The Laughlins

This is a view of our new apartment. We basically live in a 14-story apartment building – the tallest one in our immediate area. We live on the ground floor, but there is one floor below us (Floor -1). The elevator is about ten paces down our hallway, and the entrance to the building is about another ten from there. According to the people we have talked to here (some of which are looking for a place to rent), we got an absolute “steal” for only $360 a month (plus taxes, utilities, Internet/phone, etc.). As I mentioned in our email, it is in a great location that includes an extensive marketplace for all of our basic needs (grocery stores, phone company, multiple banks, pet store, bookstore, hardware store, restaurants, plant nursery, one-hour photo shops, pharmacy, Blockbuster rental, gas station, post office, medical center, etc.) The apartment itself came with a refrigerator, gas range, shower curtain, shelves built into the wall, two small coffee tables, two chairs with gross, old yellow upholstery, and lots of closet space. We spruced it up a bit on Sunday. I bought 75% off curtain material and made a large curtain to divide our studio apartment into a bedroom and living room area. We also hung one in front of the closet space as a kind of changing area. We bought a colorful floor rug from Isaam at Jaffa Gate (all of our floors are older tile floors), and I covered our closet shelves with blue contact (shelf paper) from the hardware store. We bought an oscillating fan on a stand for air circulation (AC is not common here) and picture frames for my pictures I brought. We now have ten 5x7 – 8x10 pictures on the wall. Batia took us to buy a bed the first day we got here, so we got a brand new double-sized bed and wooden frame (with delivery and “assembly”) for about $260. I also bought fabric that matches our curtains and re-upholstered the two chairs that were here. At first I was going to hand-sew them, but that was taking WAY TOO LONG, so Mark suggested using small safety pins along the seams since they are not visible or near where you actually sit when you fit the cushion in the wooden frame. That worked out quite well, and the chairs look 500% better! My current house projects include covering a few more shelves in the closet, covering drawers in the kitchen with shelving, buying at least two more frames for pictures decorations, possibly buying some tapestry or hanging or sorts (Mark suggested this décor) for the wall space above the bed, cleaning, and finding a way to keep the water in the shower from spilling onto the rest of the bathroom floor (there is no ledge/basin built into the shower area). I wish I has taken before and after pictures (since I feel like I’m on HDTV), but take my word on it – we have made it much more cozy ☺