If Only I Could Fit My Desk In My Van

I have to admit: I'm busy right now. I'm doing stuff. And by stuff, I mean apartment hunting. Apartment hunting sucks. There, I said it. Apartment hunting sucks.

My biggest beef with the whole process (besides application fees) is how something looks/sounds perfect when I read about a location and see pictures online, then I go for a visit and the perfection bubble bursts.

Screw owning a home or renting, I want to live in one of these:

Kind of like living in a van down by the river, only in style.

Being the nerd that I am, the most prominent piece of furniture that I own is my desk; it's my workspace and my gamespace. It's where the magic happens. It's also nothing special; two filing cabinets, four cider blocks (eight to make it a standing desk), and one piece of finished plywood. There's also a shelf that mounts on the wall above the desk, but I might re-purpose that in the upcoming move.

Lifehacker has this flickr photo group that's all about showing off your workspace. I've wanted to put something together to enter into that photo pool, but I haven't had the balls. Plus, my workspace is always pretty messy. However, I have high hopes with moving to a new apartment that is my own place, allowing me the freedom to do what I want with my workspace and gamespace.

I haven't sketched anything up yet, but I'll probably take before and after pictures as I dismantle my current setup upon moving. Knowing the space beforehand will be key here. But that's hard to foresee until I actually visit some of the apartments in person.

One possibility is to use my desk as the entertainment center; with a twenty-three inch iMac and an additional twenty-three inch monitor it's totally possible. On lazy nights I lean back in my chair and watch DVDs on the iMac or play PS3 on the monitor. Doing the same on the couch wouldn't be that hard.