The Tree House

A couple of years ago, my apartment building was purchased by a new owner.  There was a lot of discomfort at first amongst the residents here because of the trend in our area towards turning tenants out with 30-day notice, gutting the building, and then doing a complete renovation.  Much to the credit of the new owner(s) and management company, that did not happen.  In fact, they have bent over backwards to work with all of us, and two years almost to the day, the renovation is done and everyone is resettled without too much of a struggle. 

In my case, after chatting with our wonderful building manager, I was given a chance to take an apartment on the first floor (with a deck no less) while my former apartment on the second floor, where I had lived for six years, was renovated for a new resident.  Now, I loved my apartment on the second floor and felt some ambivalence, but once I saw these, I never looked back:

Oh yes, a real live tree canopy right outside the deck.  It reminded me of a tree house at first, but I also realized how lovely the shade from two big trees would be (shade was paramount at the time because I moved into the new apartment over the 4th of July weekend, the first days of our hottest weather), plus they provide excellent shelter for the various urban animal friends that I enjoy so much to come and visit:

As the year deepened into autumn and winter, I felt some sadness at losing my perfect tree house canopy, but have also found interest and beauty in all the tree changes:

Like I said, those changes are beautiful in their own right, but still, fickle girl that I am, this is really what I'm glad to see right now:

Those pictures mean spring is here, summer's not far behind, and maximal time can be spent in the outside tree house with my two favorite deck pals: