JoannaC's Profile

I have done it two ways. Once, I set up the bed away from the wall and used two bookcases for the headboard. Then I could tuck the desk behind them and have a sort of room within a room. And currently, I did get it out of the bedroom by moving it into the kitchen. I have a neatly arranged shelf with some odds and ends, and the laptop on the kitchen table. If company comes over, I can just move the laptop. I do have a very large closet in the bedroom and have thought about converting a portion of it into a desk area, but I am not very handy and so have not done this yet.

After a very traumatizing flood (while the landlady was in China for the summer and I was all alone!) I vowed I would never live in a basement again. I am on the third floor now, and every time it rains, I look out the window and thank g-d I am not still in the basement!

I just had a very sudden hard drive failure (total failure) and was VERY glad I had all my stuff in Dropbox. The thought of reconstituting my 900-book ebook collection from scratch gives me hives :) I paid for a slightly bigger Dropbox account, and I may not have ever needed it, but a time came where, just like with insurance, I did need it and boy was I glad I had it!

As for future-proofing, I buy or download only formats which I can liberate from any DRM shackles and convert into something usable and convertable. Epub, which is really just a bundled HTML file, is very easy to work with and I figure if something else comes along, it won't be hard for someone to write a converter program for it and I should be able to migrate my stuff with minimal hassle.

I am not a huge music or video person, but I love my books! I just don't have the space for a library in my small apartment, so ebooks let me indulge to my heart's content without worrying.

Ugh. Way too cluttered. What I would have done with ceilings that high is 1) gotten a lofted bed from Ikea and outfitted the bottom with Billy bookcases and baskets for storage, and a couch in front of it 2) put a parson's table along the wall where the shelf with clothes is now (i.e. opposite the loft set-up I'd put in) 3) transferred all music and movies to a computer set up on said parson's table 4) replaced all the books with digital versions and gotten a Kindle or Sony reader.

In a space that small, there is no need for a TV. Make the computer your one entertainment and use the precious storage for clothes and other necessities.

I have one in my bathroom and I have another in the office area where I store cables for all my computer peripherals. I love the rolling shoe idea.

I currently have my laptop set up on my kitchen table (no other place for it; it wasn't working in the bedroom) and I really feel like I am 'working' in my kitchen. I wish there was a way to make it feel more homey and less like 'sitting at my kitchen table.'

"I am enough, I have enough, I do enough."

You could do it this way:

- Use the 'two twin beds made up with cushions to look like a couch' idea. Daytime, corner sofa. Night-time, double bed. Set-up can be changed by just pushing them together.

- No books, no TV, just a media centre/computer in a nice wall unit. Watch TV on-line, rent dvds, download music, buy an ebook reader and manage your library digitally. All the entertainment you could ask for, on a hard drive.

- Make a DIY closet out of cabinets with doors. Put a tabletop on top of it, and get some high stools. Voila, table for six.

So, put your table/wardrobe as a room divider parallel to the kitchen, put your media centre on one of the walls and arrange your bench/couch/bed opposite. You could totally do it.

Books. I just don't have the space. I kept my cookbooks and a few shelves of other favourites, but converted nearly all my fiction into ebook form and bought a Sony Reader. Now, I have 500 books in my Sony library and they take up no space :)