The House

Did I mention we used to live in a 547 square foot studio? For over 4 years? And before that, we both had roommates? And we were happy with both and loved living in New York, where guest bedrooms are a luxury and even walls are an upgrade. So you can guess how pumped we were to move to Milwaukee where we knew we'd get a totally sick apartment.

Fast forward to a 24-hour, speed visit to Milwaukee in June to meet the new bosses and find a home. Out of the 15 apartments we viewed, all were smaller and more expensive than we had expected. The average monthly rent was around $1600, not including parking (go ahead and add another $150), which was necessary with little street space and an average annual snowfall of 47 inches. Okay, maybe we'd mentally exaggerated the cost of living difference between Manhattan and Wisconsin. But still, it was uninspiring. And having just paid for a wedding and honeymoon (and still shelling out for our mortgage), we'd been hoping to either save on rent OR live in some serious luxury.

By the time we finished with numero 15, I was totally bummed. Jon had 1 house left for us to look at and it was the last stop before we literally had to drive to the airport and fly back to New York. We drove to the East Side of Milwaukee and here is what we found:

Two story, single-family house with two car (!) parking - driveway to the right. Awnings are adorable.

Back of the house, backyard and the pup: Houston. Check out the deck! That blue contraption is the tarp-covered grill, which we have used almost every night and is another post in itself.

(Houston is named after the Knick's forward, Allan Houston. She's a girl. Jon's a New York sports maniac.)

View from the back door. The deck is about 20' x 15'. The yard curls around to the right of the deck and behind, which Houston has taken over for her . . . latrine.

Inside, the first floor is made up of a living room, kitchen and bathroom with shower. Second floor features two bedrooms, and an 'en suite' bathroom (no shower). We also have a basement with washer/dryer and storage. Basically, we scored with both space and a backyard. Complete luck.

Oh yeah, and the icing on the cake? The House was less expensive than any apartment we'd looked at - parking included.