Urban Camping, or Home, Sweet Home

WOWE. Excuse our absence, but we’ve been BUSY MOVING IN (!). That’s right, since the clock has run completely out we had to pack ‘er up and move on out, even if, to date, we don’t have a (real) kitchen, (real) shower, etc etc. (AND thank ye thank ye Ma, Bean & Jay for all your supreme lifting skills on that lovely 100 degree day!).

We moved nearly all of our stuff to either a broiling storage unit, or the sidewalk, where it was quickly snatched up (happily).

Our house is still a construction zone, and stuffing it with unnecessary items would be a  mega pain as ‘we’ continue to build.

After getting the most needed items into the house, we made a trip to the store for some new home essentials-

Are these not the top of your new-home-moving-in list? Solar shower (sounds way cooler than it actually is), coals, small propane tanks, lighter fluid… the entire contents of essential gear was located in the camping aisle at Walmart. OH SNAP.

Doesn’t she look like she’s enjoying that (too much)? I was SO pumped to take my first outdoor shower with that plastic bag of heated water, whilst doing my best to remain a lady amongst all my new neighbors.

Just kidding.

BUT GUESS WHAT? It didn’t even matter. I returned that ish unused because Drew is the man. I came home from work on my first real day in the house and he was busy making this:

He took any and all leftover scrap wood and built a real outdoor shower. 

..complete with a floor-

..and shampoo bar AND magnetic light-

The shower is pretty sweet. The first few days at the house I just stood in there and sniffed because most of its made of cedar, which I just lurve.

I know I’m being all rose-tinted about this, so here’s an outer view of it. It’s not so cute from this view, but it still smells just as nice. It was placed in this spot because it’s over a drain. He’s so smart, that Drew.

The outdoor shower is working insanely well for us because we’re mired in a heat wave. The outdoor shower, despite boiling heat wave, is still extremely cold. The water is run from a good ol’ fashioned hose, rigged up and hung with a showeresque facet. I mostly screech a lot while showering and goosebumps make shaving impossible. HIPPIE DAYZ.

We’ve got a toilet & a utility sink hooked up already, along with a mini-fridge, so those essentials are covered.

I don’t love crawling from bed all doe-eyed & sleepy to brush my teeth in the basement every morning, but it does the job besides. I’ve also become extremely attached to Neutrogena face cleaning wipes because after teeth scrubbing I’m pretty much o-v-e-r the morning basement scene.

This is our kitchen-

That is to say, vatos non-existent. We’re awaiting our cupboards to be finished, and as it turns out, cupboards are pretty much a kitchen staple. Instead we have kitchen stations-

And how we cook the wee bits we’re actually able to store in our mini-fridge..

Isn’t he cute? Drew didn’t really think so during this heat wave. So after about a week of crouching down and cursing cooking over this lil’ guy,

we went out and bought this hunk o’ steel- 

It’s made dinner time a lot happier…..

So that’s how we’re getting by. As for the rest of the house, it looks as such:

 

We’ve made the bedroom as liveable as possible, including buying some super cheap carpet from Home Depot to lay down over the subfloor. Yeah, because our 2nd story is still all subfloor, except the Ma’ble bathroom.

I’ve pretty much shown all the downstairs already, but our beloved jades make it a bit more lovable in here.

And Drew’s record collection made it into the house move because the storage wasn’t climate controlled.

OH, I should probably mention the paper purple floors. Drew started sanding/staining, but had to stop because um, we had to move in. So we covered them with rosin paper to help protect our half done floors. Not sure how/when they’ll finish getting done (it’s a pretty smelly/chemically process and we can’t live there during it).

We are utterly LOVING being in our home, despite it’s half-baked state. I love walking to my new subway stop, the new coffee house a block over, the rad Mexican taco/beer bar dos blocks away, the tasty lunch spot Drew discovered, the Irish bruncherie 4 blocks over and the 360 degree view we got of fireworks from our roof on the 4th as they splattered across the Philadelphia sky. 

The first night we slept there was ALSO our 3 year anniversary. Isn’t that sort of sweet and cosmic seeming?

I’ve got a ton more to tell, like how we stopped in the middle of final moving day to shoot a music video, and how another day I had front yard of shirtless men slaving over the cornice, and how the loveliest Polish man is currently stuccoing the biznatch out of our house, but alas, another day. We JUST got the internet hooked up, so I am hoping to churn all these going ons in the next few days. For now, a girl’s gotta rest XX

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1. themegatronicshome reblogged this from hammeringourwayhome and added:

   making it work until it’s ready.

2. hammeringourwayhome posted this