Laura had decreed that yesterday would be spring cleaning day, so the whole apartment got a much-needed picking-up/dusting/vacuuming/scrubbing. As it turned out though, we did a much more thorough job than we expected, since it's easier to clean everywhere when you move most of your furniture—which we did.
You see, the only high-speed internet access available here is, unfortunately, expensive cable-modem service. Since there are only two cable jacks in the apartment, and the one in the bedroom was no good since I often compute far past Laura's bedtime, we really only had one usable jack, annoyingly located on the island-wall separating the kitchen from the living room. The point being (there is, in fact, a point!) that we had to put my desk in the living room when we moved in, unless we wanted to drape coaxial cable across the floor. In order to fit the couch, TV, and stereo stuff in as well we ended up with a really awkward arrangement where my desk stuck out sideways, which segmented the space, made the living room feel much smaller, and partitioned off the kitchen and dining room area more than we would have liked. Plus, the back of my desk wasn't that attractive a view for the living room.
A week or so ago, though, I gave the old Lombard a new life as a wireless base-station and mini-server so that my computer wouldn't have to stay on all the time serving that purpose (and being noisy and drawing more power). And so (merciful Zeus, the tangent finally ends!) we finally had the freedom to create a furniture arrangement that sucks less, and we seized that freedom yesterday. Now the living room and dining room are combined into one space, with the light from the full-wall glass patio doors making it a lot further into the living room. Giving up ugly and awkward for more light seems like a good deal to me, as does trading the glare on my monitor from a window behind me for a nice view outside while setting at my desk.
My desk, some of my random junk, and Laura's sewing machine do make what was the dining room feel more crowded—and consequently the kitchen as well—but since the dining room used to be overfilled by our table anyway that isn't much of a loss. And who knows, maybe I'll even get wild and crazy enough to clean up my desk, so that it doesn't feel like it's going to spill over and bury the room. But even if I don't, now we can at least sit in the large, airy living room/dining room, and pretend this apartment isn't too small for us and all our stuff.
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