As promised - Our Apartment!

Here is our apartment as it looks today.













You can tell my poor husband is super busy by all the papers around his desk in the spare room. Cody's dad is staying with us to help us remodel the store so our black couch is folded down and is serving as his bed. Yes, we have a garden planted in our backyard. And yes, we have the longest driveway in the universe.

Now I promised - the apartment drama.

1. Our apartment carpet is a good color, but completely spent. It's as flat as a pancake. You vacuum and there are no lovely track marks from the vacuum which is totally taking the fun out of vacuuming. Well, the previous renters had animals in the apartment, including cats. I'm really, really allergic to cats. It's annoying. So we washed the carpets...

now comes drama #2

2. The day after washing our carpets I run a load of whites and sit down to watch some Barfoot Contessa "now how bad can that be?". Anyways. I go into the kitchen to get some water - everything is normal. I go to the bathroom and return to the kitchen for a banana - everything is normal. I go to check some emails and keep thinking, "man that stupid washer is so loud and annoying, I have this TV volume on so high!". I finished Barfoot and decided to go throw away my banana peel only to find a huge pond in my kitchen. The washing machine flooded our kitchen and the water was creeping into our hall, living room, and bedroom closets. I think about crying but realize I don't have the time for that indulgence. I quickly call Cody. He says, "well, get some towels to soak up the water and...". I totally interrupt him, "Oh Honey, this is more than a towel job. Do you hear the sloshing of my feet? (I put the phone by the puddle-pond and start jumping) Do you hear that?". He tells me to call our landlord. So, to make a long story even longer, we finally got new carpet padding after days of fans and pulled carpet. I dreamed that the silver lining of this experience would be new carpet. Carpet I could vacuum and see the marks of freshly vacuumed carpet. No such luck. All we got was new padding. Bust!

3. The washer and dryer are in the kitchen. I hate that. There is no separation between the kitchen counter top and washer.

4. Remember that the previous owner had animals in the house? Well, meet the evidence - the back of our bathroom door. That dog must have been scratching that door for days! Plus we have cheap hallow doors. You'd think the landlord would have replaced the door($), but instead he installed all new windows and a new A/C unit ($$$$$$$) before we got here. I sure do love our windows and I'm sure I'll be more than grateful for A/C come summer, but I sure do hate that stupid door!

5. The cockroach. Only white trash people get cockroaches in their house, right? That's what I've always thought anyways. Well, I found a gross, large cockroach in our kitchen the other day. I should have taken a picture! Guess who's white trash now.

6. Our entertainment center. What a sad excuse for a wall. It's bear and bald and crying for a more impressive entertainment center.

7. Our bed. It's of the blow-up variety. I thought we were bringing it to AR for the guest room. But as it turns out, we don't want to spend the money for a new mattress - and I certainly don't want to buy a used one. So, my bed is a blow-up bed. Does the fact that it's comfortable make it less pathetic?!

8. The wallpaper stripping. There was hideous wallpaper in the bathroom when we first moved in. Cody and I both hated that baby poop brown all over our bathroom walls. One day I was wondering what Cody was up to and found him in the bathroom taking down that horrible wallpaper. I got excited! No more poop brown! But, the bathroom got worse before it got better. After Cody and I put one coat of "beige" paint on the walls we both said, "I miss the wallpaper." Turns out the wallpaper was hiding a lot of wall imperfections and the neutral biege color I picked out looked like a pinky sand color. We made some more purchases, treated the walls a bit, put some more coats of paint on, and the bathroom was looking pretty good.



That's it. That's our apartment. It's a little cute, a little gross, and all ours. Luckily we have no present day drama. Cody loves - LOVES - to say, "We got twice the apartment [size] for 1/3 the price". He's said it to just about everyone in town. California is really, really expensive.

Lastly, I remember in February, my sister saying that we should just spend $300.00 on our new apartment and save our money. After all, she argued, we were only going to be living in Arkansas for less than a year. I laughed at her low ball suggestion. I was concerned when Cody agreed with her. How can you furnish and decorate an apartment on only $300.00? Turns out we've only spent a little over $100.00 on furnishing, painting, and decorating this place. I'm serious. I'm not lying. And I must confess that I'm super proud of myself for beating not only mine, but also my sister's and Cody's low ball decorating budget.