Unpacked and In Need of Organizing...

Our apartment is finally starting to look like our home again. Almost every box is unpacked, and even better, everything fits! We lost lots of storage space when we moved from a townhome to an apartment. Luckily, we got rid of some bulky items, like the lawnmower, before we left CA. And some things, like our cats' stuff and extra chairs, fit into a small storage cage we get that's around the corner on our floor. We have just enough space on the balcony for our grill and table, but they're in pieces until the snow disappears for good. We still need to do some work to organize and make the most of what storage space we do have, but for now things are in a semblance of order and it's enough.

The living room is by far the most finished, since it's where we spend most of our time. The movies were the first things put away and organized. My dear husband has his priorities after all.



After we piled all the boxes then lugged them all down to the garbage area, we had a little nook of space in the dining area. I stuck a spare folding table there and it's turned into our little laptop charging station. I usually move my laptop to the kitchen table so I'm not facing a wall, and Jeff usually grabs his and takes it to the couch, but it's a handy space to stash them.



The setup of this room was actually pretty easy since there was only one way to situate our couch and entertainment center. That big empty wall will soon have some type of collage on it. I'm still working on what I want to put in all the black frames I have... I don't want it to be picture overload. I'm in no rush, although the bare walls are pretty boring.


The bathroom is done, because it's a bathroom and doesn't take much. We hung a curtain, some towels, and stocked up on toilet paper and were good to go. I have some artwork for in here, but it's actually the exact same shower curtain cut up into frames, so I don't think I want the same pattern all over the place. That's a little overkill.




The bedroom is pretty plain right now. We don't have much furniture for this room because all our clothes fit in the closet in CA, and they do here too. (Although just barely, and only when all the uniforms are in the spare bedroom's closet.) It was another easy room, since the bed could really only be put one way.



I'd love to get a nice big dresser to match our nightstands and make the room feel fuller, but without an overflowing closet, there's really no need. We have some plastic storage units and put our folded clothes in those, and hang the rest. It works out well that both of us prefer simple clothes, and don't buy many of them. Easier to move with!



This is another room where I have things in mind for the walls, but I'm not sure how I want to put things up yet.


The office is the only disorganized room left. It's the least used room right now. When we were in CA, I spent hours in the office working on papers and exams for my degree. We had a desk and bookshelf and all the little office supplies I wanted to have on hand to over-organize things. Now, I don't really need any of that. We set up the desk with Jeff's desktop, but he usually uses his laptop now that we bought new laptops for both of us recently. We bought another bookshelf before we moved, so we set those up and filled them immediately with all our books. I alphabetized and plopped them on the shelves, but they're not "pretty". Jeff and I also disputed over how to organize the books, so we intend to split the collection into "his" and "hers" so we can each organize how we prefer. The boxes are full of the office supplies and misc. items that we don't really need at the moment, so we haven't worried about.



Since Jeff intends to start taking some college courses soon, I suppose I should start organizing all those pencils, pens, calculators, and papers that are stacked in boxes. Not to mention, our book collection is almost as impressive as our movie collection (they're both forever growing, check back in a few years and we should be buried in our collections), so I want it to look as neat and impressive as our movies do. Our movies need work too, since they're overflowing from their bookshelves, but we can't agree on a solution and that's not the point right now...






So that's the house as is more recently. It's organized enough to feel like home again, but too plain for my liking. All these empty walls! Oh well, I'm sure things will change soon.

Not much else going on around here. It snowed pretty heavily the past few days, so we're staying close to base this weekend. The Japanese roads are treacherous in the snow, since they rarely plow and don't salt. At least on base the plows are running as soon as the snow hits! I've got plans to explore some more on base, and then we're meeting with some people from work to check out the "Misawa Idol". I've never been a fan of Idol, but I figure it'll be a few laughs and some good company.