auradis

I’ve finally settled in to my new apartment in Sunnyside, Queens, and I must say it has been very enjoyable so far. The apartment is beautiful (photos below!), the neighborhood is charming, and my daily commute to Times Square takes literally the same amount of time as when I lived in East Village.

Here are just some of the benefits:

-There’s a trash chute on every floor, which means I never have to drag my garbage downstairs!!! THIS IS A BIG DEAL.
-Because I live in an elevator building, packages actually get delivered to my door instead of me having to make time for the post office’s inconvenient hours and long waits.
-I live much closer to the train station than I used to — 6 minutes walking instead of 15. The distance seemed reasonable when I lived in East Village, but when I went to pick up my deposit last week, it felt like forever.
-My new apartment building has a lobby. An air-conditioned lobby with couches and a coffee table. Before, I’d be forced to squeeze past delivery bikes or strollers just to get up the stairs. (One time, someone inadvertently wedged their bike between the door and the stairs and I literally could not get inside. That’s how tiny the space was.)
-I never, ever have to worry about being kept awake by noisy garbage trucks or barhoppers. Or my roommate’s crying kid.
-My room has a built-in AC/heating unit! I won’t have to mooch off the living room AC anymore! For some reason, though, my machine is in Celsius and I don’t know how to change it.
-I used to have to pay almost $100 a month in utilities and cable (WTF!). Now it’s half as much — and our Internet doesn’t get disconnected every 10 minutes.

I have only a few minor gripes:

-The laundromat is a little ghetto and always, always crowded. One-fourth of the machines are regularly out of order. (The upside is that it costs half as much as laundry in Manhattan.)
-Hardly anything is open late at night except for the 24/7 supermarket nearby. Oh, and Dunkin Donuts (ew) and White Castle (double ew).
-There aren’t any proper bakeries or ice cream shops. In East Village, I lived right next to Big Gay Ice Cream and Butter Lane; although I visited each place only twice in 10 months, I liked having the option. What I miss most is, of course, Macaron Parlour.
-I’ve traded well-dressed 20-somethings and celebrity sightings for old people and their grandkids. The quality of people-watching in Sunnyside is way, way inferior.

Anyway, enough blathering! I’m sure what you want to see are pictures, and I’m happy to oblige. You’re welcome to come visit if these photos don’t do enough for you :)

Sharp onlookers might notice some objects moving around in the following photos, as they were taken at different points throughout the past two weeks. Onward!

My room is unique for a few reasons. Firstly, it has double French doors (I’m just cursed to live with French doors — whyyy??). I believe it was intended as an office or something, because who wants their bedroom to have doors that are neither soundproof nor lightproof? Also, the switch for the ceiling light is located on the wall outside my room. Um, weird.

My closet is half the size of what it used to be. As someone with a LOT of clothes (half my wardrobe is still at home in Naperville), this is kind of a problem. And as you can see below, the closet space is also pointlessly high. In my previous apartment, the space above the closet was its own little cabinet. Now, I’m free to store something really, really tall up there. Great.

One bonus is that I have my own private balcony! The downside of that is that I’m not really a balcony-loving person…it’s just another way for bugs to get in. Last week, I killed a giant centipede near the bottom of the door (horrors!). That said, maybe I’ll grow some basil out there or something.

The previous tenant left a chair for me! Maybe one day I’ll actually use it, but the view of the parking lot isn’t exactly exquisite.

She also left me her bedframe, which I didn’t need but decided to stick with anyway because it’s nice and has drawers deep enough to store the rest of my clothes.

I still have some things in boxes, as you can see on the right. Still trying to figure out a place for those odds and ends — what I really need is a dresser! But they’re absurdly heavy and I have no car/money.

My nightstand has become a little makeup station. It’s not the same as having a full vanity where I can comfortably gaze upon my visage and brush my hair 100 strokes, but it’s nice to have everything in one area for my morning application.

Then there’s my desk — not much to say about it, but you might be able to tell that I’ve contracted a bit of OCD ever since moving to New York. I think it’s partly because I don’t have a lot of space to work with and thus feel like I have to control every inch of it, and partly PTSD from previously living in a hovel, but I have become borderline anal-retentive about keeping my possessions organized and wiping every surface with Lysol all the time. I really didn’t used to care about dust and disorganization this much.

The folding chair was kindly lent to me by my roommate Audrey, and I’m still deciding whether I’ll bother buying more comfortable seating in the near future. I guess it depends on how much homework I’ll have this semester, haha.

Get a load of my earring holder, which is one of the only things I’ve ever DIYed. (I’m not very crafty.) I put it in front of a random light switch that doesn’t actually turn anything on.

The most recent addition is my bookshelf, which B graciously carried more than half a mile in 90-degree heat from the Craigslist seller’s apartment back to mine. (I was in charge of carrying the 4 removable slats, which alone were embarrassingly heavy.)

I finally have a place to display my small army of nail polishes! I’ll sort them by brand and color soon…

When we hauled the bookcase in, my roommate Li commented that as a student, I must have a lot of books. Well, the truth is that I mainly needed space to store all my makeup and jewelry…my actual books occupy merely a tiny corner at the bottom. #NOSHAME #notilliterate

The rest of the apartment is a delight. There’s just so much more space, and everything was already nicely furnished when I moved in.

Under the TV to the left is the previous tenant’s piano, which she still hasn’t dragged away, so I’ve played it a few times while my roommates were out. Lucky me! The couch transforms into a queen-sized bed, quite convenient for overnight guests. The only downside is that the shared space has no windows, which is tolerable in terms of light, but provides poor ventilation if somebody cooks something smelly.

We have a fantastically long entryway, which means something very important to three women living together: lots of space for shoe storage!

The kitchen has enough room for more than one person at a time! What a luxury! I didn’t manage to get a very good shot of it but you can see the adequate counter/cabinet space and modern appliances. I can finally use a rice cooker now!!

Most important, there isn’t a damn washing machine parked in front of the stove. Oh, and no cockroaches. Always a plus.

The bathroom is what really sold me. It’s pretty impressive compared to most NYC bathrooms, and I am really into nice bathrooms. I’m a bathroom snob.

I finally have enough sink space to break out my fancy cupcake bar soap (gift from Adrianna)! Plus there’s a nice big mirror and medicine cabinet.

The rest of the building is just as pleasant. As I said, there’s a nice lobby:

Lastly, we have an amazing roof. Many apartments in New York have roof access, but only a few are finished.

From the roof, I have an outlying view of the Manhattan skyline. At night, its lights twinkle in the distance. And so far, I don’t miss living there at all.

Tagged: New York, NYC, Queens, Sunnyside

§ 3 Responses to A Fresh Start In Sunnyside

• a says:

  July 22, 2013 at 402PM

  Your living room is huge! I wanna read Whatever It Takes. The Surrendered looks really sad.

  Reply
• mrarr0gant says:

  July 22, 2013 at 634PM

  I’m ready to come visit and take over your couch lol

  Reply
• I’m A Bar Soap Convert | auradis says:

  July 31, 2013 at 1059PM

  […] I moved into my new apartment, I was surprised to see no trace of liquid soap in sight. Instead, a few limp shards of bar soap […]

  Reply