Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Over the next few months, a group of seven bloggers will be sharing their workspaces, their homes, towns and more!

Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!

Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Julia at When the Girls Rule
Lisa at Midlife in Bloom

I have moved a lot in my life. 15 times. Six of those in just the past 10 years. And three of the recent six have been someone else’s decision. Either “you can’t stay here,” or “I’m selling, you can’t stay here.” All of which has made me a little slow to really unpack and settle into a new place. Cuz who knows how long I’m going to be there.

I say all that to explain somewhat why, after being here eight months, I’m still not fully unpacked or organized or decorated. I haven’t found the box yet with artwork. Very sad.

Also, I’m lazy.

I considered rushing around getting things more unpacked, organized, decorated, cleaned, etc., before preparing this post, but I realized, THIS is how I actually live. THIS is what my home actually looks like. I don’t live an Instagram life, with perfectly styled rooms with a marble-top coffee table and Moroccan rug and rose gold candle holders.

But for better or worse, I’m going to show you my home today. A sort of “open” one-bedroom underneath a private home. The house is set on and into a hill, so part of it is technically basement and part is at ground level.

I have a nice patio outside the front door, which, in the winter, has a view down to a pond below if you stand in just the right spot. In the summer it is mostly hidden by leaves. And that’s lovely…but it also brings mosquitoes, which means you can’t really sit outside much during the summer and enjoy it. But it is very useful for photoshoots when I can’t get to somewhere more scenic.

You enter into the living room, which is a nice change from the past few apartments, where the entrance was in the kitchen, which I don’t like. It’s a roomy living room, with a “dining alcove,” which is currently the “junk drawer” alcove, where I’m storing things I’m selling on ebay, as well as boxes and bags of packing materials, large tubs filled with clothing and linens, folding tables and camera tripods. It’s a mess and it’s the first thing you see when you walk in the front door, but at least I have a place to keep most of the mess somewhat contained, if not hidden from view.

The whole apartment is pretty dark. The several windows are set sort of high on the wall, especially in the “basement end” (kitchen and bathroom) and the house is surrounded by large tall trees that block some light. I miss natural light. Natural light (and air flow) feeds me. I hate having bright lights on so I live in dimness most of the time.

From the living room, you go up two little steps to the bedroom/office area. The wall between the living and bedroom areas is shuttered, and I keep them open all the time to allow as much light as possible to flow from room to room. There is a short hallway (maybe 10′?) as you go up the steps on the right, with two closets. One is under a staircase and used for storage (yay storage) and the other is the clothes closet. The clothes closet is good square footage but an awkward arrangement – long and narrow vs. wide. I prefer a wide closet. But still, it holds a lot.

Right at the top of the steps to the left is my “office” aka “the bedroom wall furthest from the bed.” I have an antique (read: crumbly) vanity as a desk, a lovely plastic filing cabinet, my scale for ebay shipping, and a small bookcase that holds listed ebay items and mail, as well as a surface for photographing ebay items. When I’m at my desk, I’m facing the open shuttered “window” that looks into the living room. It’s nice to not just be facing a wall, especially considering this is where I spend most of my time. I’m a desktop computer girl, not laptop. The computer is my home-base.

There’s a window on the wall between the “office” and “the bedroom,” where Janey likes to sit. Since this is where the ground starts to rise up the side of the building, the window is actually at ground level, and there often are birds, squirrels or chipmunks right outside, at eye level.

The bedroom is just sort of open, it’s not a dedicated room with four walls…but there is a 3/4 wall between it and the kitchen. Which is good.

The kitchen is smallish and dark, with only one window high up on the wall, a real basement window.  And it’s wood-paneled, adding to the darkness. But there’s decent counter space and room for my little 1930’s metal-topped kitchen table that I use for ebay packing…and just to hold junk. I never sit there to eat. That would be depressing. I eat either at the computer, watching a YouTube video, or on the sofa in the living room, watching tv.

Then there’s another short (6′?) hallway leading to the bathroom. There’s a very large, shelved closet in the hallway. It holds kitchen overflow, boxes that have never been unpacked, cleaning and bathroom supplies and Janey’s litter box. It’s nice when that can be tucked away out of sight.

The bathroom is non-descript with old school tile walls, a high-up basement-style window and a very small shower. I desperately miss having a bathtub. A good, deep bathtub. Other than a small mirror cabinet (isn’t there a real name for that? I’m drawing a blank) over the sink, there is no storage, so, for the time being, I have two more plastic storage things. It’s quite chic.

The apartment is cool in summer (but a little damp) and warm in the winter, so those are good things. I only used the ac in July and three weeks in August. Normally it’s on from Memorial Day to Columbus Day and many more nights all throughout the year (I sleep hot).

The landlords live above me but they are quiet and spend most of the time in the end of their house that is not above me. They’re very nice and have helped me out when I’ve needed assistance with things like getting the air conditioner in the window and getting my car up the driveway in the snow.

Since the house is set on a hill, elevated from, and not facing, the road, it’s practically hidden from view, and the only neighboring house I even see is the backyard of a house sort of sideways and far from me. So it is VERY quiet. I really prefer hearing (and seeing!) sounds of life: kids playing in the street, ice cream trucks, people out walking their dogs, etc. As much as I can appreciate being surrounded by nature (it’s very tree-y), I do feel a little isolated here. My natural tendency is to be a little (read: very) reclusive and it’s way too easy here for me to just stay hidden away in a place where no one really sees my comings and goings.

Rents on Long Island have gone through the roof and continue to rise. I’m paying 35% more now than in my last two apartments, and that hurts. But most apartments on Long Island are in people’s homes and most home-owners don’t allow pets in their apartments. So Janey and I have a very small pool to choose from, and at least we’re not in an actual basement and we have an actual kitchen and I’m not sharing a bathroom with strangers.

So, for now, this is home. Welcome.

I’ve made a little video…