I hadn’t posted any pictures of my first NYC apartment, because it was nothing special to write home about — roughly 370 sq ft, with a tiny bedroom off a combination living room / kitchen. The small, narrow windows looked out onto a shaft between buildings and didn’t let in much light. I shouldn’t complain though, since I don’t pay any rent (the true perk of being a hall director).

But thanks to a combination of events, I’m moving to a much nicer apartment (540 sq ft) in the building. I’ll have a smaller kitchen, but a bigger bedroom (so I can finally get a queen instead of a twin bed), separate spaces for a living room, dining area, and home office; and huge windows with a decent view of the Federal Reserve and street below. You can kind of see the layouts of my old and new apartments on these terribly not-to-scale building maps (I’m moving from 15G to 17E).

As much as I am excited, I’m also dreading the move. It’s only 2 floors up, but the staircase is narrow and twisty and the elevators take forever. But fortunately, since things are improving with my job and I’ve started to love living in the city, I’ll be content staying in this kick ass apartment for a year or two or three.

And now that I have an apartment worth staying in, I can start browsing the IKEA catalog for new furniture (and replace the standard-issue dorm furniture I’ve been using).