Demo!

We have gutted our apartment.
The little cartoon I drew on the wall on Valentine's day is long gone. So are all the walls, the appliances, the really nice bathroom in back (gulp!) and basically everything.
It's actually really exciting. Our space looks glorious in its raw form. The wall of windows, finally free of any obstructions, is absolutely dazzling. The ceilings seem even higher and the space even grander. Best of all--without the old walls and kitchen cabinets in the way, we can better envision the apartment that we've designed over the past months.

Here are some of our latest shots..
Our building. (In case you we wondering where all the action was taking place)


Our building permit. You need one of these to start knocking walls down and the NYC Department of Buildings doesn't make it easy to get one.



The wall between the living room and former bedroom--gone! Behold the windows!



Wall dividing living room and TV room is gone. This wall will be replaced.



Big mess of plumbing and electrical in the back wall.


The old master--minus the closets. Turns out the floors used to be black--who knew?


Kitchen is no more.

Built on love.

On Valentine's Day we decided to have a picnic on the floor of our apartment. We ordered a scrumptious Indian spread, opened a bottle of wine and feasted on the floor of Chez Hainz--a last hurrah before demolition began. Yes, we'd finally gotten the permits and permissions required from our coop board and from NYC Department of Buildings. It had taken a wee bit longer than expected (we actually thought we'd be DONE with rennovations by now. ha!) but finally it was go time.

We graffitied on the walls as they would be soon be knocked down. I drew some cartoons and wrote "This is our home. Built on Love."


This is our new plan. I hope it is great.

Before

We closed on sunny fall day and after weeks of standing on the street, trying to look up into our apartment from the street, we finally got the keys. With a bottle of champagne in hand, we entered our home with excitement and fear. We'd just made the biggest purchase of our lives based on spending less than an hour total in the space. Would we still love it?

The answer was yes.

The glorious windows, the old maple floors, the spacious rooms, the open kitchen--it was ours and we were beyond thrilled. However, without any furniture to hide the blemishes, the place did look a bit rougher around the edges. The floor was seriously damaged in places, one radiator was precariously propped up on a brick, there were stains on the already dingy brown carpeting in the master bedroom. The kitchen was very tired--the cabinetry, upon closer examination, was shoddily constructed and pretty beaten up. The appliances had definitely seen better days. There were also a few things about the layout (see floorplan below) that were in need of improvement. To get to the master bedroom, one had to walk through the kitchen and into a back door which, as we strolled around our place, didn't feel quite right. The placement master bedroom--way in the back--also seemed off, given the beautiful windows in the front of the space. The fixes seemed obvious--move a wall or two, update the kitchen, and apply a few fresh coast of paint. And soon enough Chez Hainz would be dynamite.

The original floorplan.




Kitchen--we loved the openess, but the cabinets and appliances needed a refresh.













Original maple floors. Very cool, but very damaged.


The master bedroom was in the way back of the apartment. It had now windows and the closets were perched on a carpeted platform.

Homeowners

This fall my husband and I bought our first home together--an old loft apartment on a quiet, tree-lined street in Chelsea. After looking at apartments for nearly a year, we fell in love with the high ceilings, massive windows, and open spaces. With both of us standing tall--I'm 6 ft and he's 6'3"--we dug the "cubage" (my new favorite word) of this place. The square footage was good too--it was big enough for us to stay there for a while. The place had character--the building was over 100 years old and had a beautiful stone facade, pretty old moldings in the lobby, and only 12 floors, with one or two apartments on each floor. It wasn't too huge. Maybe there would even be some semblance of community? One can dare to dream, right?

The location rocked. It was close to Union Square's green market and great Chelsea restaurants, blocks from all the right subway stations, and as an added bonus--it was walking distance (and I'm talking a just a few blocks) from both of our offices. In fact, had we plotted the point equidistant from our two places of work--it just may have been this building.

I will spare you the details of the buying process, but after being in the NYC housing hunt for a while--we knew that with a place like this we'd have to act quickly. Our initial visits was followed by two quick follow up visits and then we made an offer. Drama ensued: Counter offer. We held our ground. Offer accepted. Mystery man swoops in out of nowhere with higher offer. (This seems to happen all the time in New York.) Panic. Mystery man swoops out of the picture. Phew. Contract signed.

We were going to be homeowners. For real.

The pictures below are from the broker's site and were taken by a professional photographer.




The main living room.




The TV area. Don't you love the tree! A leafy view--somewhat of a rarity in NYC.




Kids room. We got excited about the closest space.



The master bedroom. Which technically cannot be called a bedroom because it's interior (ie no windows).