A Visitor Brings More Happiness

We had a visitor this weekend.  My friend Daniel, who is a kind, interesting, beautiful person and an awesome musician.  He left for the airport this morning to head back to LA, leaving a note on the table that brought tears to my eyes.  I'm so happy I have this friendship in my life.

One of the things I knew little about was Daniel's wife.  Our long distance friendship doesn't always allow for us to share all the details of our lives, and oddly enough sometimes we don't share the most important ones, like stories about our spouses.  Daniel finally got to meet Will, my husband, and I got to hear such wonderful things about his wife, Amy.  I was excited & surprised to hear she's an interior designer.  It was fun to find her design firm, and to see the inspiring spaces she creates.  If only LA were a little closer so I could frequent the their store.

My weekend has been a great one!

Beautiful, beautiful!
I'm not sure if this design is by Nickey Kehoe, Inc., but I'm loving the painted brick walls!  I can't keep going back to the idea that we might need to paint 10 Union's walls.

Will and I recently bought a bed that looks very much like this one.  This photo inspires me to find clean, simple bedding for it, and a cool bedside table.  Our lighting will be slightly different, though.

Update

We found out the appraisal happened last week, and the inspection is hopefully set for Friday of next week, which means the closing will be on or before June 29th.  This is perfect since we need to be out of our apartment by June 30th.  Yay!  Progress! 

Loft

Here are some photos of the loft that make me happy, and keep me hopeful that we'll soon be living in this wonderful space.

Stairs leading up to the loft/living room area.  The stairs seem to be original and it seems they're being kept as is.  Yay!  We could always wallpaper them!

Will near the utility closet and top of the stairs.  The floors are fantastic up there, as are the two skylights.  I think we'll love this "room"!

You get a sense of the height, the light, and a good view of the beams.

The railing overlooking the dining room below.  Isn't the light from the window nice?

Since I saw these in old homes, and in a refurbished home belonging to some friends in Jamaica Plain, I've wanted an electrical unit IN THE FLOOR!  What a cool thing. 

Small Space Need Storage

The new issue of Dwell is about homes under 1000 sq. ft.  Luckily, 10 Union is a bit over 1200 sq. ft., but I'm always looking for beautiful and smart storage ideas, which is why I was especially happy to see this issue in my mailbox.  

We actually like the challenge of working and living in a small space.  You wouldn't guess it by the look of our apartment right now, but we tend to like things tidy, simple, and neat.  We're in packing mode right now, so our home is nothing like that!  Oh, the transition.

This is one bookshelf in our current living room in Somerville.  We have SO many books.  We're up to 22 full book boxes packed already, and we still have three rows to go.  We really have to think about how we're going to store these books at 10 Union.  Our newest thought is to build bookshelves in the dining room, after some purging!

I'd love for our bookshelf at 10 Union to look like this one I found on the site Remodelista.

I also found this photo on Remodelista.  I wish the bathroom at 10 Union looked like that!  I love the towel rack.

But the bathroom at 10 Union looks like this.  Not bad, but we have some short-term ideas for improving it, and some long-term ones.  Unfortunately, there's little room for storage (like a cool towel rack), but we'll be creative!

Also from Remodelista, I was drawn to these kitchen shelves.  We will need more storage in the kitchen of 10 Union, and I'd love something like this.  Will is thinking of putting in some high cabinets and a bar along the wall below with stools, but I'm still drawn to this idea of lovely shelves.

This is the kitchen at 10 Union.  The shelves or cabinets/bar/stool combo would have to go on the left wall, just at Will's back in this photo.

3 years

I met my sweetheart three years ago today.  Although it felt like the perfect encounter between two strangers, it could have only been better if he'd worn his lederhosen!

Floor plans

The floor plans are showing up kind of small, but this gives a good sense of the layout.

The bottom floor of the space.  They have the living room downstairs, but we hope to put a dining room there.  We're going to take the back, right bedroom which has that great space off of it for an office.

The top floor of the unit.  They have a bedroom up in the loft, but we hope to have it as a living room.  

Fingers Crossed/Thumbs Pressed

Will & I learned last night that the seller has also signed the P&S so we're one step closer.  It seems like we should celebrate each of these little victories, but we know that this all means nothing until we have the keys in our hands.  We're hoping that will happen early to mid June. Fingers crossed, or as they say in Germany, thumbs pressed!

Here are a few more photos of 10 Union:

Some people have been asking where in Salem 10 Union Street is.  Here is it!  The image is small but as you can see we're close to the common, close the museums, and close to the water. Our awesome friends Jill & Ryan live .4 miles away, right across the common.  Google estimates that it will take us 1 minute to drive there (one minute!) but I think I'd rather walk or bike.  Maybe skip!

These are the stairs that lead to the loft area.  I kind of want them to keep them as is.  I used to live across the street from a few really cool houses in Cambridge that were featured in Dwell magazine.  The owners/architects pretty much gutted the place, except for the stairs which they kept from the original home.  That was my favorite part about the house.

View from the loft down onto the dining area.  They're going to be putting up a railing soon.  We hope to put a living room up there, with our brown Ikea couch which pulls out into a bed for guests.  The condo is a two bedroom, but the loft space and the second room off the master bedroom allow for several alternative guest spaces.  We like guests so this is ideal!

This is a good view of one end of the dining area, which as you can see has the loft above it to the left, and the kitchen just off the side.  

The other end of the dining room (and my sweet husband!).  There are two windows to the left which look out onto a nice old house, a not-so-lovely parking lot for the Hawthorne Hotel, and the beautiful Salem Common.