The place I call home is an apartment in a hundred year old brick heritage building in down town Victoria BC in the Design District. I loved this space from the moment I laid eyes on it and was over the moon when my husband called me at work one day to tell me that our landlord had accepted our application as tenants. We've lived here for the past three and a half years and during this time I've had a blast making the space our own, one piece at a time.
One interesting feature in the main living space of our apartment, is that is has a built in folding wall on hinges, which creates the option of having an additional room with privacy or an entirely open space. For the past three and a half year we've lived here with our bedroom tucked away in the optional room, walls folded out. We always wanted to try folding the wall back and opening the room up to join our sleeping, living and dining areas but it took us a long time to get around to it because we enjoyed the cosiness and privacy of our bedroom and we knew that making the change was going to be a lot of work.
Recently when feeling the need for a change and somewhat ambitious, we decided to go for it! And now I can't believe we didn't do it sooner! As we predicted, the improvement was amazing. The space is so much bigger now, and easier to live in; it's easier to move around in and to clean too. It's also a real treat to be able to lie in bed and see the whole apartment and the windows, and talk to the other person from bed if they're in the kitchen or the living or dining spaces.
I've also come to the conclusion that walls and bedroom privacy are not as important to me as I thought they were. After all we live alone and although we do have the occasional house guest who will sleep on our sofa or the fold out bed in the office, they're few and far between and usually they're close friends or family :)
I'm glad to say this rearrangement has given me one more reason to enjoy our space, and one more thing to share on the Government Street Blog! I only wish we'd done this a long time ago, but perhaps there's a lesson there. So here's to positive change, and to actually doing the things that we say we're going to do!
I was a bit concerned that the folding wall was going to look out of place in the room when folded flat, but with the bed pushed up against it and the big blue painting (by the very talented Seattle artist Elena Korakianitou Pors) hanging above it's actually not that bad! It almost feels like it's a headboard.
Yes, Potato knows she matches, and she knows she looks good...
Our smaller television, which was previously mounted in our bedroom closet (we had to open the closet doors to watch it) now hangs on the wall in the photo above and sits at a much more comfortable watching distance from bed. Life is good!
Here's another angle of the open space. Pants Boy's on the table looking suave (as per usual) and Pelle is throwing up the dubs. I love you Pelle.
One more shot of the new, bigger, brighter and better space!
