Basement Living

Our adventure out West has required us to give up a few luxuries. Namely, our own home. We left our wonderful 1700 sq. ft. brick sanctuary behind and have replaced it with...an 800 sq. ft. basement apartment and a 5x10 storage unit. This has not been an easy transition. We lived in a smallish duplex our first year of married life and did just fine. One room served as a storage space and we had a quiet neighbor, so no real inconveniences popped up.

If you new our brick sanctuary well, you were aware of the ample amount of storage space. It was like the previous owner knew we would need lots of places to stick hardly ever used belongings...and we did. We crammed that bad boy full of mementos, trinkets, tchotchkes , and junk. We cleaned house a great deal before moving cross country - we were ahead of the game.

The we arrived at our basement dwelling....it's small.

Hubster and my Pops came out first with a giant Penske truck. Some of our furniture actually made it into the apartment, some went to Goodwill, and some went to the storage unit. Our lovely red living room set was sent away never to be seen again - I miss my couch. The reason, of course, is the couldn't fit down the narrow hallway leading to the basement. I digress.

Anyhow, now that we have very little space, we have become super streamlined in what we use and it's kind of nifty. There is an IKEA like 8 minutes from our house - so, it's dangerous, but inspiring. Hopefully we'll make the space work. The noise might be another issue all together.

We live below a large family of six. I have nothing against large families, my sister has a family of 7, but I wouldn't want to live underneath them - you know what I'm saying? We don't need alarms - we wake when the kiddos do. We know when it's dinner time - b/c there's a bit of a stampede to the dining room and then they proceed to move heavy furniture around the house for an hour or two. Just kidding. It is loud and for the most part we have adjusted.

Carter Dog seems to enjoy having children who want to play with him all the time - and we don't mind having a few little dog sitters either. The family is also SUPER nice and goes to our church, which outshines any small inconvenience. It's pretty much communal living at it's best. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out as hub's studies for the Oregon BAR get more (if that's possible) intense, but we'll cross that bridge when it comes.

My sis and mom have been asking me to post pictures and I honestly would, but it's kind of gross and cluttered and I am ashamed. Maybe if enough people post requesting photos, I'll do it out of peer pressure.