Saw Many, Wanted One, But Bid On Another
After the "perfect except for the mashing of the tall guy's head" apartment, we put the search
into high gear. We liked the broker we met at the open house for that space, Vickey Barron at Elliman - pictured here. She and her team started looking on our behalf, sending us listings that we'd sometimes seen on the NY Times site, sometimes not.
We spent every weekend running to Open Houses, with the "Barron Team" checking out some of the spaces during the week so we'd go to ones that were better fits, and blow off ones that were not for us. Jay really got into the idea of a loft, so we targeted open spaces. After a few weeks of this, we saw two listings that interested us, both of which had Open Houses on the same Sunday. I liked the second one - a narrow three-floor space that needed a second bathroom (heck - I'll share a bedroom, but a bathroom?). But it had outdoor space - a tiny "backyard" with a little electric lawnmower. With actual bowling balls affixed to the fence. And windows of all the other apartments in the courtyard looking down on the little space. The bottom floor inside was below grade, so it got only light that filtered down a hole dug for ventilation and/or filtered-down teeny bits of light.
The first apartment we viewed that day was also long and narrow, and had two floors. And two bathrooms.
Upstairs and most of downstairs was 10'9" wide, if you can believe floorplans. It opened up to a spacious 12' wide. Ooooh - a whole dozen feet. All one room, with the second floor created as a mezzanine. So you enter a double-height foyer (FoyYay!), then the straight stairs disappear into the mezzanine level, and you pass the kitchen and dining area to get to that coveted 12' wide living room. One and a half windows facing west-ish, 14' high. And best of all, it overlooks a little park with a playground behind that. Nobody peeking into your windows (not that what they'd see would be worth viewing). The photos we saw online were taken so the space looked great, and in person it was pretty darn cool if you like exposed brick with lots of character. I do. This pic has the prior owner's furniture, and was from the online listing.
We asked about bidding on the triple-height space with the backyard-ette, but there was already a bid at full asking price which was higher than we could go. So we bid on the duplex loft, even though it needed a heck of a lot of renovation (yes, that's the Renovation in the title of this blog). We were so tired of the process that we added a sweetener to the bid to cement the deal, and then only had the paperwork and board approval and mortgage to go. Which could at best be considered an interesting process....
into high gear. We liked the broker we met at the open house for that space, Vickey Barron at Elliman - pictured here. She and her team started looking on our behalf, sending us listings that we'd sometimes seen on the NY Times site, sometimes not.We spent every weekend running to Open Houses, with the "Barron Team" checking out some of the spaces during the week so we'd go to ones that were better fits, and blow off ones that were not for us. Jay really got into the idea of a loft, so we targeted open spaces. After a few weeks of this, we saw two listings that interested us, both of which had Open Houses on the same Sunday. I liked the second one - a narrow three-floor space that needed a second bathroom (heck - I'll share a bedroom, but a bathroom?). But it had outdoor space - a tiny "backyard" with a little electric lawnmower. With actual bowling balls affixed to the fence. And windows of all the other apartments in the courtyard looking down on the little space. The bottom floor inside was below grade, so it got only light that filtered down a hole dug for ventilation and/or filtered-down teeny bits of light.
The first apartment we viewed that day was also long and narrow, and had two floors. And two bathrooms.
Upstairs and most of downstairs was 10'9" wide, if you can believe floorplans. It opened up to a spacious 12' wide. Ooooh - a whole dozen feet. All one room, with the second floor created as a mezzanine. So you enter a double-height foyer (FoyYay!), then the straight stairs disappear into the mezzanine level, and you pass the kitchen and dining area to get to that coveted 12' wide living room. One and a half windows facing west-ish, 14' high. And best of all, it overlooks a little park with a playground behind that. Nobody peeking into your windows (not that what they'd see would be worth viewing). The photos we saw online were taken so the space looked great, and in person it was pretty darn cool if you like exposed brick with lots of character. I do. This pic has the prior owner's furniture, and was from the online listing. We asked about bidding on the triple-height space with the backyard-ette, but there was already a bid at full asking price which was higher than we could go. So we bid on the duplex loft, even though it needed a heck of a lot of renovation (yes, that's the Renovation in the title of this blog). We were so tired of the process that we added a sweetener to the bid to cement the deal, and then only had the paperwork and board approval and mortgage to go. Which could at best be considered an interesting process....
posted by Val Smith at
10:18 AM
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