Showing posts with label combining things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label combining things. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

the real settling in.

one of the hardest things to do when you move in with anyone is to combine things.  you are so used to having your own things (no matter how broken or out of date they are) around you.  but when you really start looking into it more often then not, one person has things the other doesnt or has the better quality.  one has the better tv, the other has the better dvd player.  it helps in the beginning to not have to rush out and buy things immediately, but what happens when you want to start upgrading?

its usually the girl first, lets be honest, who brings up the purchasing of new things.  that was definitely true in our case as well.  it started right around the middle of december.  we had been in the apartment about 2 months and i started looking around noticing that the bookshelf was mine, the tv was richards, the bedroom furniture was mine, the couch was richards.  the only things in our apartment at the time that was ours were the christmas decorations and those were going in boxed in a matter of weeks.


for me it wasnt just about the purchase of new things, it was about purchasing things together.  it was about making our apartment ours.  the couch was the very first thing on the list.  that futon was soooo uncomfortable.  it was a great starter, not a forever.  the purchasing process, well that was something else completely.  if you havent heard that story, well please enjoy.
to go from this...
to this...huge upgrade.


it was our first big purchase as a couple and that really meant we were in this together.  not just going on vacations together, or moving in together, or sharing bills.  it was no longer a his and her thing, it is an us thing now.

after that purchase, i was bitten by the decorating bug.  i wanted to purchase like there was no tomorrow.  new bed sets, lamps, wall decor, everything.  now i didnt, my budget quickly halted me.  as did the fact that i wasnt the only opinion that mattered.  if i was going to buy a large picture to go over the couch, i needed to ask for richards opinion.  not because i had too or needed too.  because we are in this together and he deserves to have an opinion too.

i quickly made the deal that i would buy the bed set if he would buy the lamps for the bedroom.  this way we could both purchase something important and on our own time lines.  of course mine wanted to be a lot quicker, part of being a girl i guess.  we had found the perfect bed set months earlier.  not too girlie, not too much color, actually had color, it was perfect.  ps i am still waiting on the new lamps.
the upgrade from an all white comforter.  love.
the next thing on my mental checklist was a ceiling fan.  you may remember my rant about fans from the previous summer/winter/staying at richards.  the loud fan had to go before the summer rolled around.  once it started getting warmer and we knew it was only going to get warmer richard came around to the idea of a ceiling fan.  it was economical, better circulation, and soooo much quieter.  we did quite a bit of looking for this as we always do with big purchases.  and finally found a great one.
from the loudest fan on the planet

to a much quieter and fashionable one.
these are the little things you start to appreciate when are past the newness stage.  youve lived together for over 6 months, there arent an influx of holidays to keep you busy, and you are really seriously living together.  who knew a new couch and fan could start to turn an apartment into a home. 

Monday, October 25, 2010

the move.

moving is a crazy day for anyone.  the anticipation/stress/excitement/worry/joy/anxiousness alone will drive that to a crazy day.  ours of course, was not any different.

i had to work open house that morning, as if combining our things from three different places wasnt enough of a logistical hassle, add one man down.  however, richard and his friends picked up the pieces extremely well and had so much done by the time i got here.  what i would find from the infamous storage unit, no one could have prepared me for.

i always knew that our decorating tastes where pretty different, i mean the boy and girl factor alone was going to make us different.  i was girly-colorful, youthful, flowery, and kept something from every part of my life.  he was simple-not many colors, by that i mean one, hadnt bought anything new for decorating in, well thats just too long to count.  but then there was this mysterious storage unit of things he had always talked about.  before living with the roommates he was when we met, he and his dad lived in an apartment.  they decided to move and put the things from that apartment into storage, furniture, dishes, decorative pieces, and bedding.  i had heard about this storage unit forever, but had never been inside or even knew where it was.  however i knew the types of things that were in there and figured they would at least be excellent starter pieces.

back to when i arrived that day.  i have one photo for you, this will explain any type of "style" questions that are going through your mind about the "starter pieces"...


now, as if it could get any funnier, the dishes...they matched.  trust me, i could not make these things up.  so a very quick starter set they became.  at this point, none of my things were actually in the apartment yet.  we still had to go back to my house to get them.

about three weeks before this move my parents had actually just done the exact same thing.  we moved from the side of town we had lived on since we moved to las vegas in 1997 to a new house that was a hell of a lot closer to where both mom and i worked.  they actually had professionals (i use that term loosely for the gentlemen who actually showed up) move us, so half of my stuff was still in boxes, i never unpacked them.  genius i know:).   while waiting for us to arrive mom, dad, and kyle decided to help in a major way by taking apart my bed/dresser and taking all of the boxes downstairs so it would be easier to move.  with that huge advantage we had everything loaded in under a half hour.  when we arrived back at the apartment we had two new set of hands to help us, thank goodness.

now adding my entire life on top of his entire life and about three quarters of his dads (he recently moved back to chile and left just about everything with/to richard to deal with), space was becoming a commodity.  after all the unloading richard had to take back the u-haul so tiffany, kyle, and i decided the best use of our time was putting the bed together so after the karoke birthday party we were attending, we had somewhere to sleep!  this started out as a great plan, until we were done putting the frame together and richard called to say he had forgotten his keys and needed them to come home from the u-haul place.  so i left the rest of the bed to kyle and tiffany while i took him his keys.  when i pulled into the u-haul place richard was sitting on the curb next to his car with the saddest puppy dog face on.  he looked upset, past the point of exhaustion, and so sad.  there was nothing i could do, but get out of my car engulf him in a hug and tell him that i loved him.  he wrapped his arms around me and in that moment i knew that this was going to work.  as im driving back i get a text from tiffany asking what she can do to help till i come back.  i asked if she could take off the god awful futon cover so that i can at least wash the horrifically dirty thing until we could purchase a new one.  when i returned home i saw the best thing of the whole day...the awfulness was only a slipcover!!  i no joke jumped up and down with excitement.  as tiffany and kyle left that night to do their own things i realized that i am officially on my own.  i had been before, kind of, i mean i lived on campus in college.  but this was a completely new kind of on my own.  and to top it all off...i live with a boy now. 

in the end it took us three days, one horrible night to put a tv stand together, countless laughs and bunny noses in comparing things that came from both our families, and a realization that the storage here might just save us, to unpack our very first apartment.  now on to the next big thing...grocery shopping.