Downtown Days: The loft (before)

Welcome to our new (temporary) home! We're out of our Brookside home and into a loft in downtown KC for the next 6-9 months while we remodel (we met with our architect yesterday and he knows we're counting the months!). I'm loving the location and will let you know all about the fun aspects and challenges of living downtown with two little ones (and a dog!). I took a few pictures quickly before the movers arrived with all of our things to show the empty space.

This is the view from the front door as you walk in. There is a laundry room and coat closet to the left, full bathroom and storage closet to the right. The kids' bedrooms are in the lofted spaces you see as you come in the door - Charlie is up the 6 steps to the right, and Izzy is up 4 steps on the left side. As you can tell from the picture, these are only partial walls on the kids' rooms, making the whole space essentially one big open room.

This is the main living space at the opposite end from the front door. We love the big windows and the blinds are great for shading the morning light. There is a giant concrete patio on the other side of the glass.

This is the master bedroom, just to the left of the main living space. The windows include a sliding glass door that opens out onto the same big patio. This bedroom, unlike the kids' rooms, has true walls that go all the way up to the ceiling. There is a walk-in closet and master bathroom with a shower and lots of space.

This is the view looking back towards the front door when you stand in the main living space. Charlie has already turned this space into a runway for bikes, scooters or for testing his Olympic speed (down to his undies speedo, of course). With concrete floors and very little he can destroy in this space, we've thrown the rules out the window.

This is the view from standing in Charlie's bedroom. You can see the main space, including the kitchen, and our master bedroom off to the left. It's amazing how much bigger the space looks once you have furniture in it. Plus we put a lot of items in storage so we're not too crammed into the smaller space. The incredibly high ceiling makes the space feel really big!

Charlie's room is slightly above Izzy's, so this is the view looking from his room into hers across the hall. Charlie has to stand on his bed to see over to the room, but I can easily check on both of them this way.

I asked Charlie to get socks out of his room this morning before school and he threw them over his wall and into the kitchen. That only took 4 days for him to figure out. I can only imagine what else will get pitched over these walls in the next 9 months.

We're almost settled in and out of boxes (minus our closet, it is still a mess. I miss our custom closet with all the shelves!). I will post pictures soon of how the space looks now that we've spread out and taken over. Less than a week in, but I'm really enjoying our urban adventure. Brookside feels like a million miles away.