out the areas where I need personal work, areas I can happily take care of, and areas where it's just better if I don't do that. I have learned -- it was hard at first -- that sometimes Matthew needs to pick up around the apartment for 10 minutes before sitting down for a movie or to hang out with me. edit: Anthony's the same way. And he has learned that he's just always going to have to help me change the sheets because I hate doing it. At the same time, he knows the bathroom will always be clean...buuuttt I won't guarantee those dishes won't sit there for a few days until I feel good and ready to wash them. As for the rest of it...we're working on it. And it's a good learning experience for us.
2. If he cares so much about the dishes, why not trade something? For example, what if you promise -- and you'll have to follow through -- to always clean out the drain or do the laundry or keep a room picked up if he'll almost always take care of the dishes? If that's not a good way for you, then...maybe it's helpful to know that I find dishes much more enjoyable late at night. I can think and listen to the tv in the background and it gives me something to do while Matthew works in the evenings. That was our first thought too...to have it be a trade. We fear we'll just end up resenting each other if one of us always does a certain chore. But hey! We're working on it too :)
3. Shelves and walls! Since studios are so tiny, your best unexplored storage space is on your walls! We put in shelves above the couch. I already had some next to the bed. I use the space on top of my "kitchen" cabinets to store things like canned food and foil. The space on top of my free-standing shelves is my "display space" for my "stuffs." If that's not enough space for your things, then I'll let you in on a secret my mother once told me: if you rotate all the little things, they seem like new every time and you don't get tired of them. You could store some of it, display some of it, and rotate some of the things in a few months or a year or so.
You can do this! Another cleaning tip I've heard that helps me sometimes: set a timer for 10 minutes and clean with the fury of one of those superwives that always seems to have a clean house, a well-fed husband, and loud-and-happy children. Just 10 minutes. Then go relax. Later in the evening, clean or pick up for 10 more minutes. Shorter increments make picking up easier to handle. Or, if a Gilmore Girls marathon is on and you simply can't tear yourself away, clean during commercials!
Hope my silly-person ideas are helpful!
*Since we're going to be spending a lot of time together you should know: I LOVE lists. And office supplies. They make me happy.
**Obviously, this will work best in the summer time, but I'm hopeful that I can find a fall/winter solution as well.
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