| As I was finishing up at Active Moving, I was also looking for a new
place to stay. In considering where to live, I considered walking distance from @Once, but they are in the center of downtown Portland and rents were way to exepnsive. Within bicycling distance there were older places, but they were more expensive (a little) and didn't include things like parking. So that left me with close to public transportation. I decided to stay in Washington as they don't have a state income tax (so no state tax on my investment income) and I won't have to change my driver's license (would have to retake the hazard materials test which is a hard test that I would have to study for) and car registration (and I had to get an exception to get my Washington registration). I finally decided on Autumn Chase and a studio apartment, J5. The entrance to J5 is to the right just under the stairwell shown. |
 |
| Here is the side view of Building J. My apartment is on the far left and back a little (but not the back one which is hardly visible). |  |
| Just across from my studio is the apartment pool and hot tub so the scenery might be interesting in the summer. My patio is in the center of this picture with the pool area just to the left of that. The community center is in the left of this picture. |  |
| Just across from building J is the mail room. |  |
| A bit further up the road is the rental office and community center. The pool is just behind this building and my building is just behind that. This complex had the greatest appeal to me and I think that is mostly because of the big pine trees. Most of Vancouver was developed from farm land (I surmise), but this land must have been forested and they seem to have built the complex around the trees that they could save. It gives a really nice feel to the place. |  |
| It is about a block along the back of the complex to the main road and then another block to get to bus stop where the commuter buses to downtown Portland stops shown here. You can also get there by going to the left of the community center and that takes you out beyond the Days Inn in this picture. As an aside, this is the Days Inn where my family stayed for the wedding back in August of 2003. The return bus stop is on the left and is covered while the outbound stop is just a sign on the right. |  |
| So now let's go on a tour of my studio apartment (before I moved in and it got all cluttered). This is the kitchen area. Once I chose the apartment complex that I wanted to stay in, I then had the choice of a studio or a one bedroom apartment. Most of the apartment complexes in the area had no studios, only one bedroom apartments. |  |
| Once I knew I had a choice, it was a tough one. The studios were much smaller and the rent was only about $100 less. I personally have no need of the extra space or the division between living areas, but the division would be nice if I had guests. What to do?... I finally decided on the studio as having less space would encourage me not to get a lot more stuff.... I even wrote up a rambling tale with my thoughts on accumulating more stuff. This is the area next to the kitchen. There is a small patio area beyond the sliding doors. Beyond that are bushes and then the pool. |  |
| This is the entrance to my studio from the kitchen. The raised area just inside the door seems a little strange to me. You have to step up a step to get in and then step down shortly thereafer. How odd. Notice the stacked washer and dryer unit. They are most convenient. To the right of the laundry area is a walk in closet. Nice and spacious for my clothes and my tools.... After much thought I decided I should go for smaller as that would encourage me to continue to get rid of stuff rather than accumulating for stuff. |  |
| This is the view of from the sliding doors. To the right of the picture is the bathroom (just to the left of the laundry area). It is positioned such that I couldn't get any good pictures of it.... I like my little apartment very much. It has been nice sorting through my stuff that I put into storage. However, my apartment is still a little cluttered; I hope to soon be on top of the clutter and be able to take pictures of how it looks now that I settled in. |  |
| Well, by the end of November 2004 I have finished unpacking all my stuff. Here is my bed. It is an air mattress ($10 at Wal-Mart) that is regular single mattress size. Quite comfortable. The base is four wooden boxes that I made in Maryland about 25 years ago. They normally are queen size, but here I used three as the base for single size (a bit long) and one as a headboard). They have stuff stored in them. The sheets and comforters were presents from my mom. The plant hangers were presents from the orphanage in Korea where we helped out (30 years ago, I hope to scan in the slides and add them later). The plants are descendants from a gift from friends in Maryland. There is also the quartz heater which I got almost thirty years ago (based on recommendations of my Aunt Emily). Of course I have had to fix it a couple of times, but it works great. It is nice to heat the section of the apartment where I am (and there is just me) in the winter. |  |
| Here is my kitchen with my little puja (gifts from friends at the ashram in New York) in the corner on the left and my thrift store microwave on the right (works great) and a few plants along the windows. As I live alone I really don't have enough dishes to warrant using the dishwasher, so I generally leave my clean dishes on the towel on top of the microwave to dry. |  |