Position is an important thing to many residents; some lean toward apartments in the back, away from the noisy street; some vie for fire exit access but a place far from the internal stairwell, to avoid the constant noise of stomping feet passing by their thin walls. In these respects, Tau and Jed Leander had no standing or preference. All they wanted was something not too high up and with as much furniture as they could possibly wrangle.
On floor two, at the very front of the building, runs the modest length of apartment twenty-eight. It was abandoned without warning (and with a lot of back rent owing) by the previous tenants, meaning that it had two advantages; its meagre balcony was high enough to deter unwanted visitors but low enough for two were-shifters to use as a convenient exit and entrance, and it came with a single bed in each of the two bedrooms.
That was good enough for two cats from the forest.
With regard to the rest of their furniture, in the years that Tau has occupied the flat, he's managed to construct his own... unique furnishings. At first, everything he and his brother covetted came from the streets. Oddly (to them), businesses frequently left plastic crates outside their premises and they found - through quite a bit of ingenious manouevring - that stacking said plastic devices just
so, gave them the ability to achieve perfectly comfortable furniture constructed to suit. Milk crates, soft drink crates, bread crates... all were snagged and molded creatively to make a table and four chairs in the lounge area. Originally, instead of pacing, one of the brothers would often rearrange the furniture just to see what new design might come out, and neither was able to walk past an abandoned bit of plastic on the street, just in case they could find a use for it.
Times have changed now, of course. Since Jed moved out and returned to the wilderness not long after Tau began working for the Oligarchy, he was left alone a great deal of the time. The apartment saw him go through a great many emotions but once he settled into a focussed drive to prove himself worthy of Halen's faith and attention, many good things happened in his wardrobe
and his apartment.
Entering from the hallway, apartment 28 faces the road out the front and runs parallel to the alley down the side. The front door opens on a long space that is designed to be a lounge area and dining area, the latter indicated by the shoulder-height half wall that separates the 'dining' space from the kitchen... for surely the two go together. The kitchen is a square affair, counters running all around (empty cupboards beneath), broken only by the narrow entryway - between the refrigerator cavity and another shoulder-height half wall.
The two bedrooms have inbuilt wardrobes and run down the left side of the apartment. Tau claimed the bedroom closest to the front door, because it is the one that owns most of the balcony's length - though both rooms have a sliding glass door to access it. The bathroom is tucked into the back corner of the apartment (and the building, for that matter). It is an odd, pokey affair; the main room is closed off by a sliding wooden door, the vanity is on the left upon entering, a bathtub on the right. The shower cubicle is beside the basin, separated from the rest of the area by a regular, white painted wooden door (that always stands open). The toilet is exactly the same - in its own little room with a door, in the right corner.
So far, Tau has spent money upgrading all his clothes (nothing has a hole or misplaced thread any more, he sports the suits, slacks and shirts of a true professional), his bedroom and lounge room furniture and the accessories in his kitchen. His bed is large, wooden and solid, with matching bedside drawers and a dresser squeezed into the little room. He sleeps like a starfish in the middle of it.
The lounge room has a huge plasma television, a suede covered two seater and three seater couch combination (with floor standing surround sound speakers positioned appropriately) and the entertainment system to end all systems. The dining table and chairs are still plastic crates but his kitchen now holds a patterned dinner set with crockery plates, stainless steel utensils, a capuccino machine, microwave and toaster.
He has designs on a decent dining suite and one of those fancy refrigerators that have an ice dispenser in them next (though not the silvery ones... the coating surface just makes him nervous).
Here are some approximate photos of what Tau's apartment now looks like (though the bed seen in the middle of the dining space, the bookcases around the room and the sophisticated dining table and chairs are
not there):
The lounge area, looking towards Tau and Alacer's bedroom (sliding glass door and security screen leading to the balcony beyond)
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The lounge area looking towards the dining area and kitchen with the children's bedroom barely visible to the left
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The spacious (if a little daggy and old fashioned) kitchen
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The combined laundry and bathroom: washing machine and tub to the right, vanity to the left, shower ahead and left, toilet straight ahead, both areas having their own doors for privacy
