Temporary Home

For the next few months (and by few I mean they gave us 60 days), we will be staying in a corporate apartment in the company's mansion. I shall tell you about the mansion because it's pretty cool. And then I will tell you about the apartment because it's crazy small. Shall we begin?

Ze Mansion - our place is the two windows on the ground floor on the left near the front porch.

I shall quote the brochure:
Known as the McCord Mansion, the building is included as one of the homes on Historic Mansion Row which is on the Nationan Historic Register. It is also individually included on the National Historic Register. The home was built by Robert McCord during the Civil War period and was several years under construction. One of the buildings behind the mansion was the carriage house, and the building adjoining the property was used for varying purposes. The home was reported to have been involved with "Underground Railroad" activities during the Civil War. The house was renovated in the early 1980s and has all of the original oak floors, crown molding, baseboards, some original hardware, and some of the frescoes have been preserved.

I shall now tell you about our apartment, and I shall do so with pictures.

 Won't you come in and walk the 7 paces to the fireplace? The chairs you can see on the left are up against the wall and the table you can see deep right is in a nook next to another wall.

The living room. Too small for a real couch, they at least have 2 very nice, plush chairs.

Welcome to the dining room/Deg's office. The table barely fits in that space. I am taking this picture from the back of the kitchen - that should give you some dimension perspective.

Speaking of the kitchen... here it is! No dishwasher, half of the cupboards are facades only, and the microwave is one that can convert into an oven. That's all, folks! I was standing next to Deg in his "office" when I took this...

This is our bedroom. The bed sits three feet from the side walls. The "closet" is a hanger rack that's up against the wall. We are using our suitcases (which are on the other side of the bed) as drawers for now. Did I mention we're on wood floors and the bed is on wheels for some reason? Good times, good times!

The crowning jewel is the bathroom. The shower has a giant window in it that is opaque but still kind of creepy. The shelving in there used to be in my kitchen, but it's now being used for all our bathroom necessaries. Why is it sticking halfway into the shower area? Because it is literally up against the wall. There's a sink (no shelves) and mirror just past the door on the right. Speaking of the door on the right...

That's where they've hid the toilet. Deg is demonstrating how that works (lucky us). It's so narrow there's no room for a toilet paper roll. If you were a tall person, you might hit your knees on the wall in front of you while sitting to do your business. Deg's feet are literally on the wall in front of him.

Analysis: this beautiful, high-ceilinged, old house was amazing back in the day. The apartment we are in was probably used as a great front room for entertaining and probably had a piano. Behind it (where the bedroom/bathroom are) was probably a ladies' drawing room, if it was anything separate at all. Regardless, this was not originally built to be a bedroom, let alone an apartment. All I know is, this is hilarious and will be quite the adventure. Seriously, I wish you all could come over and see how funny it is. We are grateful to have it, though, and recognize the blessing in having a home, even if it is a temporary one. But will we ever be grateful to get out!