New Year's Cleaning

I am currently making good on one New Year's Resolution....for the first time ever. Prior to yesterday, I really wasn't happy with the layout of my apartment. It is a cozy apartment--a hall/bathroom, a kitchen, and a bedroom, all in a long rectangle. The big room is 287 cm by 278 cm (random, eh?), which is plenty of room for one person and one person's stuff. The kitchen is about the same size, with no inborn shelving and sink/burner stand in the corner. I inherited a large cabinet, a fridge, a washer, and a vacuum, two shelves, a set of plastic drawers, and a bed, and the apartment came with a table and two chairs. Up until now, I supplemented the kitchen with a pantry on wheels, which was hugely helpful.

None of this was an issue. The issue was the bathroom.

In Japan, the Northeast corner of a building is tremendously unlucky. It's known as the Demon Gate, where evil spirits come in. Castles would have special watchtowers or even make a concave section there to avoid even having a Northeast corner. Obviously, you don't want a door there. It is apparently even more unlucky to have plumbing (a bathroom) there. Guess where my bathroom is. Yep. Dealing with it so far has been costly and endlessly frustrating. An awful smell came from the drain when it's hot and when it storms. I couldn't seem to clean the drain at all. Despite it being a hermetically sealed shower/bath/toilet unit, there was possibly mold. No hooks stayed on the wall, so I had to put shampoo anywhere I could. It. Was. Gross.


Note the past tense. Finally, in a home-improvement frenzy inspired by dreams of rearranging my bedroom to make it look like a 9x9 rather than a 6x3, I caved and bought a cute shower curtain. And drain tablets. And (expensive) textured surface suction cups. And shower racks. Then, while waiting for bookshelves and a laundry rack to be delivered, I hit the drain with every tablet and hair collector I had and cleaned the bathroom until I was the only life form left.

The change was magical. It sparkled! It was...visually appealing! It didn't smell like demons were indeed crawling up my northeast corner plumbing.

Inspired by this, and with the help of Erin, I have moved along to reorganizing the living room/ bedroom so that I could make the most of the natural light and maybe, possibly entertain friends for dinner or movies. We switched stuff around and I already feel more at home.

Pictures after shelves and such.

So, so much more like a home.