Our Condo

We are still going to own our condo even when we move into our new house.  With the way the market is now, we wouldn't get very much if we tried to sell it.  Not that we have to make a killing or anything, just that it would be preferable to not take a loss when we sell it.  So for the next year (or maybe two, just depending) we are going to rent out our condo.  (I posted previously about our rental search)
I thought I might post the pictures we took of our condo as it is now....maybe someday down the road I will miss it and want to look back at how we had it set up and everything.  It is, after all, the place we brought our first born home to.  :-) 
So here is a mini tour of our home now (I resisted the urge to type 'a mini tour of our mini home'....guess I did it anyway, haha). 

Our living room.  My uncle made the built in bookcases and I will definitely miss those in the new house.  Wish we could bring them with us...but they are in there pretty good!  I have had a dozen different configurations of couches and chairs....this seems to be the one that looks the best, but doesn't offer a ton of seating.  And with no windows I always kept most of the lights on to keep it as bright as possible. I liked that on big football weekends we could hook up the tv from our bedroom on the other bookcase and have two games going at once! 

This is the sun room, that is just off the living room. (I am taking the pic from the couch) It has been so many different things.  First, it was an office with a desk and some book shelves.  Then I had a love seat against the window.  After that I put my treadmill in there....it was pointed towards the living room so I could see the tv while I worked out!  And finally, it is now Sophia's playroom.  I used to pull the gate across (and there is another gate that is pulled across to keep her out of the dining room) and leave her in there to play while I worked out in the living room (to a dvd or fitness program with On Demand) or if I had to do some chore that didn't need her help.  Now I don't bother caging her in so much, she'll just stay in there to play on her own anyway. 

The dining room...the wall with the small mirror used to be a half wall of mirror...it was unattractive and we had it removed when we did renovations.  Usually our table is half covered with stuff and in the corner you can't see we have a stack of boxes to move to the new house, haha. 

The kitchen.  Small, but serves the purpose.  I am not a gourmet chef, by any means, and sometimes I feel like we could use a little more cupboard space but there is a nice pass-thru over the counter on the right side (that you can't see) so it has a more open feel than you can tell in this picture.  I had to buy the fridge when I moved in....so I just bought white to match the other appliances that were already there.  In our new house we will have a bigger, double door fridge that I am excited about.  Guess it doesn't take much to excite me, huh?

The first room you get to is Sophia's.  She has two good sized closets (and believe me, they are both full of her clothes).  She is still in a crib, but we already bought her big girl bed for the new house.  I think I will probably put both the crib and the big girl bed in the new room and just slowly transition her once we move in.  I have to take her paci away too (which she only sleeps with) so I don't want to force too many changes on her at one time (not to mention the actual move itself).  I like that there is plenty of empty space in her room...she loves to run around and play in here.  For a second bedroom, it is pretty good sized.  I know that past roommates I have had put queen sized beds in here with space to spare.  But there really isn't a lot of space for two kids to share this room (my opinion, which Michael didn't agree with....glad we don't have to worry about that, haha). 

The master bath.  Yeah, it is small.  It is the same size as the second bath (which I didn't bother to post a pic of).  We renovated both, but really did the works on this one.  New tub, new tile on the wall and floor.  New sink too, the pedestal actually added some room from what was in there previously.  There is a linen closet to my left of where I am standing to take the picture...it's technically in the master bedroom, but all our bathroom stuff is in it, since there isn't a ton of storage space in the bathroom (and simply isn't room for it).  Now that I am looking at the picture, I see that there isn't toilet paper on the toilet paper rack...hahaha...Sophia likes to take it off and unroll the paper and she must've taken advantage of the fact that I was busy taking pictures of the house.  Well, by the time I used the bathroom it was there, so we do use toilet paper in our house, in case you weren't sure!! :-) 

And finally, the master bedroom.  The only other way we have had it set up is with the bed on the side of the room where the dresser with the mirror is (and it was on the side where the bed is).  The wall with the dresser is actually longer so shortly before we had Sophia we set it up this way so that the bassinet would fit on the right side of the dresser.  And then we just left it this way cause it works out just fine.  You can sort of see Michael's dresser on the very right of the picture.  On the other side of that is the door to the walk in closet.  I am basically standing in an alcove to take the picture, the linen closet is on my right and a vanity is on my left, with a mirror over it.  I basically just use that area to dry my hair and keep some of my stuff.  But it was nice to have anyway.  I always envisioned making it more like an office desk, but with it right near the bathroom it's not the best place to keep a computer (with all the steam from a shower that could ruin a computer) so we never did it.  I thought the bedroom was a good decent size for a two bedroom condo....but I am still very excited to be moving up to an even bigger bedroom with a substantially bigger master bathroom.  :-)

Interesting facts about the condo....before Michael and I were even dating, he helped me paint the master bathroom and most of the other living spaces.  I had two different roommates after I bought the condo before Michael and I got together and he moved in with me.  And for a short time, I even lived there alone.  It really didn't start to feel cramped until Sophia came along.  I guess all the baby gear and toys just multiplied and added to the cramped feeling.  I actually found the condo listed on craigslist...I saw it some time in August 2005...and then again in early November and at that time the price had dropped a lot.  My old boss went with me the first time I looked at it.  And then a couple days later I went back to look again with my parents and the next day made an offer.  By the end of November the place was mine!  So I have lived in this same condo for 6 and a half years.  Pretty much the longest place I have ever lived since before college.  And for a while I was moving almost every year.  Friends and family were so sick of moving me, haha.  I gave them a good break, but now I'm on the move again!  This time we will surely stay put for a loooongg time.  And I am excited about that, even though the event of moving is never fun. 

While I couldn't be more excited about our new house, there are a few things that I will miss about the condo.  Nothing physical, but the memories there.  It was a purchase that made me a legitimate homeowner.  Michael and I hung out countless times together before we started dating at the condo watching movies and having "incidents" (an inside joke...not a dirty one, trust me!).  Then we dated and got engaged and he moved in with me and it was our first married home.  And then we brought our precious baby girl home there.  She has learned to crawl and walk across the floors there.  It has been a great first home for us.  But now it is time to grow and move on.  And I couldn't be more happy or more thankful that our little family will be moving, together, to a new larger home to continue making memories!  Good-bye little condo! (well, technically not good-bye for a few more weeks, but you know what I mean!)