00:00Hi everyone I'm Austin. I'm Amanda and welcome to our sweet digs. Before you
00:04come in subscribe below. Great. Come on in. We live in Grasmere in Staten Island very
00:13very close to the Arizona Bridge and we pay $18.90 for our rent and I think that
00:18that's pretty good since we have two bedrooms and we have an attic space as
00:22well. Normally something like that would get you in like someone's basement with
00:26no windows so I would say that's a pretty good deal. So Staten Island gets a
00:32bad rap. Everyone comes to New York they go to Brooklyn, Manhattan, you know Queens
00:36whatever it is and everyone forgets about Staten Island but it's a great place to
00:39live in and we love it here. Right over here is my office. We're both photographers
00:42and filmmakers. We have our own wedding cinema film business right now that's
00:45what we're focusing on full-time for the most part. So this is my office it's
00:48actually the second bedroom in the house. We keep all of our gear in here as well
00:51so it kind of works like a gear closet slash office at the same time. Since we
00:55have Layla which is our cat. Of course we need a litter box. We have what we call a
00:59poop palace which is kind of integrated into our decor. It's very discreet. This
01:06is our bedroom where Layla is sleeping. I have a clothing rack that's right by my
01:12bed. I have a closet. I have storage under the TV and then for all of the
01:18clothes that I'm not wearing in an off season that's gonna be upstairs. Austin
01:21keeps his clothes. I have a closet in my office. I'm simple. I'm a guy. We met at an
01:27anti Valentine's Day party that I threw seven years ago. Six? I think it's gonna be six
01:33years in February, no? No. Yes? No. Austin was wearing a plaid shirt that was similar to
01:42mine and then we kind of connected and then for our wedding when we got married
01:45I had Austin get ready in his plaid shirt. We were both in the wedding industry so we
01:49know that it could be super overwhelming so we eloped in Thailand. Just us and a
01:53few friends kept it really small. We love to travel too so all our friends and
01:56family kind of expected us to do something like that. My apartment pet peeve
01:59is when Austin leaves my mail on my side of the bed. He thinks that that's the only
02:04way I'm gonna look at it. It is. But I hate that because I feel like it's dirty. My
02:07apartment pet peeve is when she puts all her bags on all the handles of the
02:11doors and I can't close any doors because there's bags on them. There's too
02:15many bags and every door has bags on each handle. This is our bathroom right over
02:21here. At the end of every night me and Austin you know we may have had
02:24different schedules different days so we always come back home we shower together
02:29and then after that we have tea time. Austin usually makes the tea because I
02:33spend a little bit of extra time in the shower so while I'm finishing up he's
02:36making the tea so it's ready. My next apartment I want a huge shower.
02:42and bathtub. I want both. On the way to the kitchen here is our map on the wall
02:48where we pinned all the places we've been to so far. Our kitchen our super nicely
02:52lit kitchen with the skylight. Wherever we go we usually buy a magnet from our
02:58travels. Everybody who visits can see the fridge and kind of tell of where we've
03:02been so far. I personally love Thailand that's my favorite place that I've been.
03:06I love the landscape, I love the food, I love the people there. I think my favorite place so
03:10far has been Iceland. Almost as extreme as you could get from being in one of the
03:13most populated cities in the world. We're not that big on cooking but we do have,
03:16we're known for our chicken parm nights. People even ask us once in a while, when
03:19we have a chicken parm again, when we have a chicken parm again. So that's kind of
03:23like our main thing. We sound the parm alarm. Yeah the chicken parm alarm.
03:28My favorite part about this apartment is the beautiful light. Specifically in the
03:32kitchen we have a skylight, it's vaulted ceilings. Our living room area. So one of my
03:37favorite parts about this living room is my DIY lights that I made using IKEA
03:42products. So I just used a bracket and I wrapped a light, the string around it.
03:48That's kind of cool, it's like a little Edison bulb. We wanted to make our
03:50apartment into a smart home. So we have Alexa kind of integrated into our home. We
03:56also have a smart lock so that when we're approaching our apartment the door
04:01will automatically unlock for us. And we have a Roomba that goes off two times a week.
04:06Our apartment is travel themed because it's such a big part of our lives. We
04:10have a bull from Spain, a car from Cuba, we have a camel from Dubai, Maracas from
04:17Dominican Republic. So it's kind of like a little scavenger hunt. I would say the
04:20least favorite part of my neighborhood where we are is the parking situation.
04:26We're right by an express bus stop so people drive their cars and park in our
04:31area. This is our attic. This is the attic area. We've made this into our guest room.
04:38This bed over here it's actually a stacked bed. It could be two separate beds, it
04:43could be one full-size bed. In our entire apartment there's only one wall that
04:47actually has color and it's this accent wall that's over here. Your eyes are kind
04:52of like pulled towards the wall instead of the low ceilings that are around here.
04:55So welcome to my drum room. This is where I play music. Oh should I mention that it's
05:01like not a real drum kit. I get like it like it's since we live in an apartment
05:05it's too loud to have an actual kit so I have this modified you know quiet little
05:09practice drum set upstairs.
05:18Welcome to my office. Austin works from home full time so I let him have his little space
05:24downstairs and since I'm not really up here often it's totally cool to have like a little
05:28area. I also love it because it has the sloped ceilings and it gives me Pinterest vibes. I would
05:33say the worst part about it is the heat. It's probably about 90 degrees up here right now. I try
05:37to make the most of it. I'm thinking about doing some hot yoga up in here. The most surprising
05:42thing about Staten Island is how fresh and awesome the air quality is. At one point Staten Island
05:47was like New York's dump. People thought it was like gross or whatever but there's a lot
05:51of trees and you have the ocean so. It's the borough of parks. It's the borough of parks. It's like
05:57a
05:57breath of fresh air when you come here. I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York. I've been in Staten Island
06:00a super long time though. 15 years I would say a little bit longer and Austin's been in Staten Island
06:05his whole life.
06:05Yeah. I was born in Brooklyn but pretty much lived my whole life in Staten Island as well. From
06:09traveling we always see different things like oh we wonder how it would be to live
06:12here or here for a while. I'm definitely open to leaving. I just don't that's like a
06:16big struggle with us. We don't know where we want to end up. I think it's a great
06:20place right now until we find out what works for us.
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