prologue.

I naively did not listen to my mother when she said to me: "Sam, there is going to be a time in college when you live in a really crappy, cheap place." Surely, I thought, it would never get to that point.


Well, now it has gotten to that point. What's that old saying? Mothers know best? Or...


All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.  

[Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest]

Well, in the true spirit of becoming like my mother, I am taking this crappy, small, cheap, and currently cold studio apartment and making the best of it. I have roughly the same amount of space as my freshman dorm, and somehow I have acquired loads more of possessions, but I can make this place snug as a bug in a rug, and with much more flair. 

Because as "crappy" as this place is, there really is a lot of beauty in it. Sure, the fact that the house was built roughly around 1910 makes it creaky and oddly proportioned and climately challenged. Yes, there are quirks about the electricity - like the fact that I can't run the coffee maker and microwave simultaneously without blowing a fuse. Of course I will have to deal with the musty 'old' smell. But the place is well equipped with very charming aspects as well: the 10 inch white floorboards and wide white trim around doorways and windows, the built-in yellow vanity in the bathroom, the oversized and older-than-life-itself tree outside of my window. 

This blog will be an exploration of how to live in a little place but with limitless expectations. I will reveal how to cook in the tiniest kitchen known to man, how to creatively furnish a bedroom/living room with no couch or bed, and how to deal with grandma's favorite pastel yellow tiled bathroom (that happens to also be carpeted). I think most intriguing will be the adventure of fitting all of my things into this cubbyhole and keep it from looking too cluttered. 

Because friends, I have big plans. I want to try cooking gourmet things, I want to do yoga in the morning, I want to have friends over to share a meal or a good conversation. I want a space that will nurture me on my journey, that will take care of me during the sleepless study nights and the slept-in summer mornings. And I will do this all in my little, limitless place.

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Coming soon: a couch bed!