Since moving in here, I've done a lot of little things. Unlike in college, my place didn't come furnished and didn't have tons of storage (I was freakishly luckily in college that the dorm rooms and apartments were built with students in mind and included all sorts of little areas to store things and hide stuff). During the course of my "modifications," I've found several things I miss that I used to take for granted.
-> A station wagon. My dad has a station wagon, and it's wonderful for moving big stuff. I haven't gotten anything off craigslist free purely because I don't have much room in my car (admission: it might help if I cleaned out my trunk. I could probably fit a bookshelf or a coffee table in my car if the trunk didn't have a bunch of stuff in it).
-> An extension cord. I live in a house of 6 people, and we don't own an extension cord. I can't even believe it. Once I finally get dressed today, I'm going out to buy a good 12-foot cord.
-> Power tools. I haven't bit the bullet on these yet, but at some point in time, I think I'll have to buy myself a drill and some sort of saw item. I'd like to build items of furniture (since I'm all picky), but I don't have anything to build it with. I also have very little acumen, so . . .
-> my dad is another item I miss. Aside from the company and family togetherness stuff, I miss having my dad to help me think about efficient ways to utilize space. I have a feeling that my room would flow much better if my dad had helped my put everything together. The room works fine . . . but it's sometimes hard to find my things, and I don't have a good place to store everything. I really want to find a space next year that would work well with more bookshelves, since another 7 foot bookshelf (in addition to the one 7 foot and one 4 foot shelves I already have) would really come in handy.
I'm back to continuing putting plastic on the windows. It's proven to be a big pain (mostly because the miniblinds on some windows cover the top bit of the sill, so I've got to do some work arounds). Some windows are too big for the plastic I have, so I'm trying to decide if I should buy bigger pieces or try and splice two pieces together. All this window nonsense reminds me of the last two things I really miss:
-> energy efficient double paned windows that keep heat from leaking out of the house (and, while I'm on the heat leak issue, it would be nice to have insulated walls. I didn't know it was legal to build a house without insulating the walls).
-> a programmable thermostat so that we could turn the heat down at night and during the day yet still have it decently warm for waking up and early evening.