a little bit ago I was in a spot where everything was closing in on me. turns out it was mostly decisions needing to be made and the lack of those decisions resulted in things piling up around the house. I shared a bit on our two month home tour post here.
this is the longer list of all of those decisions that need to be made. although we were pretty aware of what we were signing up for by moving much smaller there were still quite a few things that never crossed our minds until we settled in.
I understand these are not life or death things and they can and will be figured out...and they're still getting to me so I'd like to share...because that's real life.
NO AIR FLOW IN LOFT
we knew we'd be using window a/c when we moved in and we were used to that when staying at our cottage the previous years. what we didn't realize was how much hotter the little loft would be than our living room...even though they're not very far apart. there's no window we could open to get a cross breeze up top. there was a window a/c already in the loft but it felt kinda gross to having it blow directly on top of our heads and who knows what kind of critters were making it home after all those years.
during the hottest days we would kinda dread going up the loft to go to bed because it would be a solid 10-15 degrees hotter. the humid days, sleepless sweaty nights and grumpiness that comes with being consistently hot and sticky helped make the decision real quick. we had a mini split unit installed [ductless heat and a/c] and it might be the best decision we've made since coming up to michigan. the lux of temperature control from a remote definitely embraces my suburban side.
NO HOME FOR THE VACUUM
I hate to clean and I've realized how much the energy of a dirty space effects me. before moving I could easily ignore the need to clean by going to another room. no such option now. when I don't have a clean space I start to get irritable and so now I vacuum daily, sometimes twice a day. we bought a stick vacuum and it ended up sucking and not in a good way. so that meant our traditional [kinda bulky] vacuum was now a mainstay and needed a home. great. it lived in our closet room for a while but I could tell that wasn't going to work. it was a magnet for all the clothes and towels. it was like we were trying to see how many things we could hang on it before it fell over. I did a tiny bit of rearranging and it feels good to have phase one of a dedicated spot for it.
FEELS LIKE NEVER ENDING CAMPING
this one might be a bit dramatic and its how I feel. this place is adorable and there are lots of little creves that seem to have neon welcome signs above them for all the little critters and creatures outside. I'm a huge nature lover yet this current setup is a little too fluid between my space and nature.
we knew we'd have to deal with sharing the home with a few mice but I didn't understand how annyoing these adorable little creatures were gonna be. I grew up around corn fields so I'm no stranger to seeing mice...and I was a kiddo that didn't have to deal much with them. we've only lost a packet of oatmeal and an oven mitt to them but it's the idea that they can be literally anywhere that drives me bonkers. this was confirmed when I was cooking, using all the stove top burners plus the oven, and one jumped out at me. he obviously got a little warm and decided the open room with the human and the dog was a safer bet than staying in the oven. it was a chaotic situation filled with lots of screaming and forrest knocking lots of things over chasing the dude. he got away and I'm not looking foward to when we meet again.
the mice plus spiders and the sometimes ants that visit...they're not overwhelming but it's that it feels like its always something has me feeling like I'm camping in a really fancy tent. when we get new floors installed I think a lot of the crevices will be sealed up. and over the winter we will address the ones in the storage area and loft.