I bought a key rack and screwed it into the wall above the counter with a Phillips screwdriver. I used a level.
With the help of some needle-nosed pliers I fixed a broken towel ring, and then attached it to the paneling left of the sink.
I bought matching towels, hand towels, rugs, and that cute little furry thing that goes on toilet seats. All charcoal, soft and calming against the white porcelain.
I hauled a faded leather couch over from a neighbor’s place, in the sliding glass door to the living room.
I bought an aloe plant and named him Alfred. I adopted the plants left outside by the previous owner and water them every day. They don’t have names yet, poor bastards.
A friend of a friend, a 30-something lady with the faintest whiff of a Southern accent, helped me lug a futon from my pregnant friend’s house (she can’t lift anything over 10 pounds, per doctor’s orders), out the window, down the elevator, across town, up my elevator, into my room. She told me about her two munchkin kids and kindergarten-teaching job on the drive over.
For three bucks at the used book store three blocks down the street, I picked up a hardcover copy of The New York Times Practical Guide To Practically Everything, over 800 pages worth, and put it on my living room coffee table.
I swiped my debit card at Target to pay for a pair of combination padlocks and snapped them onto the front of the two storage containers in front of my parking spot in the garage. (Code: 39-13-19. For both.)
I arranged my vinyl records by bands, with the groups that share members next to each other, and then by original album release date, and put them all in the white, wheeled nightstand I bought in the as-is section of Ikea.
I lit my room with billowing, beige lamps, plugged into the outlet that turns on when I flip my light switch.
I portioned the top shelf of the skinny pantry for recycled bags — plastic and paper and even tote. I bought a magnetic knife strip. I was graciously given salt and pepper shakers with little gauges to adjust the size of grain they grind.
I am, in short, enjoying my quiet life of domesticity.