The Pursuit of Happiness in Manhattan
As life goes, trials and tribulations
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.
[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.
It is true…I can’t quite explain why, it just did. I always viewed the Upper West Side (UWS) as a bit suburban (which is kinda how I view the Upper East Side today), elitist, and remote. Before moving to New York, I knew nothing about the UWS, other than knowing that Jerry Seinfeld made it the backdrop of his show.
[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.
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.
[Photo: The day after my proposal in Provincetown, MA. July 2013]
So the plan was this….
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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