there's a first time for everything

I was reminded in my comments that I've never really blogged about how we ended up homeowners in Brooklyn. So here you go, Jaimie!

I don't know exactly what prompted Stuart and me to start house-hunting. I think it was partly dog-sitting for Dexter in Brooklyn and being so central to so many of our favorite places. Partly, my parents had been gently, gently, coaxing us into thinking about it, and by gently I mean, mom started emailing me realtor.com listings to consider.

But as soon as the new year ramped up, we almost inexplicably found ourselves seriously looking to buy an apartment. I think, ideally, we would have bought one in Astoria. But there were so few available there - the market in Astoria tended towards multi-family homes that make up so much of the neighborhood, and then a lot of new construction. And frankly, walking past some of those sites every day for four years told me everything I needed to know about my friendly neighborhood contractors and their practices.

So in the evenings of January, instead of vegging in front of Buffy, we started talking about what we were looking for in an apartment, what we thought we could afford (read: NOT Trendy Brooklyn), and what our absolute parameters were. And then, suddenly, we started seeing apartments - lots of them - that actually fit our realistic expectations. What are the odds? I don't know. I like to think we blundered into a good opening in the market, but what do I know about the MARKET?

Here's where it gets awesome. About a week into relentless online searches and calling realtors to ask about properties, my mom emailed us an apartment in Sunset Park that she saw on realtors.com. It sounded promising, promising enough to see in person anyway. We weren't feeling picky about that first weekend's roster of visits; we thought we just needed to get our feet wet in the home-viewing department.

So on a bone-chilling Saturday in late January, I met Stuart in Chelsea after a haircut and we took the subway to Sunset Park, for our very first apartment viewing. The walk down 39th street towards the park is a little industrial, and I was already ruling this out. We met the realtor in front of a tall, sandy-beige building and started the four flights of climb.

And the first thing I saw was the kitchen. The second thing I saw was the french doors. I think, a little bit, I was already sold. The realtor wasn't very good with a camera and her pictures on the site did the charm no justice at all. It was perfect.

We wandered around dazed by the smooth new tiles and the gleaming bathroom and the huge windows and the smooth eggshell antique-cream walls. This apartment? Was in our price range - a monthly mortgage costing even less than our monthly rent? With the smallest maintenance we'd seen yet?

We left the building stunned. We walked through the charming residential streets around Sunset Park itself and wondered if we'd lost our minds. How could we possibly want the very first apartment we'd seen? But Stuart and I are world-class experts at trusting our gut instincts, and our gut instinct was ringing like a clear bell. We loved it.

So we decided that night that we'd look at as many apartments as possible in a week. And by as many, I mean that Stuart and I viewed no less than twenty apartments in seven days. We literally saw nearly everything in our price range and some things outside of it. There were some nice apartments and some shit holes. And every single place we saw, we compared to what we were already calling "ours".

So a week later, we were back in Sunset Park with MK, the realtor. And we sat on the floor and talked about furniture, and commutes, and we just knew. We made an offer that night, a couple numbers less than the asking price, and were accepted immediately. Four months, two panic attacks over legal issues, and two (!!) coop approval meetings later, we moved in. We viewed the apartment on January 13th. We signed our papers on May 18th and moved in on the 19th.

I don't think this is normal, before anyone points out to me how stupidly lucky we were. We were stupidly lucky, dude. We hit the market the very moment sellers started to get anxious and interest rates started to dip. We had my incredibly real-estate-savvy parents advising us, and a doggedly awesome mortgage broker. We got lucky.

But we also took one look at this place and ourselves and were smart enough to see how well the two matched. And we've got a lot of experience at diving in to something when we know it's right.

So that's how we ended up in Brooklyn.

fridays are for rambling

Guess what? I made my peace with the whole concept of egg-based breakfast sandwiches today. I know! Such a feat.

I've never really warmed to the idea because I don't know, those McDonald's ones really look like yellow Play-Doh that someone has press-ganged into a soggy muffin. Which is what happened.

But this morning I was in Starbucks before work for a cup of coffee (and by cup of coffee I mean tall light mocha frappaccino with a shot of espresso, WHAT) and I was a little hungry but I didn't want a big sugary donut because big sugary breakfast foods are strictly for weekends when they're really lunch, followed by snacking on cheese straight from the fridge. So I looked at their breakfast selections and actually had the following conversation with myself:

"What's the problem? I like eggs when they're scrambled and those look scrambled. I love sausage and I love cheddar. Plus, me and English muffins go way back, [yes Stuart, I know you just call them MUFFINS there], so what's not to love?"

It helped that the egg did not look like Play-Doh. And that the muffin had those crumby bits on top that I love.

So I bought it and ate it with only the smallest of trepidations! I am so brave. It was tasty. The end.

Unrelatedly (except maybe for size purposes if I made this cholesterol-cholesterol-cholesterol-on-carb thing a breakfast habit) have you been to Steve & Barry's to look at SJP's latest venture? I went in more out of curiosity than any intention to buy anything (famous last words) and dude! I walked out with the cutest pair of dark rinse bootcut jeans that fit like a dream and cost me, no kidding, fifteen bucks.

Plus a yellow teeshirt with three diving hawks on it. Which, when I told Stuart, he misheard as "three diving Hoffs". Which just made me feel like I didn't get the right teeshirt.

