00:01Oh, hey! Welcome to my sweet digs. Come on in. Actually, wait. Before you come in,
00:05some people ask you to take your shoes off, but I'm gonna ask you to subscribe
00:09below. Did you subscribe? Okay, great. Come on in.
00:16Hey, I'm Elisa Kreisinger. I'm an executive producer at Refinery29, and I
00:20host and produce a podcast and video series called Strong Opinions Loosely Held.
00:29We pay $3,400 for our mortgage every month, and that's actually less than we were paying in
00:34Brooklyn, so when we were looking for homes, we realized that we could get an entire house with
00:38a backyard and a garage and a driveway for less than we were paying for a one-bedroom.
00:43The house is technically 1,500 square feet plus the basement. I live with my partner in Glenridge,
00:51New Jersey. It's a suburb of New York City, about 30 minutes outside of New York. We both moved from
00:57Brooklyn, and we both grew up in New Jersey, so it was important when moving back to New Jersey that
01:03we move someplace that was accessible to both of our families, and Glenridge just happened to be it.
01:13This is our living room, dining room, open kitchen floor plan. This area really was the room that sold
01:21us on the house. We were really happy to see that the previous owners had taken down these two walls
01:27and made it that open concept floor plan that we really wanted. The aspect of our life that
01:33definitely influences our home the most is our desire to entertain. We love entertaining,
01:37we love having people over, and having an open concept where you could see everybody was really
01:43important to us. The most sentimental piece of furniture that we have in the house is a 1950s
01:49German radio record player. I found this on heavy trash night my senior year in college in the summer,
01:56put it in the back of my car, and I stored it at my parents' house, and it's one of
02:01my favorites.
02:01It has a really warm sound, very inviting. My partner Meg took this on our vacation to Key West
02:09a few years ago. We go to Key West every winter. Don't ask me ever to take that down because
02:14it's
02:14literally bolted into the wall. We did not have a formal dining room in Brooklyn. We had a teeny tiny
02:23table. My partner Meg and I have lived here for about three months, right? November, December,
02:29January, February, March. Oh my god, April, May, June. No, July. Whoa, eight months.
02:38Okay. My partner and I have lived in this house for eight months. We moved in in December
02:44right after Thanksgiving. It was really important for us to have a space and be settled for the
02:49Christmas holiday so that we could host our families together. We didn't exactly have any furniture,
02:54and they didn't have a place to sit. And so for us having a dining room table where we could
02:59seat
02:59more than two or three people was really important. So it was great to be able to go to Target
03:04and find
03:05something like a full dinnerware set that was totally within our budget, very much within our style,
03:10that made us feel like real adults.
03:14This is one of my favorite spaces in the house just because we spend a lot of time cooking and
03:19that was one
03:20thing that we weren't really able to do in Brooklyn because our kitchen was like the size of this
03:25island. So now we have this big beautiful kitchen. Um, I haven't cooked yet, but doesn't mean at all.
03:30I'm still getting around to it. Uh, we put a lot of personal touches into the kitchen. We changed the
03:35backsplash.
03:35We changed out the hardware. I love just finding cool objects that have a great style or design purpose,
03:41like these little baskets to be able to put things in. Same with the matching little dish rack here.
03:46I just love having this stuff out that adds some personality and design aesthetic as well,
03:52which is why I love these over the door organizers. You can never have enough cabinet space.
03:59This is our bedroom. We did invest in a grownup bed with a headboard, which we were very excited about.
04:08But what's even better is this awesome made by design at Target comforter. It allows Meg to stay cool.
04:14I'm able to stay warm and we're both happy. Hers and hers walk in closets, which I'm not going to
04:22show you
04:22because that's where all of our stuff is. That's why our house looks so clean, but come on into the
04:26bathroom.
04:28We love this bathroom. Um, yes, I know. No double vanities. I know. I realize this is going to sound
04:35a
04:35little bougie, but I would just love a double sink and a double vanity. I mean, there's two people.
04:41You need two sinks. The one cool feature about this tub is that it actually fills from above.
04:54So a really nice relaxing place to come in after a long day, take a bath, take a nice hot
04:59shower,
05:00and just recharge for the next day. This is our laundry room. So this is one of my most favorite
05:08rooms in the house because in Brooklyn, our laundry was a teeny tiny closet. And now we have a full
05:14room
05:15with a sink and tons of closet and storage space. I don't even do the laundry in my relationship,
05:21but I so appreciate this room because it is so clean and organized. So we might not have double
05:28vanities, but we do have hers and hers wine fridges. I love this room. I know I said the other
05:34rooms were
05:35my favorite, but this is actually my favorite. So like I said, we love to entertain. One of the coolest
05:42things that we found were these stackable wine glasses. They save a ton of space and they allow
05:48us to have so many more glasses on hand for all of our guests, which is really cool. I found
05:53the house
05:54one night watching my home TV shows, scrolling on my home finding app, and we made an appointment to go
06:02to the open house on Sunday. We made an offer Monday evening and the offer was accepted Tuesday afternoon.
06:10We spent the majority of our life savings. Don't regret it at all. And we were excited to finally find
06:17it.
06:18Thanks so much for coming to see my sweet digs. To see more videos like this,
06:23click here and to subscribe to Refinery29, click here.
