In the last week, some new things have arrived here at the Burrow, and it’s not just the pile of books you read about yesterday.

You see, we’ve been feeling a little cramped here of late. And by “of late,” what I mean for the last three years.

So, we made a couple of changes.

The old:

When we lived in Connecticut, I had my own full-sized bureau and Rudi used these drawers and a smaller bureau. When we moved down to D.C., we were forced to downsize and took the smallest and most portable of our furniture with us. Unfortunately, while we downsized on furniture, we still seemed to have just as much clothing as before

We shared these drawers and covered them with my sarong because the drawers were clear and I just couldn’t see how our visitors really wanted to be looking at my underwear when they first walked in the door.

But generally the clothes littered the rest of the apartment because we split this space — two measley little drawers apiece. One drawer for underwear and socks and one for everything else … Which left clothes on the sofa and the chairs and on the stool and …

So we upgraded to this:

The new:

As you can see, we each now have three drawers apiece — and they are made of wood! Cherry to be specific.

No more unintentional underwear flashing of our guests!

We weren’t looking for a new bureau. Neither of us knew how tired we were of the plastic drawers until we saw this hiding in a corner on the showroom floor. When we walked into the furniture store, it spoke to us.

The old drawers will shift into the bedroom and will hold overflow clothing and some bed linens and will help to alleviate a little bit of the crowding in there.

The cats have declared their approval of the new change. They like tall things and this now rates as the tallest thing in the Burrow that they can sleep on. And they have each taken their turns doing just that.

But wait! There’s more!

When the flyer from the furniture store that sold us our couch arrived and offered us lots of money off their stock, we knew exactly what we wanted to look for.

The old:

We’ve been hunting for something to fill this space for ages.

The problem with cats and small apartments is that there are cat boxes that need to fit someplace. If you put them in the bathroom, the litter tends to get damp after you shower and the whole apartment smells. And other than this nook in our living room, that was really our only option (and even that would only have solved half the problem).

So we knew we had this wasted space. And we’d been looking and looking and looking for something to work with it.

We needed something with shelves that started high enough up that the cats could still use the boxes. Like a high-boy, but affordable.

We were getting so desperate that we were contemplating building our own…

Luckily, that didn’t end up being necessary.

The new:

This was hidden in the back room of the furniture store. It’s a pie safe, made by the cousin of the store owner.

Immediately, we knew we’d found what we were looking for.

It was grown up, but quirky grown up just like us.

I was afraid it was too wide, but Rudi, who had done the measuring several times over, was confident — and correct. Widthwise, it fits perfectly and the litter boxes nestle between its legs, which are tall enough not to make the cats feel claustrophobic.

The chest fills up about two thirds of the nook’s height and there’s plenty of room on top of it for photos and heaps of books. Rudi would like to hide my stash of yarn inside it, but I’m sure we can fit some additional stuff inside it. My stash isn’t that big…

We’re very proud of our new furniture. Thanks for bearing with us while we share our photos.