There! Was that random enough for you?

adventures in the new

A week ago, I woke up a little depressed. This is because I opened my eyes, sighed with happiness at our beautiful bedroom windows, and then I remembered that but ten hours before, our cheerful downstairs neighbor came up to cheerfully inform us that water was leaking into his bathroom from ours.

I'm sorry. Let me place you in the scene by using the capitals and talking with my hands: WATER WAS LEAKING INTO HIS BATHROOM FROM OURS. Hello, homeownership! Let's start this out with a bang! A plumbing bang!

This was why I woke up depressed. And puffy. Puffy from all the crying and wailing and gnashing and rending.

All of which, of course, were unnecessary. The seller's husband had been the contractor to gut-renovate our beautiful kitchen and bathroom, and when we informed him that hello! WATER! (I was talking with my hands but he couldn't see it over the phone), he was more than willing to come over with his plumber and crawl around behind the fridge until the problem was sussed and solved. They also WD-40'd our front door while we were there and brought us magical unicorns of peace and harmony. We all sang Kumbaya. The end!

I'm telling you all this by way of saying it's been the only real glitch in the past week and a half of Home! Ownership! which has otherwise been an awesome, enlightening, and exciting adventure. Everything about this new apartment brings me fuzzy joy and aforementioned unicorns. I have also learned a lot, which proves my sixth grade teacher right when she said education can be fun and I rolled my eyes, sorry Mrs. Lacy.

One thing I learned is that living in Brooklyn is teh AWESOME if only because practically all of our friends live here. We've been more social in the past week than we've been in months because look! We live in Brooklyn! Who wants to make last-minute spontaneous plans? I do!

I've also learned that Stuart has impeccably good taste and judgement. You could say this was a refresher course since he married me (badum-ching!) and also, we've done the whole renovating a room thing before, but seeing him really get excited and involved about where that ONE chair should go, and whether that bookshelf will crowd the room, it's all felt very much like I'm not alone in my aesthetic mania. Until it comes to organizing the books by height and spine colors. Then he abandons me to my compulsion. But he'll bring me tea on the battlefield, I'm sure.

Another lesson has been stairs. STAIRS! It's four flights up. There are fifty-six of them, steps that is. If you can't bounce a quarter off my ass after two months of this, I want my money back. From the stairs. Apparently the lesson I have yet to learn is I've got to stop making "I want my money back!" jokes about homeownership.

Which leads me to, perhaps, the only real lesson embedded in this wandering monologue. Although I woke up puffy-eyed and depressed on Tuesday, by Wednesday when the plumber and the contractor were due to arrive, I'd spent an hour looking online at diagrams of drainage pipes and tub stoppers and overflow drains (aided by a CAD-designed diagram made by Stuart because he, like the apartment, is TEH AWESOME). I had finally given up on the pipedream of running back to my lovely landlord in Astoria begging for shelter, SHELTER, PLEASE. I was ready to face two Brooklyn Dudes and their plumbing expertise, brandish my Feminism Stick, and know the the hell they were talking about.

And I did. Much as having a landlord is the loveliest blanket of hand-holding support when it comes to New York apartments, I wouldn't trade all the puffy-eyed panic in the world now. I'm excited about owning our own little corner of New York, even if it's a constant exercise in learning stuff I didn't need to know before.

Like how to drill into granite. And how to fix a window ballast. And install a new lock. And whether I'll ever have the balls to take a bathtub bath again to test that pesky overflow. It's all, as Stuart constantly reminds me, an adventure.

notes from a move

Krissa: We seriously have TWELVE boxes of books alone. It's ridiculous.

Conrad: You're proud of that.

Krissa: I am. You're right.

* * * *

Krissa: Man, I'll need a binder clip to close the coffee bag! Where's the one that was on the floor in the living room? It's packed, isn't it.

Dad, running to office and back: No! It's HERE!

Krissa: Wow. Aw crap, but first I need scissors to open the coffee bag. Bet those are packed, too.

Dad, running to living room: Nope, here they are.

Krissa: And you said we were finished.

* * * * *

Krissa: We have to clean under the bed.

Stuart: Let's give the dust bunnies a chance to pack their stuff, too.

so it begins

I've got a gag order firmly in place, still, against talking too much about the new place until we've got keys in hand (soon. V. V. SOON.) but I can tell you about today: we have started PACKING.

Walls are becoming bare, books are getting commandeered off the shelves to pack amongst brick-a-brack. My dad is here, my trusty right-hand packing man who only complains about the music a little bit every 15 minutes as is his paternal right. The boxes, they're being numerically entered into a CLIPBOARD (you know I'm loving it), and at the end of each day, the box log and its contents will be entered into the computer and printed up. Packing! You can do it! Computers can help!

There's something glorious about the first day of packing where everything seems possible and flowcharts are positive and estimates are glowing for completion on time. Ahead of time, even! We'll be waltzing around neatly stacked boxes by Wednesday! Ha ha hee hee ho ho!

Of course the reality is going to get more back-breaking and less organized every day and I fully expect all involved parties to seriously contemplate deflection and/or the window-expulsion technique of packing. Here, movers! CATCH!

But for now, it's all rosy possibilities and easy book-packing. Anything you can do, I can do better! Tra la la! And other songs as well.