This two-room apartment of mine is really pretty great: A bedroom with lots of storage, two skinny little less-than-twin beds, and a table for sorting things. A well-functioning bathroom. A loft space that I’ve blocked off with fabric and use to store anything I don’t want to look at or use. And one big, high-ceilinged room with a cozy couch, long work table, room for my bike and more kitchen space than most of the kitchens I’ve seen while here in Italy. And I can clean the whole place in about 10 minutes!
When I’m home, I spend most of my time at the table, working at my computer. For the first few months, the lack of light was putting me to sleep, so I rearranged the space and put the table in front of the tall french doors. I also bought some inexpensive but bright lighting which gives me daylight at midnight if I want it. What a difference it made in my energy level!
Here’s an introduction to my “view” out of the french doors while sitting at my desk. I can look upward through the scrolled bars and see the plants in the neighbors’ terrace above me. Nice to see the green! I hung a sheer, white curtain at a 4 foot height so that I’m not in such a fish bowl. I’m on the ground floor and people walk right past me as they go down into the garbage room below me.
If I look up from my desk and too the right, I can see a patch of blue sky. I hadn’t realized how important it was for me to see the sky. Until I put up that 4 foot sheer, I had the full-height curtain closed all of the time, and I felt so enclosed! With the sheer, short drape, I can look out and still have privacy.
My french doors actually face out into a tight, dark cubby. The afternoon light hits my windows for a short time each day in summer. In winter, the light is nil. In this photo, my bathroom window is to the left, and the window at my kitchen sink is to the right of the french doors.
The bottom floor and part of the second floor of this building complex are filled with offices. The windows open up into this courtyard which serves as parking for workers and the few residents. You can see my neighbor’s garden terrace. It really is a bright spot for me.
I live on Via Bordighera, a couple miles south of my beloved Duomo. This shot (below) looks north on our dead-end road which stops at the train tracks a half block north of my apartment. That’s my bedroom window circled there. They park the glass recycling trucks on the street right outside my bedroom window when making their collection. The mural on the south wall takes an otherwise bland face and dresses it up.
These two apartment buildings sit askew on their lot and are surrounded by trees. The birds love this lot, so the neighborhood sounds like an aviary, believe it or not! I’m thrilled by the prevalence of the bird song.
Street signs are typically made of slabs of marble, about a half inch thick.
This is the intersection at Via Bordighera and Via Imperia: my neighborhood, looking west. All the buildings at this corner have their corners chopped off, so it creates a wide, octagonal intersection and cars park every which way. I buy my water and chat with Enza at their little shop on the corner at the farthest left.
From this intersection, I would turn around and go one block east to the Naviglio Pavese (canal) that I love so much. It’s SO close!
This is where I live.
