Things I will miss:

• The bright open feeling
• The views
• Covered, secure parking
• The right-out-the-door access to everything, including groceries
• The less than 15 minute walk to the Rose Garden for Blazer games
• The patio and high solid wall which minimized toddler interest
• Having a competent maintenance staff on on site

Things I won’t miss:

• The 18 floor elevator ride to the car followed by a three floor drive to street level
• Dacor
• The one butt kitchen
• The shower in the second bath and tub in the master bath
• Having a home office in the master bedroom
• The patio and high solid wall which was noisier (from I-405) than expected and blocked views when sitting on patio furniture

I’m sure as we settle back into our house there will be other items to add to both lists.  For us, one of the biggest challenges was storage.  There never seemed to be enough of it so making sure that there is space for your lifestyle is important.

My parents are visiting for three nights so now its four adults, one toddler and one dog in less square footage than one of the floors of our house.  One of the things that I find hard to believe is that we left a fully furnished house behind.  We’ve brought with us and purchased a minimal amount of furniture and the condo does not feel under-appointed.  We would need very little of the furniture that remains in our house if we were doing this “forever.”

1054 SQFT is probably the smallest we would be comfortable in with a toddler and sixty pound dog long term.  It certainly helps that we have a large outdoor space and eleven foot ceilings with glass walls (I have previously written about cubic space in condos versus square footage).  1054 SQFT without views, high ceilings and outdoor space would feel much smaller.  Each foot of ceiling height adds about 10% to the cubic space.  It doesn’t help that I work mostly from here so that eats up some additional space for office related space.  I’m sure that the same square footage would be very large for some others with a similar sized family but we’ve come down more than 75% from what we had (which I have always said was too much space for us).

We do like the lower cost of living.  It’s less expensive to have 1054 SQFT.  I don’t feel that we have sacrifced on much of anything other than size.  Both dwellings are high quality in locations we enjoy. I think it would be easy to defeat the downsizing by wanting too much of what you had previosly. I can see that we would have a hard time with some of our art, not only would it not fit in in style, it woudn’t fit in the space.  Dining room table with ten chairs?  Not happening here.  This is one part of the “practice” downsizing that I am glad we didn’t have to undertake.  There is a lot of stuff when we return home that we won’t have missed.  Some of it is stuff that would never be missed, some of it is just the stuff you have to have to fill the space.

The main things to consider when lokking at a smaller space appear to be making sure that they core things you did and enjoyed before still work in the new place.  I don’t want my parents staying in a hotel when they visit as much of the time they would spend with us and their grandson would be lost.  The sofa I am on would be better suited as a sofa bed to make that work.  I’d like a nook or space that could be “office” rather than a desk at the foot of the bed.  Our ability to cook and entertain works with smaller numbers; no way our holiday/client appriciation party is happening here.  Overall, the sarifice of space has been very doable.

It’s fair to say that a 2008 apartment that was built as condos didn’t have two-year-olds in mind when they were designed either. We’ve seen a lot of strollers around on the streets but none in our building. Dogs seem to out-number children by a factor of 10. All the door knobs in our house are the standard round type so we installed the Safety 1^st covers on the appropriate ones. I bought the leaver covers for the knobs for here but the commercial knobs won’t take the covers. They don’t recommend them for external doors but that would have been preferable to having run down the hall. Thankfully he can’t reach the elevator button, yet, if he was to escape.

We’re having the same challenge trying to do the safety stuff without inflicting damage. Instead of installing cupboard locks under the sink, we’ve got all the cleaners in an upper cabinet. The compression baby gate works well in the hall (though it required and extension piece). We didn’t feel the compression bar that we hung a curtain was strong enough so we did install one end of a closet bar cup and the put the other end of the bar on the window frame so it can’t be pulled down. We hung the magnetic knife rack on the wall in the kitchen out of his reach. We put some temporary hooks up to hang the blind cords up off the floor. It looks like the fittings on the cords are made to be mounted to the wall but the window frames are metal. The balcony has a tall solid railing. As long as we make sure there is nothing he can move to the railing it looks pretty safe. I think it is preferable to having the clear railings we saw in most of the other buildings we looked at but it certainly doesn’t do the view any favors.

