One Year Downtown
Yesterday (February 1st) marked one year of living downtown. This time last year, I was settled into a mostly empty apartment on the St. Clair Mall. After about a month, I finally had any of the furniture I might need.
One of the more memorable parts of getting furniture involved my couch. I spent a Saturday with my parents in Lexington, shopping at various discount furniture stores to find the perfect couch for my budget. I found the one I wanted and we packed it onto dad’s truck and came back to Frankfort. After getting the couch into the building, we found that it wouldn’t fit in the elevator. Then, it wouldn’t fit in the stairwell either. It was wrapped in bubble wrap, cardboard and other packaging, but we didn’t want to take any of it off, for fear that the furniture store wouldn’t take it back. We (my dad and I) finally came to the conclusion that we simply couldn’t get the couch up to my apartment.
It was a learning lesson. The fine print of the furniture store receipt said “no returns or refunds.” I ended up buying a love seat at a store in Frankfort. The original store was able to give me a store credit, so I purchased a recliner with my credit, and later returned to buy a night stand for my bedroom.
My apartment is all the space I need (for now). It’s an older building and it could use some work, for sure. There are occasional louder-than-normal vocal noises for neighbors (arguments with significant others, mostly). The elevator is a bit scary at times. The fire alarms tend to go off, randomly, in the middle of the night. I sometimes have to park a few blocks away because of lack of parking around my building. Despite all of this, I’ve really enjoyed living downtown.
I can walk around the corner to a coffee shop. In the summer, I can walk to concerts on the old Capital lawn, or take walks around downtown. I can walk to local restaurants (one of my favorites, Gibby’s, in particular). I can watch the Expo fireworks from my apartment. All in all, I wouldn’t live anywhere else right now.
