I’ve got another that I consider a luxury. Playing chess or cards with my wife. Inside in the winter outside in the summer.
Doing that is a sort of our internal signal to both of us that the day is done. We often then go downstairs and play darts.
Both are simple, and inexpensive. Chess, darts and cards are helping keep us sharp.
You just hit on something I was thinking about posting earlier.
The greatest luxury is spending quality time with an SO when you’re both in a great relationship and you both know it. What you are doing is almost immaterial. It’s who you are doing it with that makes it a luxury.
I’ve lived that good SO life, and I’ve lived the alone or bad relationship life. I’ve got the great good fortune now of being back in the good SO life. So luxurious even if we’re just sitting on a couch watching reruns and eating crackers.
It happens that right this moment I / we are riding home from 2-1/2 weeks of high-end fun together. Had I been alone it’d have been hollow hedonism for hedonism’s sake; fun, but somehow empty. Together? Luxury every minute.
I’ve mentioned this before, but when we bought this condo we had really hoped that with the new finished basement we could play video games together, in close proximity and at the comfort of our own desks. His desk and mine fit together perfectly in this little area of the basement (we call it the den. We have a den.) So his desk is in the corner and my home office area is adjacent and both are right near a window for good natural light. When we’re both seated, facing different directions, we are about four feet apart from one another.
This dream has been made reality, and I think it’s the best thing ever that we can play together. I think we spent only $25 on Grim Dawn and it has been a blast. The only challenge is finding time to play. So it really does feel like a luxury. And increasingly, time itself feels like a luxury.
Just out of curiosity, but is that a common set-up in your area? I’ve lived in a house with a finished basement (in Michigan, basements aren’t generally a thing where I am now in earthquake country) and I currently live in a condo. But I’ve never heard of a condo with a separate basement before, so I’m wondering if that is a regionalism.
However I very much agree that a separate space to relax in is for me a luxury very much worth having. For decades now whether as an owner or a renter I’ve insisted on having a minimum of two bedrooms so I can have a separate study. I don’t need a huge place, but there is somehow something mentally comforting to me about just having a separate room away from the bedroom.
Might possibly be related to having to unexpectedly move in with two established step-siblings (mild family drama) around 8th grade and being shoe-horned into Harry Potteresque-under-the-stairs back pantry-space converted to a teensy faux bedroom. I put in a good several years through High School in that little L-shaped cell without a door. But hey, at least I had a privacy curtain across the hallway 
!
I think so? When we were looking for a place (Michigan, Metro Detroit) we looked at quite a few condos with finished basements. It was the only real way to get the square footage we wanted for the price we could pay. Our finished basement is 500 square feet. We looked at others of comparable size but they had poles in inconvenient locations or otherwise just wouldn’t fit our giant sectional. Now we’ve got our sectional and TV in the basement along with both computer desks and all of our office stuff. It works because there is a 7-8 foot part of the room that is recessed by a few feet and we put a big square bookcase along the chaise side of the sectional perpendicular to the wall, so our basement is divided by the recession + the bookcase between a living room and an office area. There’s even a window with natural light.
Meanwhile, our ground floor intentionally has no television. I have big plans once we have furniture - none of them involving tech.
It’s so much better. The manufactured home we lived in was the equivalent number of square feet, and had three bedrooms instead of two, but we were all right on top of each other all the time. My home office was in our bedroom. This place is three floors - right now I’m alone on the first floor happily removed from my son watching TV downstairs and I’m not even sure what happened to my husband, but he’ll turn up eventually!
Missed this - yup. I had at one point two stepsisters and we all three shared a futon bunk bed and that’s about all that would fit in that 8x9’ room. I need my space and my quiet!
Ah, Michigan. Makes sense, I guess. I haven’t lived there since 7th grade (good…well, okayish old Ferndale) but it definitely was the land of the finished basement. Where I am most condos are in rather large multi-story buildings, though there are a substantial number of older converted homes that went from multi-bedroom house>flat/apt.>condos. But even homes here don’t have basements, heck the majority don’t even have crawl-spaces. It’s the land of the concrete slab.
