New House!

I have a house!

Yes, an actual house, not a shipping container propped up on wooden blocks in an RV lot. Life is good already!

The little cottage is owned by the Cape Cod National Seashore (from hereafter to be called The Seashore, as the locals do) and once I start my paid position rent will be regularly deducted from my checks. It has two bedrooms but Paige won't arrive to occupy the second until mid-June so for now I live alone, which is not as scary and intimidating as one might assume.

The house is near the Cape Cod Rail Trail, which runs behind The Seashore's headquarters, where I'm currently volunteering, and the Salt Pond Visitor Center, where I'll be for the majority of the summer. It'll be a lifesaver once the real heavy traffic hits - avoiding that by staying on the bike path whenever possible will be a blessing for sure!

Please allow me to give you a tour.

My street. There is a patch of bumpy pavement right when it turns off the main street.

Okay, just because it's not a trailer in a lot in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean it's in polished suburbia.

The exterior, from the front.

Think what you will, but I love the weathered gray siding. It suits a beach house perfectly, if you ask me!

My screen room - it's very large!

The screen room is the entrance to the house. It is also where I will be spending a considerable amount of my summer evenings.

The entrance to the house.

I have a quite a large entrance room. It's an odd open space that I'm a bit unsure what to do with. Then again, at home my friends and I sit on the kitchen floor when we hang out so I can image that is the purpose this area will serve.

My bathroom.

It may be tiny, but it: 1.) is indoors; 2.) has a tub; 3.) is MINE! Whistler was my first communal bathroom experience (Johnson & Wales spoiled me with in-room bathrooms), and I intend to make it my last.

My tiny little kitchen.

Okay, so I admit that I didn't know that they even made ovens that small, and that it's completely bizarre that there are no drawers (can you believe it?), but overall I'm very satisfied with my little kitchen!

The dining room. (Please note the lamp).

Yes, there are only two chairs pictured here. There is a third chair, but I'm using it at my desk. The majority of the summer only Paige and I will be here anyway, so I'm not overly concerned with the lack of seating just yet.

My bedroom. (Does the lamp look familiar?)

It's a decent sized room, and there's even enough space next to the bed for a twin air mattress. My dresser is in the left corner of the photo, and I have a large closet with a few shelves to the left of the door as well.

The living room takes up the entire back half of the house.

There are quite a few chairs, but the space is still too big to be filled properly. (See the lamp?)

Comfy couch

I tried to make my couch area as homey as possible. It's delightfully comfortable, but I need to remove the back pillows if I want to lay down without falling off - they're quite large.

Do you see the lamp in the corner? If you've been counting, you know that's the fourth identical lamp in the house. I saw the inside of another NPS house a street away - more big white lamps. They must have bought them in bulk before they were discontinued. They are too freakishly large to be so omnipresent, and the radius of their light is disappointingly small. What gives?

My desk.

I need to be working on my Honors research thesis this summer, so it was important for me to create a workspace in the house. Fortunately, this large table was sitting awkwardly towards the side of my obnoxiously large living room, and the chair from the dining room suits the height ideally.

The living room ceiling.

The exposed wooden beams, and that tantalizing mystery cabinet, are two of my favorite features of the house. By the end of the summer, I WILL climb up and peak behind those ceiling doors. I'll just have to be weary of spiders when I reach the top of the closets...

 I have a fire pit!

I have to actually look through the housing manual to double check that I'm allowed to have a fire, but I'm assuming the fact that the previous tenants indulged in this glorious summertime activity is a good sign. There's also a wood pile at the end of my driveway...Okay so it's across the street at the end of my driveway, but that house is an NPS house too, so I'm thinking that the wood might be fair game.

Welcome to the Creepy Forest.

Pictures nor words can do justice to the creeptastic trees that occupy my backyard. They are twisted and scraggly and half dead, as if someone tortured them for some unspeakable evil deed they committed. They shed pollen EVERYWHERE (my screen room floor was completely coated with a blanket of yellow treedust), and litter the ground with pine cones. Trust me, they are creepy. Fortunately none are close enough to the house (although there are recent stumps inches away from the screen room) to rub against the house on stormy nights like in horror movies. My friends assure me that by the end of the summer I will love and embrace the creepy forest, but I'm skeptical of this notion.

So there you have it, that's where I live! I'm excited to experience the quirks of this old house, and enjoy living on my own. Nevertheless, I'm still anxious for Paige to join me in this grand adventure.