It's starting to look like a home!

Over the weekend, Nate and I did a MAJOR apartment makeover at his (soon to be our) place. Last year, when Nate packed up & drove from Michigan to Portland, he had to leave almost everything behind – all his furniture but a futon mattress & a tiny TV stand. He crammed all his stuff into his Ford Explorer and sang his way across seven states (only stopping in little motels and a random Midwest German town for some “good cheese”) to eventually land in a downtown Portland studio apartment that wasn’t much bigger than his Ford Explorer. So anyways, now that he’s in a bigger place in Lake Oswego, we finally dragged ourselves out to the very far away lands of IKEA and some more affordable stores on The East Side. If you haven’t been, going to parts of The East Side of Portland is sometimes an adventure in itself. Besides the 2-year old yelling obscenities at us in the checkout line, it wasn’t all that bad!!

IKEA is a madhouse. Whoever designed that place is both a genius & totally insane. The store stretches like a maze, complete with a sneaky instruction manual on how to get out. There has to be at least 20 EXIT signs before you even get to a set of stairs that takes you down to 20 more EXIT signs and more miles of maze-like aisles. It’s claustrophobic, it’s amazing, and I love it. Nate . . . I’m not sure if he loves it, but he comes with me & helps navigate through the hoards of people – all of them have this “deer in headlights” look on their faces & walk very slowly. It’s seriously it’s own odd little country in there.

After wayyyyyy too long, we made it out alive, just in time for a Portland-style torrential downpour. After we got back to his place, we put together all the new furniture & it looks pretty awesome!!! We’ve both been living like vagabonds for the last couple years, packing and moving every 6 months or so, and it’s nice to start getting furniture we really enjoy. My next project is to re-finish 2 tables, which will probably include a bunch of calls to my Dad who is AMAZING with wood.

Laura is starting school out here in a week so all the Atwells will be coming to visit this weekend. SO excited!

Here's a pic when it's still a total mess of boxes - but you get the idea ☺