But MY bedroom in Michigan was actually the finished basement and it was HUGE and PRIVATE and even was sorta en suite with it’s own toilet and sink (no shower/bathtub though). I loved it. Going from that to that damn pantry was a fairly shocking downgrade at the time.
I treat myself to a pedicure every once in a while. Massage chair, long foot soak, clipping and shaping the nails, free glass of wine or beer. Love it!
Oh, yeah, these are mostly townhouses. I don’t even think we looked at any condos that weren’t townhouses. They didn’t all have basements, but for a while we looked at only places with basements. Leaving aside the additional space, I feel safer in severe weather.
My husband’s Mom grew up in Ferndale. We’re not too far from there. It’s not a cheap area to live. We did look at places in Ferndale before my son was born but I think we’d be priced out these days. I love this condo but we’re definitely paying for location. We moved to be closer to my son’s new school, with the added benefit of an excellent public school if it doesn’t work out.
It was still a bit more working class (also very white and very racist) back in my day which was in the close of the 1970’s. Think the TV show Freaks and Geeks. My mother’s live-in boyfriend and most of their friends worked at Ford’s River Rouge auto plant. Royal Oak by contrast was much more affluent. But things do change - finding out Ferndale is considered a gay-friendly town these days boggled my mind.
I’ve had a few manicures and I hated them. I tried a pedicure once and I loved it. I really need to do it again.
You may appreciate this anecdote. Back in 2002, we visited my husband’s grandmother who complained “the gays are taking over Ferndale now!”
We were like, right, sure Grandma. Elderly people, am I right?
Then later we were cruising through looking at buildings festooned in rainbow flags and my husband said, “Actually, I think Grandma’s right! The gays do appear to be taking over.”
She came from a different time but when my husband’s sister came out to her, she was as loving as ever.
I did the No Kings protest in Ferndale last year and it was just the best.
Yup.
We retired about a year ago. We upsized from 1700 sq. ft. to 3400 sq. ft. We are home more and while we love our time together, we also have to have time to ourselves.
I worked from home in our new house for about 6 months before retirement, my office is now my space. My wife has the rest of the house basically. But as said up thread we still spend a lot of time together. Yesterday was a late lunch, Cribbage (she won), Chess (I won) and then downstairs for darts. The dart game went unfinished. Cricket can take a long time (at least for us).
I just want to make something abundantly clear – something that neither adds to the conversation nor enhances anybody’s edification:
I was born in Royal Oak’s Beaumont Hospital, then lived:
Ferndale meant F&M Drug and Mickey Shorr (car stereo).
So … Hey, Homies!!
Carry on, then.
@ricepad - I practice aikido and we use judo style keikogis plus hakamas (pleated pants) and I agree that the more expensive ones are more comfortable, plus more durable.
@Horatius we use wooden practice weapons, bokkens, tantos and jos, and the very best are the ones manufactured in Japan using white oak. Unfortunately, because we do full contact even the very best wooden weapons end up splintering or even splitting in half and need replacing.
The other personal luxury I enjoy is fresh brewed drip coffee, I bought a Technivorm Moccamaster KBT 741 machine about 15 years ago and it will probably outlast me.
Here is mine:
I installed it two hours ago.
First shower was one hour ago.
I’m still tingling with joy over how wonderful it is.
(didn’t hurt that I “forgot” to install the flow restrictor insert)
mmm
Yeah, but they are the best. My old iaido sensei used to make a lot of wooden weapons, and he always bitched about people expecting them to last forever, even if being used for full contact. I’ve got several white oak sticky-things myself.
Mmm, yes, those rainshower heads are amazing. I put one in my house about 5 years ago, and loved it. My new condo came with one already installed. I might never use another style.
I’m thinking about one. We have a big walk in shower with a built in bench. I sit down when I shower and point the nozzle at the bench, then I have to direct it back for when my wife showers.
I don’t think you’ll regret it. Mine was 80 bucks on Amazon, they do have some cheaper models.
I never set out to buy a rainy showerhead, never gave them a second thought. But my previous showerhead, which I was very satisfied with, broke and I bought the rain model on semi impulse.
mmm
