00:00Hi, my name is Carissa. Welcome to My Sweet Digs, also known as my nerdy, geeky, Parisian chic home.
00:06Come on in.
00:09I live in this three-story townhouse in the Bronx with my husband, Adrian.
00:12We purchased our home for $360,000 and our mortgage is about $19,04 and some change a month.
00:21And we think it's like the perfect amount for the amount of space we have.
00:24I am a literary agent, which a lot of people don't know what I do until they do and then
00:29they try to sell me their book.
00:30The neighborhood we live in is the South Bronx, specifically Morrisania.
00:34Even though it's in New York and it's a giant urban city, this kind of tranquil oasis is in the
00:40middle of a very busy, crazy city.
00:45This is our kitchen.
00:47I love food a lot, so I don't really have one favorite, but I guess recently my favorite is cooking
00:52pork chops.
00:53My husband, on the other hand, can make hot dogs and hamburgers and spaghetti.
00:57We're working on his culinary skills right now, so we're trying to do a lot more stuff together.
01:01This is our half bathroom.
01:03One of the things you learn when you're looking for any place, even if it's an apartment, is that sometimes
01:07you have to compromise.
01:09And I really, really wanted two full bathrooms, but I had to settle for one full bathroom and half bath.
01:15I sort of miss it, but I don't miss it enough that I would have changed.
01:19This is our dining area and our living room.
01:21So I really love gold, if you haven't noticed, and so I really wanted to find a decanter set that
01:27matched my style.
01:28So I found one that had gold polka dots, and it's the decanter with glasses.
01:32I wanted to have the kind of mad men setup that Don Draper does, and with my job, day drinking
01:38is sometimes necessary,
01:39because when you get bad news, sometimes you want to take a drink.
01:43The couch that we have is the first grown-up thing that my husband and I bought together.
01:48We decided that we wanted to spend a good chunk of money on a piece of furniture, and it ended
01:52up being our couch.
01:53So one of the sentimental items I have in the living room is the photo from our honeymoon.
01:58I'm a huge Harry Potter fan.
01:59He decided to plan part of our honeymoon trip to the Harry Potter studio in London.
02:04We didn't actually realize that we were near the nine-and-three-quarters station, and so we decided to take
02:10a picture there,
02:11me repping House Slytherin and him being a Hufflepuff.
02:14We decided to buy a house because we kind of just were tired of being in an apartment,
02:18tired of being beholden to a landlord, and I tend to be the kind of person that when I decide
02:24to make a decision on something,
02:25then I make a decision on something and make it happen.
02:27And so I decided we should buy a house, and so we bought a house.
02:31This is our backyard.
02:34I would love, love, love, love to repave our backyard.
02:39One of the things that happens is weeds keep popping up, so it would be nice if all of this
02:43was paved except for our tree.
02:45And I absolutely would love, love, love a hot tub back here.
02:48I am originally from San Francisco, so I grew up in a townhouse similar to this one.
02:53When I first walked into this house, it felt like the house I grew up in, and I think
02:57that was one of the deciding factors in us making an offer on it.
03:00This is our master bedroom.
03:02I like for my home to feel, especially the bedroom, to feel like a hotel.
03:07Hotels tend to stay white, and so I want it to have that hotel feel here in my room,
03:13and that's why I have a white comforter set.
03:15So I have a female empowerment section in my room, and because I like geeky stuff, they're
03:21all women mainly from comic books, I like having it above here so that when I wake up in the
03:26morning and I'm getting ready, it kind of gives me the strength and the power I need to start
03:30the day.
03:31Here's our full bathroom.
03:32I do the 10-step Korean skincare routine.
03:36I only kind of do seven steps, but because I kept forgetting the order, I wrote it all
03:41down on this list here by the sink so I can remember.
03:44The worst part of my apartment is this pink towel in both bathrooms.
03:49Like, I just don't like pink in general, but it just feels so wrong to have pink towel.
03:56This is our guest bedroom.
03:57I'm really excited for it to be used for the first time when my husband's family comes in
04:02August.
04:03This is a small bedroom slash my office with my convertible sit-stand desk.
04:09The hope is that one day this room will not just be my office, but will also be a baby
04:13room.
04:15This is the basement.
04:17Over here we have our gym area.
04:20In the back is my husband's man area.
04:24Not quite a cave, but that's kind of where he hangs out.
04:26It's one of our older couches from our apartment before we bought our fancy couch.
04:31And then next to the gym area is my library.
04:34I love reading, so I don't quite have a favorite book.
04:38My favorite book lasts as long as I'm reading the book, but that's also why I really wanted
04:41to have a library.
04:42I fell in love with books a long time ago, I think probably when I was in kindergarten,
04:46and have been reading frequently ever since.
04:49The reason the chairs are facing each other is so that when we have a disagreement, we
04:53can actually sit face to face and talk it out.
04:55Having been together for 12 years, we've learned that it's important for communication to read
04:59the other person's body language.
05:00I would describe our home style as very kind of geeky, nerdy, Parisian chic.
05:05You can see all my nerdy accoutrements around and my lightsabers up there somewhere.
05:10I love anime, I grew up watching it.
05:13Sailor Moon was one of the first anime I fell in love with.
05:17The Bronx is really great because it's like this borough that's in New York and it feels
05:22really peaceful.
05:22beautiful and you can hear the birds chirping outside which is like very tranquil and it
05:27feels great to be in this big house where I can hop on the subway and like go to the
05:31Met or the Natural History Museum, but I have a house where it's quiet.
05:37most of the reason why public Vorace beads are going out here.