Ultimately it is parenting and keeping an eye on him. The pitter patter of tiny feet is a dead give away to his whereabouts most of the time; an advantage of wood flooring!

We pretty much knew we wanted to live in the Pearl District. We had a budget that we wanted to stay in and frankly, we wanted it all for that budget! We wanted a view, two bedrooms, some outdoor space and parking for two cars. No matter what we did, coming from 5000 square feet was going to be an experience in closeness. There are two primary sources for rentals: the leasing offices and individuals on Craigslist (though the leasing offices post heavily on Craigslist). Over three days we whittled the list down to four units and discovered that to stay close to our budget we were not going to get it all:

1. A one bedroom with an AMAZING corner view. We couldn’t figure out a good sleeping arrangement with a two-year old. One of the features of many of the units in the area is a lack of a true door to sleeping spaces. There was no outdoor space but this was the least expensive of the options. Best view but lacking almost everywhere else.
2. The next unit had we figured our two-year-old would have the master and we would sleep in the living room. It had everything else we wanted sans the second bedroom. It too had a great downtown/Mt. Hood view.
3. The third unit was what a friend described as “a bar with a bedroom.” He had lived in the same floor plan previously. It had one true bedroom and a nook where we could have put our son. It was the largest space, had a good view and is located closer to what one would consider the center of the area.
4. We’re completely moved in to the fourth option. 1054 square feet with a Fremont Bridge north facing view (though right now I can barely see the edge of the balcony through the fog). The downtown/Hood views are more appealing to me but I’m not complaining about what we have. It has one true bedroom and a second bedroom where we have installed the baby gate and hung a curtain for our son’s room. Toddler-proofing is proving to be a challenge: the first night he walked out the front door into the hallway- he couldn’t open the exterior doors at our house. Child-proofing is a topic unto itself though.

We did push our budget a little but negotiated to get ourselves into a unit that we really like and will be happy in for close to what we wanted to pay. What it really boiled down to was the addition of a toddler; we couldn’t make a one bedroom work and the two bedrooms units in our budget gave up some of the features that we wanted. Two of us and the dog could have done any of these units or even something smaller and we would have liked to have saved some money but we decided that even in a temporary six month situation we weren’t going to be happy. If Jenny had written this, there was a fifth option. It had two sleeping areas with no doors. She’s heavy sleeper. It never would have worked for me.

The leasing office behaved as I believe it should have. They didn’t show us the unit when we first came in because it was out of the price range that we’d given. When we started asking, this unit came up as a possibility. I’ve always felt that it is the client’s duty to push the price range, not the Realtor.

We’re now living in 1054 square feet plus a balcony in the Pearl District; one happy family including a two-year-old toddler and Tasman, the 60 pound, nine-year-old, Australian cattle dog (red/blue heeler). We just spent our second night here and turn the keys over to our house at the end of the week. Our goal is not to have to go back and disturb the tenants for things we can’t live without. The move has been a much bigger chore than either of us expected. I think that’s partially due to the downsizing; picking what you think you’ll need but leaving everything else behind. We can’t just box it all up and figure it all out later. Though not a real estate transaction, the experience parallels it in an expedited manner. By the end of the two week Friday-Friday period we will have:

• Offered the opportunity
• Decided to move
• Researched condos and apartments
• Negotiated two contracts
• Decluttered as if we were listing for sale
• Bought and sold some stuff on Craigslist
• Packed
• Moved
• Assembled some Ikea furniture
• Completed (with help) a long list of “house projects” that as the owner you see every day but ignore with mild disdain. Every project we’ve done would also have needed doing if we were listing for sale.

I’ll be writing more details about what we’ve experienced with each topic above in the future along with the usual market reports and commentary. There will be a new Case Shiller report out tomorrow. I expect that the report will not be glowing and that market reports that reflect the Arctic Blast and holiday slowdown will be especially brutal. Antidotally, we’ve seen more client activity in the last three weeks of January than we saw in the last six weeks prior to that. That could mean anything in the long run but keeps us busy today.