When I moved into my condo, I tried to unpack as much as possible as quickly as possible so I could feel settled in my new space. But as I unpacked, I realized that some things I thought would work in my new space didn’t seem to fit the way I wanted them to. It was a crazy adjustment to move into a space that was about 3 times the size of my old home. But I have tried to make things work as much as I could since I didn’t want to buy a ton of new things.
But there were some things that just wouldn’t work no matter how I tried to get them set up. I had to get a new couch because my old one looked so wrong in my living room. I got a new tv because it was hard for me to see the small tv clearly from the distance between my couch and tv (which was probably about 4 times further away than my old home). But that also allowed me to use my old tv stand in my office since I hadn’t found new office furniture that I liked. Things have been moving around in my place and I’ve tried to figure out new ways to use things so I didn’t have to sell or donate a lot, but it hasn’t been easy and it’s been a slow process.
But over the past week, I’ve been able to make a few small changes that seem to have made a big impact on my home. One was a purchase and the other was unpacking things a bit more.
In my living room, I have a lot of empty space. I do like a bit of a minimalistic style, but not quite as bare as things have been. I have slowly been adding things in and trying to figure out what else I could possibly want, but it’s been hard to decide on anything. I would like to maybe add more artwork, but I don’t have anything in mind so I just keep looking around to see if anything inspires me. But one space that has been bugging me is the empty space between my couch and sliding glass door. It’s not really a functional space to use, but I also didn’t want my couch to be off-center to fill it in. So I just kept looking for things that might fit in there like a light or high-sitting end table.
And one day, in my random online searches I happened to find a nice floor lamp that would fit the space and was on sale! And this had glass trays on it that could serve almost like an end table. Because my couch is so tall, only one of the trays would be visible from the couch, but that worked for me. So I ordered it and it arrived only a few days later.
To build the light, I won’t go into the frustration I experienced. I will say that the person who designed it really didn’t think the process through and I had to keep balancing pieces of glass on my feet while I built the other sections. But when it was done and in the space I wanted it to be, I felt like it was the perfect addition!
It’s a really big lampshade, but that’s exactly what I needed to go there. And if I ever want to have light in my living room but not the lights in my ceiling, now I have another option.
After getting the light and putting it together, I was inspired to do some more organizing. I have been putting off working on my office and organizing more because I was hoping I would get a new desk soon. But I have been struggling to find something that fits what I want and need, so I have no idea if I’ll get a new desk any time soon. But I wanted to finally get out the last few things that have been in boxes waiting for my new office furniture so I could finally feel like all my things were out. There are a few things that will have to wait until I figure out my new office setup because I don’t want to hang things on the walls if they might need to move, but that was only a handful of items compared to what was still in boxes.
The first task was going through the boxes and seeing what I actually wanted to keep. And of course, there were things that I realized that if I hadn’t needed them in over a year, I could get rid of them or donate them. These were mainly random things that I had held onto from my old home. For example, I had some old IDs that I had on a corkboard in my old office area, but I have no need to keep them now. I also found some things that went with items that I had previously gotten rid of, such as the extra shelves for my old makeup stand which I think I got rid of almost a year ago. But I forgot that I put those extra pieces in a box and closed them up when I moved.
I decided to use my old tv stand as a combination of a bookcase and a display case. I don’t have a lot of physical books anymore, but I still have some of my favorites that made the move with me. I would like to have more actual books eventually, but I want to work on building an interesting library instead of the random paperbacks that I used to have. Most of the fiction that I read now is on my Kindle, so I don’t buy a lot of books. But there are some collections of classics that I’d love to have in the future. But for now, I just wanted to get the books I had in boxes out and fill in the space in my office that has felt so blank.
This is still a work in progress. I actually want to switch where things are in my office so this would go under the window and my desk would go on this wall, but I can’t move my current desk because it’s starting to crack. So moving things around will have to wait until I finally get a new desk. But at least for now, I have things out and on display and I can feel like my belongings are not just in boxes.
I do still have a few things in an open box that I haven’t decided what to do with or can’t put up just yet, but considering that I got things down from being in 2 boxes and a storage tub, this is a huge improvement.
I know that even in my old place, I was still organizing and redoing things all the time, even after living there for over a decade. And I’m sure I’ll be always redoing things in my current place too. But at least things are finally unpacked and I can feel like I have moved in just a little bit more.
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