We live in a 900 square foot apartment… Might actually be more like 850 sqf because our neighbor friends upstairs, they had an extra sunroom in their apartment and our old landlord said their apartment was also 900 sqf, so who knows. All I know is that i love our home 6.5 days out of the week. It will always hold such special meaning to our life. It is our first place! It is where we moved in together, where we call home as a team, as a married couple, as partners for life. Where we brought in our second dog Maka, who is the best! And dammit if it’s 1920’s corkiness just isn’t so darn cute!
But! Let’s talk the realz for a second (FYI wordpress did NOT like me using a Z in reals, had to fight autocorrect for that one) Chris thankfully and so awesomely finished his master degree back in May, which means that the work-study-at-home thing for him has dropped drastically. Not all the way, he is still doing work (i.e. volunteer) for one of his professors so he still brings home his big architecture type papers and uses my our beautiful table to red line. But, for the most part it is just me now working from home.
But, let’s back up about a year and a half when we moved into this place. It is a spacious one bedroom apartment. And with the furniture we have, there wasn’t much room for fitting a small desk in the living room, or dinning room, for sure not the kitchen, so that left one more room…. The bedroom. My worst nightmare. I hate clutter. I believe passionately about “turning off”. And well, having your workstation(s) in the bedroom just sounded like the worst. But, what can you do? You are given what you are given. I told Chris, “we need to keep this clean, uncluttered, and organized, above all else! This is not YOUR workstation, it is OURS. So it has to WORK for us both.” and we both agreed. We both have very different jobs that required nearly polar opposite from a station, so i knew that was going to hell in a hand basket. And, what do you know? It took maybe a month, possibly two? for it to look like a clutter bomb went off. If he wasn’t working there his clothes, supplies, receipts were just stacked up so much I literally couldn’t see the desk, much less work at it. And every Sunday night he would clean it off for me, and it would have the possibility of magic again… Then real life would hit for both of us, and so it goes.
Which comes to my work station. I quickly abandoned the idea of being able to work there on a daily basis, so i tried other ways to find space in our place. I used an old book shelf that I could fold up the bottom shelves and use as a small computer desk. Not so much. Too narrow, couldn’t hold any of my edits, reference books, or notebook. So, of course, I used our dinning room table most of the time. (Back then it was an old door on top of saw horses. Class, and professionalism.) Which I hated, but, what can you do? At the time I was working more on my photography, and cooking. The light was great there in the late afternoon. I could write/edit in the morning, cook and figure out recipes in the afternoon, and all that jazz. It worked!
A little bit about me. I like to find a space. Usually it’s a certain space on the floor. Or a chair in the corner. When I was younger in my parents kitchen there was a vent in the corner, under the cabinet. This was in Michigan mind you. Winters are so cold. Our addition there was a cement slab, not much insulation like you would have if that part of the house was over the basement. And there was always someone in the kitchen. In order to keep my feet warm I would sit on the floor, usually have a dog on my lap, while my mom cooked, my brothers raided the cabinets, and i would be out of the way, but in the middle of everything. It was like my perch. And from then on I think i’ve always looked for a perch. In this apartment, at the behest of my husband, I have found my perch. He hates it. I love it.
If you have ever been to my house, and I have wanted to show you something on my computer, chances are I will be sitting on my counter, my feet trying to not make the lid of the trash can wonky (that’s why chris hates my perch. My solution? Let’s get different trash can. I’m working on it, and he’s accepting it). I love this spot. I feel small. I have a foot rest. The bar of the counter is the perfect height. And I’m super close to my pot of coffee in the morning. I don’t usually “work” from here. Usually I check emails, read blogs, and sometimes go through a few of my client’s pages if I have time.
This is where you will find me in the morning. Coffee, sometimes cereal, on my perch. Looking outside at the trees, and starting my day reading about other peoples day. It is a fine perch. Took me a while to find it and call it mine. But now I guess we both have our workstations now. And now, our home feels just the right size.
Until I have to print off and reformat a whole book’s footnotes…. But that’s not on the agenda today.
What do you do in your space? Do you have stations you share? Or do you need a whole room to call your own? What about a perch? Is there a place in your space you just seem to gravitated to? Even if sometimes your back hurts because you’ve been their too long?
YODGI 