Elliott Avenue

I had to start a Flickr Pro account to accommodate all the photos I took of the apartment. This is the first indication that I may have a problem.

A very beautiful problem called Elliott Avenue. But let me start from the beginning. 

Joe and I moved to Portland exactly one year ago on May 1st.  Joe stayed with his brother Ben for a couple of weeks to find an apartment and during this time he was introduced to a place called Ladd's Addition.  Below, is a drawing of the "grid."  Each of those little diamonds you see is a large rose garden and the big circle in the middle labled "LC" is Ladd's Circle, a big round-about and park that marks the very center of Ladd's Addition.  The whole grid spans about 10 x 10 city blocks.  

Ladd's Addition

In addition to its unusual layout, Ladd's is special because of the trees. It is consistently 10 degrees cooler in Ladd's at all times of the year because the trees here are so enormous. The sky becomes a dappled haze of green and blue, barely discernable through the gently swaying canopy of shaded Elms.  

Definitely Narnia

And as I'm sure you've all guessed, Ladd's is full of equally enormous houses. But just off the big circle, soaking up the rarest bit of sunshine in Southeast Portland, are 3 little stucco duplexes.  These apartments emerge from the labyrinth of trees and alleys like little mushrooms, blooming oddly from the dark mystery of the forest floor. At least, thats how they looked to me. Its almost hard to take them seriously at first. 

Ladd's Addition, like Narnia, seems like a distant wonderland. When Joe took me to see these little stucco duplexes exactly one year ago, it was with a far off future in mind. We assumed that Ladd's is surely reserved for that Portland oddity: the filthy rich hippie.   

Fast forward 9 1/2 months and Joe and I are once again seeing greener grass on the other side. Our plan was to take it slow and continue on a month-to-month lease until something popped-up.  But providence had other plans.  One saturday afternoon while Joe was sailing, I stumbled upon an ad for those same little duplexes--ran to meet the owner, filled out an application and within 2 days, Joe and I were about to call 1943 SE Elliott home.  On exactly May 1st, we moved into our new apartment. 

Nesting is such a long process, and I'm sorry to say that for this little chicky, its not quite finished.  We still have so much to do.  Namely, figure out how to arrange a living room that has doors on every wall.  But we're feeling really good about all this. 

For the sake of brevity, and your sanity, I won't  bore you with all the details (right now).  But you can rest assured that I'll fill you in later.  You can see more photos of the move and of our new apartment below--and on flickr of course.  Hope to see you soon!