00:00Hi everyone, I'm Austin. I'm Amanda, and welcome to our sweet digs. Come on in.
00:06We live in Grasmere in Staten Island, very very close to the Arizona Bridge, and we pay $18.90
00:13for our rent, and I think that that's pretty good since we have two bedrooms and we have an attic
00:18space as well. Normally something like that would get you in like someone's basement with no windows,
00:23so I would say that's a pretty good deal.
00:27So suddenly it gets a bad rap. Everyone comes to New York, they go to Brooklyn, Manhattan,
00:32you know Queens, whatever it is, and everyone forgets about Staten Island, but it's a great
00:34place to live in and we love it here. Right over here is my office. We're both photographers and
00:38filmmakers. We have our own wedding cinema film business right now, that's what we're focusing
00:42on full-time for the most part. So this is my office, it's actually the second bedroom in the
00:46house. We keep all of our gear in here as well, so it kind of works like a gear closet
00:50slash office at
00:51the same time. Since we have Layla, which is our cat, of course we need a litter box. We
00:54have what we call a poop palace, which is kind of integrated into our decor. It's very discreet.
01:01This is our bedroom where Layla is sleeping. I have a clothing rack that's right by my bed,
01:09I have a closet, I have storage under the TV, and then for all of the clothes that I'm not
01:15wearing
01:15in off season, that's going to be upstairs. Austin keeps his clothes. I have a closet, that's it, in my
01:19office.
01:20I'm simple, I'm a guy. We met at an anti-Valentine's Day party that I threw seven years ago.
01:27Six? I think it's going to be six years in February, no? No. Yes? No. Austin was wearing
01:36a plaid shirt that was similar to mine, and then we kind of connected. And then for our wedding,
01:41when we got married, I had Austin get ready in his plaid shirt. We were both in the wedding industry,
01:45so we know that it can be super overwhelming. So we eloped in Thailand. Just us and a few
01:49friends kept it really small. We love to travel too, so all our friends and family kind of expected
01:53us to do something like that. My apartment pet peeve is when Austin leaves my mail on my side of
01:58the bed. He thinks that that's the only way I'm going to look at it. It is. But I hate
02:02that because
02:02I feel like it's dirty. My apartment pet peeve is when she puts all her bags on all the handles
02:07of
02:07the doors, and I can't close any doors because there's bags on them. She has too many bags,
02:11and every door has bags on each handle. This is our bathroom right over here. At the end of every
02:18night, I mean, Austin, you know, we may have had different schedules, different days, so we always
02:23come back home. We shower together, and then after that we have tea time. Austin usually makes the tea
02:28because I spend a little bit of extra time in the shower, so while I'm finishing up, he's making the
02:33tea so it's ready. My next apartment, I want a huge shower and bathtub. I want both. On the way
02:41to the
02:41kitchen, here is our map on the wall where we pinned all the places we've been to so far. Our
02:47kitchen,
02:47our super nicely lit kitchen with the skylight. Wherever we go, we usually buy a magnet from our
02:54travels. Everybody who visits can see the fridge and kind of tell of where we've been so far. I
02:59personally love Thailand, so that's my favorite place that I've been. I love the landscape, I love
03:03the food, I love the people there. I think my favorite place so far has been Iceland, almost as extreme
03:08as you could get from being in one of the most populated cities in the world. We're not
03:11that big on cooking, but we do have, we're known for our chicken parm nights. People even ask us
03:14once in a while, when we have a chicken parm again, when we have a chicken parm again, so that's
03:19kind
03:19of like our main thing. We sound the parm alarm. Yeah, the chicken parm alarm. Chicken parm alarm.
03:24My favorite part about this apartment is the beautiful light. Specifically in the kitchen,
03:28we have a skylight with vaulted ceilings. Our living room area. So one of my favorite parts about this
03:34living room is my DIY lights that I made using Ikea products. So I just use a bracket and a
03:41wrapped a light, the string around it. That's kind of cool. It's like a little Edison bulb. We wanted
03:46to make our apartment into a smart home. So we have Alexa kind of integrated into our home. We also
03:53have
03:53a smart lock so that when we're approaching our apartment, the door will automatically unlock for
03:59us. And we have a Roomba that goes off two times a week. Our apartment is travel themed because it's
04:05such a big part of our lives. We have a bull from Spain, a car from Cuba. We have a
04:11camel from Dubai.
04:12Maracas from Dominican Republic. So it's kind of like a little scavenger hunt. I would say the least
04:17favorite part of my neighborhood where we are is the parking situation. We're right by an express bus
04:24stop. So people drive their cars and park in our area. This is our attic.
04:30This is the attic area. We've made this into our guest room. This bed over here, it's actually a
04:36stacked bed. It could be two separate beds. It could be one full size bed. In our entire apartment,
04:42there's only one wall that actually has a color. And it's this accent wall that's over here. Your eyes
04:47are kind of like pulled towards the wall instead of the low ceilings that are around here. So welcome to
04:52my drum room. This is where I play music. Oh, should I mention that it's like not a real drum
04:58kit? I
04:59get like it like it's since we live in an apartment, it's too loud to have an actual kit. So
05:03I have this
05:04modified, you know, quiet little practice drum set upstairs.
05:14Welcome to my office. Austin works from home full time. So I let him have his little space downstairs.
05:21And since I'm not really up here often, it's totally cool to have like a little area.
05:25I also love it because it has the sloped ceilings and it gives me Pinterest vibes. I would say the
05:30worst part about it is the heat. It's probably about 90 degrees up here right now. I try to make
05:34the most of it. I'm thinking about doing some hot yoga up in here. The most surprising thing about
05:38Staten Island is how fresh and awesome the air quality is. At one point, Staten Island was like New
05:44York's dump. People thought it was like gross or whatever, but there's a lot of trees and you have the
05:48ocean. So, um, it's the borough of parks. It's the borough of parks. It's like a breath of fresh
05:53air when you come here. I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York. I've been in Staten Island a super long
05:57time though. 15 years, I would say, a little bit longer. And Austin's been in Staten Island his whole
06:01life. Yeah, I was born in Brooklyn, but pretty much lived my whole life in Staten Island as well.
06:05From traveling, we always see different things like, oh, we wonder how it would be to live here or
06:09here for a while. I'm definitely open to leaving. I just don't, that's like a big struggle with us.
06:13We don't know where we want to end up. I think it's a great place right now until we
06:18find out what works for us.
