Revisit your favorite topic from the previous week.
(Describe your home.)
assignment 7
One of my favorite parts of my house is actually the lack of a feature.
The previous house had a lovely open entryway with the front door opening on the first several steps up to the landing. Just above the entryway an attractive chandelier hung from the second floor ceiling. It wasn't elaborate, but it was large and airy.
It also took up a lot of space and was difficult to maintain. There was a large window on the level of the second floor above the door. It had no blinds, so it let light in all of the time — especially in the summer, when letting in direct sunlight from a southern window meant letting in a lot of heat. It was also impossible to clean, leading to cobwebs and dust on the window sill. At least I could reach the chandelier while standing on the stairs.
The stairs looked very nice, though. The openness of the entryway, stairway, and main upstairs hallway was very pleasant.
I don't particularly miss that in the new house. The stairs go between the walls of the living room and bonus room straight up, without stopping or diverging. They're functional but pleasant, as far as functional stairs can be pleasant. As much as anything, they represent the house as a whole. They're not fancy but they do the job well.
After a few feet of ceiling (which protrudes into the master closet slightly to form a very nice place to store shoes), the stairs open up above to the second floor ceiling. There's a handrail on the left side and a lightswitch at the base which turns on a light at the top of the stairs.
As you climb straight up, you come to a set of double closet doors. This is the laundry room. It opens to reveal a surprisingly-wide room with a washer, dryer, and assorted cleaning fluids and devices on a set of shelves to the right. I've never owned a washer and dryer before, but I'm proud that the dryer has an internal light when you open the door.
There's a very high shelf in the laundry room — it's so high that I can only reach it while stretching. Someday I plan to find baskets that can hang on the clothesbar underneath the shelf. That would be a good place to store small hand tools.
To the right of the closet, two light switches control the upstairs hallway lights. One turns on and off the light at the top of the stairs. The other works the light just outside of the office by the master bedroom. This seems like an odd arrangement, but it works very well in practice.
To the right of the laundry room, the wall takes a forty-five degree hangle for a couple of feet before turning again at the doorway of the spare bedroom. The attic trapdoor sits just outside this room. Unfortunately, there's no hanging ladder. If it weren't so cramped in the attic, it would be nice to be able to store a few things up there.
The spare bedroom is somewhat small, especially in the closet, which shares the angled wall outside. It has a very pleasant view out of the single window, however. The south-facing window looks out over the deck onto the creek in the backyard. There are houses and a major neighborhood street on the other side of the creek, but they're far enough away that you can concentrate on the trees and water and plants instead. At night, you can hear the creek running.
This is one of two rooms that had working phone jacks upstairs when I moved in. Now it holds a speaker phone, an answering machine, an exercise ball, and a set of weights in the closet along with a small stereo, a box full of CDs, and several board games.
Continuing around the upstairs to the right of the stairs, the upstairs bathroom door is adjacent to the spare bedroom. (It's on a perpendicular wall.) This bathroom is small, with only enough counter space to hold the sink. It does have a full-sized bathtub and shower, however. The shower curtain shows a Parisian street in dusky reds and golds. It's nice but it was not my idea. (I have a blue shower curtain with pictures of Emperor penguins.)
To the left of the laundry room, also on a perpendicular wall, is my roommate's bedroom. Like the spare bedroom, it too is a little smaller than usual. It makes up for that by also looking out over the creek. This view is even better because it is easier to see the park from there. The walls are a tan or peanut butter color called "Desert Camel". Again, that was not my idea but the effect is very nice.
My roommate has removed the closet doors to give the room more of an open feel. They live in the spare bedroom for now, until they fit nicely in the garage.
The same wall holds the doorway to the office. Right now, the office has two large computer desks, one full-sized bookcase, a couple of chairs, and a file cabinet holding a laser printer. The closet has a half-height server rack with another four computers and two monitors and keyboards. It's full.
Originally, the room had bright yellow walls. They looked nice in sunlight, but became very dark and almost oppressive as the light decreased. Additionally, the top of the room had a wallpaper border featuring a toddler's circus scene. It was worth all of the effort to remove the border and repaint. We did a poor job on the ceiling though, missing several spots, so the near future holds a date with dropcloths and rollers.
The window looks out over the front yard and most of the neighborhood. If you look to the right, you can see the park.
Finally, on the wall just to the right of the office door is the doorway to the master bedroom. This room seems much larger than the other upstairs rooms. It's not particularly large, but it is roomier. I painted the top half of the room — the top half of the walls and the ceiling — a sky blue and the rest of the walls a sea blue. In the middle hangs a shaped wallpaper border with suns moons and stars. The effect is very nice.
The closet is the largest so far, with three doors instead of the normal two. There's more space than I need, but it has worked very well to stow boxes that need unpacking.
The single window in this room also looks out to the front of the house, over the garage and into the cul-de-sac. If I work at the desk in front of the window, I can see almost everything that happens outside in the neighborhood, including people walking up my driveway to deliver presents (delivery trucks) or to harass me (solicitors).
The door to the master bathroom is on the wall to the left, just past the closet. It feels larger than the upstairs bathroom (or the "other upstairs bathroom" if you prefer), but it has a small window outside looking to the neighbor's backyard, a shower stall and not a bathtub, and more counter space. Perhaps it is a little bit larger, but it uses space better.
I haven't yet painted the bathroom; it's in good shape as it is. I have a bigger temptation to paint the downstairs bathroom brick red. Why? I saw it once — it is a nice effect.