Dreams and Reality

We are buying an apartment in New York!

Something we've wanted to do since 1999 when we moved from there.

When I went to help Courtney get settled in their new apartment,

I spent the days apartment hunting with an agent. 

Dan flew out Friday night so we could look at my short list together on Saturday,

along with Courtney and Michael. Also so he could understand the market for himself.

It was so FUN!!

Our main priority was we didn't want another project. Had to be turn-key.

Well, there was only one we loved that fit that bill.

But as a co-op, it had some restrictions we weren't sure would work for us.

(Pied a terre aren't always welcome in co-ops. And guests staying 

without owners present is frowned upon too in some buildings.)

Courtney sent me a link to an extra special building saying, "Should we go look at this just for fun?"

Of course!  It was out of our price range, but sooo fun to walk through.

The building has been bought by a developer who is switching the structure from rental apartments to condos. The construction is almost complete on most of the units they bought.

Dan very wisely recommended, "Don't go, you'll want it."

And once I saw it, I very wisely knew Dan would too.

There was one unit closer to our price range , but it was being used 

as overflow construction storage. It had been gutted, the floor was demo'd concrete, 

boxes and pipes and construction lights littered the room. The floorplan was horrible.

On the other hand, it has a view of Courtney and Michael's apartment out the living room windows

and a view of the Courtyard out the bedroom windows. And we saw potential.

But there were several other apartments on our list and we needed to think about

what was most important to us in an apartment.

Dan and I went through quite a lot of discussion and questions and consideration and prayer,

circled round and round, slid back then pushed forward again,

and had several long talks on our long Hawaii walks to figure out what felt right to both of us.

In the end we decided to make an offer on 308. 

Yes, having to wait a year for construction was a bummer.

But we were hoping to get a floorplan that felt welcoming, views we loved from all windows, 

a beautiful building and amenities that are super exciting and fun. 

Last week they accepted our floorplan contingency offer and 

let us make some suggestions to the architects

So we called in the expert -- my mom -- and for two days straight 

reworked the existing floorplan to come up with best use of space. 

After the first night we talked until 11:00 p.m., I texted first thing in the morning saying 

"I didn't go to bed until 1:30 a.m. and here are my new ideas." 

And she said, "I didn't go to bed until 3:30 a.m. coming up with ideas."

Meanwhile Dan was out of town but staying in the loop.

To minimize back and forth with the architects and proposing ideas that wouldn't work because we weren't familiar with NYC code, we were so grateful the developer 

agreed to us meeting with the architect via zoom.

It went splendidly. 

(I'm always a sucker for a person who puts our list of questions 

on the screen and checkmarks off each one as we go through it!)

We're hoping they get back to us Friday or Monday with a final floorplan.