Okay, how about this?

I’ve lived with Apartment Arrangement Option 5 for two weeks now…and I’ve decided I hate it.

My goal was to create comfortable home bases for me and Sean while expanding seating areas for visitors. What ended up happening was Sean would sit on my couch to play video games or watch DVDs. If you remember, I moved his area to be against the wall. That ended up being fine for using his laptops, but not for just relaxing, so he’d lounge out on the big couch when he wanted to do that. I like sitting next to him, don’t get me wrong, but if he feels like stretching out, there’s no room for me.

Another problem is that the loveseat, along the wall next to him, became a dumping ground for stuff while serving zero purpose in terms of seating. It turns out it’s just awkwardly placed, with no decent views of anything.

Yesterday I came home to find Sean and his dad sitting on my couch, and that made me fully realize how inconvenient the layout is. The couch offers the best view of the TV, so obviously guests would want to sit there…meaning I probably get cut off from my laptop, which I don’t really like moving around.

It didn’t solve the problems after all; it just shifted them.

I’d been unhappy for days, but that galvanized my need to do something. So I went back to my Photoshop file and messed around some more. A lot more. Until eventually, finally, I came up with Apartment Arrangement Option 10, a revision of Option 5.

See how Sean and I will have our own departmentalized seating areas? But we can both move to the main couch, directly in front of the TV, and snuggle together if we want. It’s the best I could do, given our ridiculously narrow living room with its inconvenient doors and bizarro closet jutting into the room.

Sean’s agreed to try it, but he said “Not today”. ;> So we’ll see how this does, here in a couple of days. Wish us luck :>