Moving day

As we sat on the couch Saturday night, Matthew mentioned the possibility of rearranging our apartment to make the space a bit more livable for the next few months, until we upgrade to a 2-bedroom.  The basic plan involved swapping the sofa and our bed, so we could go to bed at night and have our own schedule, without fear of waking The Dude.

After sleeping on the idea, we woke on Sunday morning, talked it over a bit more, and jumped in to the project.  Matthew disassembled the bed, and stood the mattress and platform on their side to make room for the sofa.  I moved a few other things, and cleaned some long-unseen areas.

After settling Gabriel in the one clear, out of the way bit of floor, we picked up the sofa and carried it through the kitchen and into the bedroom discovered it wouldn’t fit through the bedroom doorway.  Didn’t see that one coming!  We spent a few minutes measuring the sofa, twisting and turning it in various ways, sure that there must be some way to get it into the bedroom.  Turns out, not so much.

I felt pretty dejected as we carried the sofa back into the front room — time wasted and idea derailed 😦  But we weren’t giving up that easily.  We did a bit more work with the measuring tape, and some more rearranging in the front room, making space for the bed along with the sofa.

The bedroom is basically The Dude’s room now, plus our dressers and bookshelves, and the rest of the apartment is kind of like a studio for us.  Between the move and some good spring winter solstice cleaning, we accomplished quite a lot.  The new arrangement looks kind-of odd*, but it’s only a stop-gap measure.

There are some downsides: the front room is brighter at night, and due to the jungle houseplants occupying the front window, there is no practical way to darken it; with our early bedtime these days, our downstairs neighbors are usually up, and using their front room right below us, when we’re trying to fall asleep; we’re a bit worried about the volume of crying during the nighttime wakings now that The Dude sleeps right above the neighbors’ bedroom.

Three nights into the new arrangement, I’m still adjusting to the bed being in new place.  I’m investigating a good eye mask to deal with the light issue, though I don’t how I’ll handle having something on my face all night.   Time will tell, but all-in-all I think it was a good move.  It was so easy to get bogged down in “things won’t be better until we have a bigger apartment” thoughts, when what we really needed was to think outside the box!

*I planned to include a photo, but the sunshine has not been cooperating.  Well, that and the fact that I am normally not home during daylight hours these days 😦