Island Living

In mid-September we moved to a new-to-us apartment, in a new-to-us part of town. It’s in the Goodpasture Island area, which is not really an island but is mostly surrounded by water in the form of ponds, creeks, and the Willamette River.

From our corner of the complex, if you headed to the right of our neighbor’s black car and toward the red-leaved trees, you would come to the river trail. I’ll show you some scenes of that later. For now, come on in – I’ll give you a tour.

It’s nice to be on the ground floor for a change. Though we do hear our upstairs neighbors bouncin’ around (one of them is a young girl).

In our entryway, there are doors to our garage, our hall closet, and our laundry room. They are all messy and/or boring, so I won’t show you those, just know that they are there… and boy do I love them. Especially the laundry room! No more lugging baskets downstairs to coin-operated washers.

To the right is the kitchen. Notice the dishwasher, very convenient. Not so convenient is the fact that there are only 5 drawers in the entire kitchen, one of them is 4 inches wide, and the other 4 are narrower than 10 inches. Our nice roomy silverware tray wouldn’t fit, but no matter – BN crafted a custom one with wooden pegs. Other than that the kitchen is very nice, and has a bit more counter space and a few more cupboards than I’ve ever had before.

Here we are in the dining area looking back into the kitchen.

The dining table, which also functions as BN’s workstation since he recently got a laptop.

On the left is a collection of interesting knick-knacks and a painting that BN got in Haiti in 2000. On the right is the view out of our back door, where there is a covered patio that looks out on the communal backyard. A much more soothing scene than a track and a football field, don’t you think?

Now we move into the living room area.

I want you to take special note of my Christmas cactus, which has survived since my birthday last year – by far the longest I’ve been able to keep a houseplant. Here’s the view out of the window:

And the workstation / entertainment center. Note BN’s newest art piece – it’s angular wooden pieces that have been brightly painted and mounted on a fabric backing. He also built the frame, staining it to look like ebony.

BN created this batik-dyed panel last year. It’s nice to finally have a wall big enough to hang it on. Just past this is the bathroom (on the left) and the bedroom (on the right.)

Another batik project by BN. It wraps around onto the wall to the right as well.

The bedroom is connected to the bathroom via a closet/hall/vanity area. I love having a closet for each of us, but it’s kind of overkill for us to have 2 sinks, complete with storage. (Neither of us is the type to do a lot of mirror-facing prep in the morning.)

That’s it – if you went left into the bathroom, and then left again, you’d be back out in the living room.

Now let’s take a walk along the river.

This path is great for bicycling – it’s a lovely ride along the river and through Skinner Butte park to downtown.

I’ve enjoyed running the first few miles along this path, too. I’ll be sad when this lovely weather comes to an end – then I will be heading to the treadmill and weight machines in the apartment complex community center.