mskyle's Profile

I also have no outlets in my bathroom (well, one shaver outlet built into an ancient light fixture... I have not worked up the courage to try it). And I just got back from a trip to the UK where it is apparently standard to have no outlets in the bathroom (for safety, I guess?).

As others have said: set up a vanity area in the bedroom or hallway or wherever is convenient: this will be where you dry/style your hair, charge your toothbrush, etc. It can even just be the top of your dresser or a shelf on the wall. It doesn't have to take up much space.

Likewise for the kitchen: set up a "small electrics" area as close to your kitchen as possible. If you have room for a microwave cart or rolling island, that's ideal because then you also have a nice workspace at which to use your small electrics. Keep the little appliances near the outlet where you plan to use them, but probably you won't want to keep them all on the top surface all the time.

Also, some appliances may just not be worth it for you. Toaster: you can make toast in the broiler if you pay attention. Kettle/coffee machine: use a kette on the stove. Microwave: YMMV - necessary to some, easy to eliminate for others.

But really, avoid extension cords if at all possible. They're ugly and dangerous.

I keep out-of-season clothes and my Christmas tree under my bed and I feel zero guilt about it! Yeah, it gets dusty under there, but given my cleaning style it would get dusty under the bed regardless.

I have way less cabinet and counter space than that in my kitchen and I can cook just fine. I edit my kitchen stuff MERCILESSLY, though. Don't keep anything in the kitchen that you don't use regularly. Like, I have two pots and two pans. It's almost always enough (and it keeps me from letting dishes pile up in the sink).

A general suggestion: think of the kitchen as a workspace or the cockpit of a plane. Store things close to the places where they are used. For me, this means colanders hanging near the sink, pans on the wall near the stove (like I said, I don't have much cabinet space).

In general, when I moved in to an existing household/roommate situation, I went with whatever they had (be it no cable or splitting the cable bill); I never found the cost to be worth making a fuss about, and if the $40 or $60 or whatever it is *is* a big issue for you, I think ideally you should have been up front about it before you moved in. If you actually can't afford it, obviously you need to talk to your roommate about that. Otherwise, I think you need to suck it up, except for maybe the sports package. But again, there, you have to decide whether half the cost of the sports package is worth making a fuss about.

I'm trying an experiment in my kitchen... I do store some food on open shelves but I'm trying to store only the healthy food on the open shelves. It's not so that people think I eat healthier than I do! It's just so that the healthy food is in my face and the chips are out of sight.

I have a gateleg kitchen table that is always extended to its biggest most open position. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Wow, elankat, that would turn me off roommates too! I've had over a dozen post-college roommates (good lord, have I really?), including strangers, and I've never had problems with them not paying the bills. I guess I am either lucky or have a supernatural ability to screen out deadbeat roommates! Or possibly I'm the deadbeat... I did have to ask my last roommate to deposit $50 in my checking account while I was on vacation so that the rent check wouldn't bounce (but I paid her back as soon as I got home!). For me, roommates have been necessary and occasionally great, but they definitely make it difficult to decorate. When your roommate already has the world's most hideous couch or wants to jam every kitchen gadget in the world into your 10 square foot kitchen, that can cramp your style.

As far as advice for first apartments, I say don't wait to have nice things! Yes, the nice things you can afford/are responsible enough to take care of in or just after college are not the same as the nice things you'll have ten or twenty years later, but some people I know seem to think that you're not allowed to decorate or own a non-futon couch until you've got a single-family home and a spouse. Don't live in a hole just because you're 22.

Oh, and, don't bring things into your home that you don't like or need. And don't pick up mattresses off the side of the road, you're better off sleeping on the floor.

My Great-Aunt Ruthie's solution to bats in the house involves a badminton racket and a paper bag... she would use the badminton racket to stun the bats, then scoop them up in the paper bag to take them outside. You haven't really lived til you've seen an 85-year-old woman smack a bat with a badminton racket. (Personally, I prefer eiw's close the door and leave the windows open plan.)

Once I had a squirrel get into the laundry room by crawling up the dryer vent (the outlet for the dryer vent was on the second floor!). That little bastard scared the heck out of me; I thought he'd found his way out on his own, then all of a sudden he scrabbled up the back of the washer and peeked his little squirrel face over the top of the control panel! Eventually he found his own way out, though.

I use something very similar to the typecase - button boxes from a buttons-and-notions store (Windsor Button in Boston - they have switched from all-wood boxes to cardboard and they sell the old ones for $5 a piece!). Good for displaying souvenirs (from my own travels and those that others have given me) and all those little things that can't quite stand on their own.