Welcome to the Grotto

As I mentioned in my last post, we bought a new home! The home shopping process was very casual, we had a year lease at an apartment so we wouldn't be rushed, so mostly online browsing and the occasional open house. Moving to a new city can make the home shopping process a little daunting. You don't want to fall in love and subsequently buy a house in a bed neighborhood. Or even a neighborhood that isn't quite right for you. With that in mind, we just kept an eye on Zillow to see if there was anything that sparked our interest, and also popped into a few open houses to get a feel for the typed of homes we were looking at. At one point Matt had convinced me that we could live in a high rise apartment on the waterfront. After checking one out, the allure quickly started to fade (only 1 parking spot!). Anyway, long story short, we found a cute little home that we couldn't stop thinking about and now we are living in it! Let's just get to the pictures.

This is the living room. It's open concept so this is the view from the kitchen area with room for a dining space in between. I think my favorite thing about the house in in this photo, the windows! I just love them and feel like my dreams of living in an Anthropology window display can come true with these babies. There's a wood burning fireplace as the focal point, and a cute but tiny spiral staircase that leads up to a loft area, which I'll show you later.

Looking back at the dining rooming kitchen area from the living area. The exsisting kitchen is slightly closed off due to cabinets, but we've got plans for days on opening this up. At the very back of the house there is a door to our back yard. A real one this time! It's still little, but there's soooo much more potential than our last baby yard.

Here is a closer look at the kitchen. It's tiny, that's why you can only see half at a time. At least it gets great natural light (when the sun is out. Hello Portland winter, good bye sun).

If you take a slow and methodical trip up the spiral stairs (they're tiny) you'll find this adorable loft space. It's just a funky little space that we think will be a fun little lounge area someday. Matt has a desire to get a record player and an Eames lounger so he can sit up in the loft an be sophisticated. So far our plan is 50% lounge, 25% hair salon! and 25% office area. The lounge area will be the main part where the railing is.

If you turn around you'll see another back door that leads onto the deck. That little cave-y area on the right will be the office area, and my salon chair and stuff will go in what is half way a closet on the left.

Now, take an even slower trip down the stairs (because they are terrifying the first time), and we can check out the bedrooms and bathrooms. First up will be the master. Apparently we have a thing for giant mirror closet doors. The nice thing is that it makes getting the whole room in a picture easy. This room is much smaller than our last bedroom. It's actually very cave like and dark, but I don't mind. That makes it easier to sleep in on the weekends. I think having the deck directly over our window contributes to the darkness in here. We would love to add some wood planking underneath, and maybe if it was lighter it would reflect more light into our room.

E may have lost square footage in our bedroom, but we definitely gained some space in the bathroom. And look, it's all in one space! I spent at least a day cleaning this space like a crack head before we moved in because Ew! I can handle my own dirt, but not other peoples. I even took off the glass door frame, scraped the old silicone off and reinstalled it just to be sure. Also, how do I get rid of the soap scum or hard water stains on the glass? I have tried clarifying shampoo, Bar Keepers Friend, some soap scum remover from HD, Cleaning Bubbles, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, a razor blade, and this weird Eco Stone thing made from recycled bottles that just seemed to scratch at it a little.

The guest room is toward the front end of the house and doesn't have the cave like qualities our room has. The window looks out the the front entrance. The wall is the exterior of the living room, you can see just a little bit of the window on the very left. I'd love to create a living wall to pretty up the view from this room.

This room has a decent sized closet, but those doors. Ew! I'm not saying I want more mirrored closet doors, but these are just sad.

And now for the final stop on our tour, the main bathroom. I don't really have anything positive to say about this bathroom. There is a laundry closet in there opposite the bath tub as well. For now, it is what it is.

Well that's it for now. Sorry I didn't take any shots of the back yard. Maybe if we clean up all the leaves back there and there's a nice day (#longshot). Oh, and stay tuned for kitchen updates. I'm not promising a timeline or anything, but things are happening!

Nikki Kelly