Floorplans!

I traced these (quickly and inaccurately) from the pamphlet given to me by the apartments we're going to hopefully move to April 11.

The one on the left is a normal unit, and the one on the right is a corner unit. Both have their advantages, and I don't know yet which one we're getting. I'll ask when I drop off the application.

(I don't know what kind of crack the person who drew these was smoking. You can tell that the living room on the right is bigger than the one on the left, but they didn't change the dimensions.)

All in all I like this design. It's shotgun, but it works. One nice feature is having the washer and dryer right in the clothes closet. How convenient is that? I also like that the second bedroom's bathroom is accessible both from the bedroom and the hallway.

The apartment they showed me was a normal one. It was sort of weird to have the kitchen right there as soon as I walked in, but I figure that could be softened maybe with a curtain or--dare I dream?--a noren. (I could have sworn I posted somewhere about noren before, but I guess not. Suffice it to say I've been drooling over them for years.)

I don't know if I want to hope for a corner unit. The kitchen is nice and compartmentalized, which I prefer to having two entrances, and technically it has the same amount of counter space, but there's less square footage and probably less cabinet space. That huge bedroom is neat, with plenty of closet space, but since we have zero possessions that's not really a huge selling point right now. Also, that coat closet stuck in the middle of the living room is kind of bizarre. I guess a couch or screen would have to go nearby to continue the illusion of a separate room.

Not having (m)any possessions is actually kind of a good thing, because rather than having to try to make various disparate pieces match each other, I get to start over essentially from scratch with my decorating.

Right now I'm checking out JapaneseGifts.com and other places that sell Japanese-style decor. Man, wouldn't a kotatsu be nice? So expensive though...

Speaking of expensive, check out this Complete Tatami Room Kit. いいな。。。

I'm not sure which room of this apartment I would do up in tatami, though. One of the bedrooms would make the most sense, but both bedrooms are already spoken for :> We already have a bed for the master bedroom, so no floor-futons. I don't know if Sean would go for that, anyway. And there's no way I would put a bed on top of tatami mats.

The second bedroom will be our office. We don't have any furniture for our office yet, but I imagine that room will be full of computer equipment, which wouldn't be conducive to a minimalist old-style Japanese room.

About the best solution I can come up with is to partition off an area in the living/dining room with screens. That would probably get awkward :>

Ah well, I'll probably need to save my dream of a tatami room for we get a house. But I can definitely put some Japanese touches in the apartment. Noren, screens, wall scrolls, ikebana-esque flower arrangements, zabuton...

...and maybe a kotatsu. I would sooooo love to have one :D We could use it as a coffee table!