The Pursuit of Happiness in Manhattan
The Apartment
It’s Official! (Finally)
We are now the owners of our very own half classic six apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And we are damned grateful for it. The closing went very smoothly, it involved getting nine people in a conference room for about 90 minutes, and lots and lots of signatures and checks floating about. At the end, we walked away with a new set of keys and 30 years of mortgage payments.
We are only days away from finally taking possession of the keys to our new home (I promise a video walk-through) and I’ve been dreaming about all the amazing things I can do with our 785 square feet. I am relishing the idea that I will actually get to decorate more than just the living room and bathroom of my prior 294 square foot studio. While our new home may only be a one bedroom apartment, I count six spaces to design and decorate.
[Photo: Looking up at our Half Classic Six.]
Before the end of this month we will be the owners of our dream apartment… Or to put it more clearly, the dream apartment within our budget. And at the moment, all I can say is that as exciting as this is, it is very bittersweet at the same time.
When we sat for our board interview week before last, excited and relieved to finally be at this point in the long arduous process, I felt a familiar vibration on my butt from my phone and the tone of a Facebook message rang out. A bit embarrassed and thinking it was a reminder notice instead, I ignored it and went on with the interview.
One of the more exciting features of our new home is our delightfully long entry hall (floor plan here) which we have begun to call the gallery. At 4.5′ wide and 22′ long, it is 100 square feet of amazing and makes for one hell of a grand entrance to our home. Our primary reason for loving this space is that along with the ability to use the long walls to create a true gallery space for our art and photography collection as well as add some storage down one side with a “fauxdenza“.
When Yoav bought his one bedroom on the Upper West Side for under 100k in the late 90s, he had no idea how valuable his home would become. Aside from being a very smart investment financially, it is going to help make our future together easier.
[Photo: My now former home in Hell’s Kitchen.]
Things around here have been a bit quiet lately. Not because I have nothing to write about or want to say, but because we are simply in a holding pattern at the moment. The purchase process of our dream home (the purpose of this blog) is still ongoing. God willing, we will close before the end of August.
[Photo: My Hell’s Kitchen apartment last fall. Vintage Burke swivel chair, Ikea cabinets hung on the wall, Weltron 2000 AM/FM 8-Track Stereo (circa 1970), red acrylic string lamp, and photography wall of iPhone shots.]
Before fulfilling my lifelong dream of living in Manhattan (and long before I was married), I lived in Seattle, Portland (Oregon), and Chicago. Each a great city unto itself. While I never had much money during those years, I always placed my priority on location over space when it came to housing.
[Photo: This is a beautiful room, although I think it could use a tad bit more red. Source – House and Garden UK, November 2012]
I am not an interior designer. But I do have my own distinctive sense of style. I know what I do like and what I don’t like. (I am also very fortunate and grateful to have a supportive husband who appreciates my sense of style, and lets me do almost anything when it comes to our home’s interior design.)
It was a mostly sleepless night after we saw the half classic six that week before our wedding, but by the time we got up on Monday morning, we knew we wanted to go back. We called the selling agent and scheduled a second visit for that next evening and upon arrival, spent a good 30 minutes looking the place over.
It was the Sunday before our wedding, only 23 days after we decided (thanks to my real estate attorney) to get married, and we needed a day off. A day off from all of the chaos surrounding the planning of a wedding, the travel arrangements for visiting family and friends, the back and forth with my attorney and real estate agent on the sale of my apartment, and the general exhaustion that both of us felt from lack of calm in our lives for the last month.
Hi, my name is Devyn. This was my blog about the adventures of finding, buying, renovating, fixing up, restoring, DIY'ing, and decorating a part of New York housing legacy. We have left NYC for a new life in Philadelphia. Visit my new blog Our Philly Row and read all about our "fixer-upper-ing" an 1852 rowhouse
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