feuervogel: photo of the statue of Victory and her chariot on the Brandenburg Gate (Default)
feuervogel ([personal profile] feuervogel) wrote2025-07-27 02:53 pm
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Moving update: how do I own so much stuff?

Let's see. I've been in this apartment for 2 full weeks now. I've gotten my kitchen mostly unpacked and put away, and today I listed a whole bunch of stuff on ebay classifieds. My clothes are mostly put away, though there are some more that had been stored because they didn't fit or I didn't have space for them, etc., and they're in the queue for the next thing to deal with.

Slightly higher priority is organizing my desk and office stuff, though.

I put my books on my shelves properly on Friday. I originally took them out of the boxes and put them on shelves mostly by size so I could set the shelf heights and get the boxes out of the way. I hate it that books are so many different sizes, so I have one shelf of books that are neither old trade paperback size (I miss that format so much) nor hardback size nor the A6-ish format that's trendy today. Enh. I might reorganize again at some point, but it's fine for now.

I can definitely say that having a large enough desk to meet my needs makes me very happy, as does having a chair with arm rests. After using someone else's setup for the last 4 years, this is so much better.

My goal is to have my apartment free of boxes by next Sunday (a week from today). Then I'll have to go to my storage unit and pick up what's there and sort through THAT, but that's a problem for future me. (Also it can wait until I've dealt with everything I currently already have.)

I need to figure out where I set my box cutter down so I can break down more empty boxes. Our trash/recycling goes into underground ... bins? cisterns? rather than traditional dumpsters, and the access points are basically mailbox-looking things with openings that are about the size of a blue mailbox and act kind of like a book drop. They open outward, and you put your bag or loose cardboard into the space, and then you close it and the bag falls through. Except if your bag is too big, it won't close. And if your cardboard is too wide or long, you can't fit it in. So you have to break your boxes down pretty thoroughly.

There's a coat rack in the entryway, and I've got a box full of bike gear on one of its shelves. I ordered and built a shelf/etagére to go over and around my washing machine, but it was JUST too narrow to fit over it, and I'd already assembled it, so I can't send it back (not without paying more for shipping than it cost). That's up on ebay classifieds, too. I ordered a different one and paid closer attention to the *internal* dimensions of the legs, and it works fine. It's holding my laundry detergent, extra towels, and extra TP. I wanted to get an over-the-door towel rack, but because of the way the door is installed, it won't close with anything over it (the door isn't flat; the outer side of it is a cm or so taller than the inner side of it). So I have suction cups on the tile wall to hold my towels.

I have a lot of things to figure out with the bathroom, not least of which is a mirror, but everything is put away neatly, even if the storage totes they're in are chaotic.

I also need to find a shelving solution for my basement section, which isn't very high priority, but it's moving up the list as I need to find places to store the stuff I'm selling until it gets sold.

But the big splurge I made was a set of Le Creuset cookware. I got 2 ceramic-coated saute pans, though one of them is 1 cm too big for my burner, but hopefully that won't be a huge problem. (The instructions have dire warnings about only using a burner that exactly matches the pan, because it can damage the cookware.) I got 3 enameled pots: 1 saucepan (orange) and 2 pots (1 orange, 1 red). The set of them cost more than my washing machine *with* the 25%-off sale. But I've always wanted Le Creuset, so now I have a set of the basics. I restrained myself from going hog wild with aspirational cookware (they sell a tagine! I don't have a 13x9 baking dish anymore!) because my kitchen is so small and I just plain don't have the space for it.

I might decide to sell my Instant Pot, because I just don't use it. We'll see how it goes when I'm not sharing someone else's kitchen and can just set it up and go. I did enjoy making risotto in it; that was really easy. But I don't have a microwave, so reheating it is a huge pain. I have a much smaller rice cooker, and it /probably/ will work to make risotto on one of its settings. We'll see. (Which reminds me, I want to get the right kind of rice to try making tahdig, because it has a tahdig setting.)

My washer finished, so I have to go deal with that. But I think that's all the big stuff.