Kitchen redo and a bit of history

This year our complex is going to be torn down.

Rightly so too.

It is very old and was never meant to last more than a decade.

Here is one website's description of Butler Apartments...

"Married students live in this village called "Butler Barracks." These temporary buildings were built in 1945 for WWII veterans... The University later took over these barracks to accommodate married graduate students."

This article is my favorite about our housing complex.

(One of my very favorite families here is the family on the first page!)

I absolutely love this part from the intro...

"...when Charlie Duke *63 brought his bride home to 221D Halsey St., she took one look at it and burst into tears. At 216B Halsey, Andrea Singer ... had the same reaction a couple of decades later.

Things would soon brighten, however. In story after story, residents get busy sprucing up tatty places with paint and curtains and, in the spirit of improvisation, ­jury-rigging copper tubing to feed kerosene to space heaters. “We solved the problem of an overflowing pan under the icebox by drilling a hole in the floor,” recalls “Petey” Funk s’50 *52 — who need not have fretted that Butler would be torn down before her husband finished his ­education."

Now in 2014, they are finally coming down.

I'm a bit upset about it, since I have grown to love this place.

First of all, I find the history of this place so romantic.

Newly married couples set off into the world together will big dreams...

only to find themselves at a beat up little complex. 

Wives cry and husbands feel insecure,

but with their love and determination, 

the community becomes something special and unique in the Princeton community.

Then they move out and laugh at the thought that they ever lived there.

Photo from Here

:)

The other thing I love is exactly what that paragraph talked about...

since it's going to be torn down...no one cares much what you do with it.

We are poor enough that our creativity has to be reflected in our home or as it says above

"the spirit of improvisation."

That's exactly what I've been doing here and since there is no "fretting" about keeping it nice,

I have had so much fun playing with my own creativity and trying new ideas.

So last week I told Matt that I was ready to rearrange the whole house.

He smiled and gave my birthday present early.

It was exactly what I've been wanting in the living room,

and it's such a sweet present.

But anyway, I took down all the pictures from our living room wall.

Matt was a bit upset that they were no longer hanging,

but I had an idea inspired by these...

Here

 Here

So I stuck all of the pictures on the kitchen wall instead.

Matt at first hated it and said it reminded him of an old folks home.

But then later that night as we washed dishes together,

we talked about the photos and our life and goals.

It was really wonderful moment.

I really like it.

We'll see if it gets on my nerves since it's such a small kitchen,

but that's the beauty of living in Butler,

no one really cares if there are a hundred holes in the wall

or if I get bored in a month and take it all down.