Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright

Top left to bottom: Uploaded by @Purity, @AnnaNeberikuty, and @nehir_ylmaz on WeHeartIt

A lot can happen in a new-old apartment.

So, my girls and I just moved into one of the nicer-old apartments near campus.  For months and months visions of sofa-plunging and dinner parties danced in our heads, but, given our smaller price window (we were hoping to pay significantly less than we were paying for our already-cheap dorm), we weren't completely sure what we were in for.  You never know with this sort of thing, right?

Right... and wrong.

So, of course the place has its special charms.  As soon as we walked in we noticed a multitude of shoddily-filled-in holes in the white plaster walls.  A skewed-leg spider of old Silly String (orange—school colors!) greeted us from the ceiling.  Patches of the floor bowed as we walked through, and though the carpet was bed-bug free, it was slightly sticky to the sole and there were a few non-Silly-String spiders hanging around.  Soon we found that the bathroom sink had a thing for leaking.  The upper-left burner on the stove came off.  The old gas stove stayed too hot.  Beneath the blinds, the windows were grimed, and the front one was cracked in one pane (too many earthquakes in "Still"water?).  The place was far from spanking-blue-new, and even farther from perfect.

But, at the very same time, it was pretty perfect to us.  There was a bar front and center to the stove, so that we could sit and talk about our day after class while one of us cooked dinner, or all three perch and have tea before bed (we've already tried the latter, it's sweet, and not just the strawberry rhubarb).  The rooms are nice and spacious, especially considering the stuffed-to-the-brim shoeboxes that were our dorm rooms.  There was so much more room for the pretties that my roommates left in their wake, paintings and sculptures and statues, even a tulip-lamp crawling with a fake fairy vine for the living room hanging over a vibrant purple-woven card-table chair.  We could nestle plants in the corners and in the patios.  We could finally have a bookcase, for crying out loud, instead of cramming our favorite books into the crevices of our desks and dressers because we couldn't bear to leave the poor dears at home all alone for 5 months at a time.  We had a second-story balcony and 3 sets of (elderly! the stories we'll hear!) neighbors in our square of the building, at our level and below.  Bright folding chairs, side tables, welcome signs, and plants were positioned outside their doors for evening sits and probably evening chats.  My roommates brought a plethora of old china their grandma gave their mother and a genuine tea set.  They burned incense on the breakfast bar.  They're bringing a hanging fern.  This is a practical oasis to three old-soul-ed college girls.

Like with anything and everything, we've got the good and the bad with our new little home.  The apartment management not only gave us this quiet corner to dwell in, but also complimentary upgraded countertops (one twin gasped with joy, the other with despair; she actually loved the old color).  But, considering the fact that they trusted us enough to put us next to their old folks (we told them we'd keep all the studying noise down), they probably knew that we were the type of girls to even care about the countertops.  Having spent almost the whole summer on kitchen duty in preparation for our new living space, I delegated in which drawers we should put the plastic baggies and the crocheted potholders.  I said "Gross!" when someone suggested we probably shouldn't put food under the sink, especially in case it leaked like the bathroom's.  Perfect or not, we were more than ready to be in business with this new place of ours.


Love and wish us luck,

Eve 💖