Why is this a big deal? Thereby hangs a tale...
The story starts about a year ago, when the kids finally convinced me that we needed to move out of the construction zone that was our former apartment. We toured a bunch of apartment communities -- and when I say "a bunch," I mean nine or ten. The list of potential apartments took some serious research and planning, nearly all of it done by Amy. What made it tougher than your typical apartment search was that we were looking for a three-bedroom place -- or at least a two-bedroom with a den -- so each of us could have a real door we could shut. (In the old place, we'd used Japanese screens to make a bedroom for Kitty out of the dining room.) A second bathroom was also on our wish list, as well as access to public transit and a short commute.
After all that work, after touring all those properties and looking at our preferences...we had zero properties that all three of us liked. We reconsidered our criteria and decided to go back to a couple of places that could work if we worked at it. One of them was this place, which was awesome in nearly every way -- except that the den, which someone would have to sleep in, was an interior room with no window. (Which is why they couldn't call it a bedroom, I suspect. Bedrooms have to have two means of ingress and egress in case of fire.) Other than that, it was a great apartment. I mean, the location is stellar and the kitchen is to die for.
So guess who fell on her sword and said she'd take the den?
I didn't think having no natural light in a bedroom would bug me as much as it does. But I recently realized I've been doing a lot of knitting -- way more than I've been writing. And it's partly because the knitting chair is by the big window in the living room, and my desk is in my bedroom. Once I figured that out, I realized Something Needed to Be Done.
I think you'll agree when I show you these. Here's the before picture, a.k.a. The Cave:
And here's the after, a.k.a. Sunshiny Day:
The extra lamp made a difference, but the real key was the type of lightbulb I put in it. I picked up a pack of GE's Refresh LED bulbs, which are billed as providing energetic daylight. "Recommended for home offices," the package said.
"Sounds good to me," I said.
I expect I would be less thrilled with this "energetic daylight" thing in the lamp next to my bed. But at least now I'm looking forward to sitting at my computer. Who knows? Maybe I'll even get some writing done.
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I'll bore y'all with a knitting post next week.
Oh, one piece of housekeeping: Google Plus is being dismantled, and one of the first casualties is the G+ comment plug-in on blogs like mine. So hearth/myth is back to the native Blogger comment system, which has never worked particularly well. Apologies for that.
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These moments of well-lit blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.
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