Reuse. Rehabilitate. Restore. Architectural salvage and repurposed pieces for the home.
Close to 10 years. Nearly 10,000 American Military and civilians dead as a direct cause of Osama Bin Laden’s jihad. Two wars. Countless Afghan and Iraqi civilians and coalition troops under a President who fought a war that had nothing to do with 9/11. This finally feels like the open wound is healing. Until the… Continue reading Closure.
Author: Brett Fueled by sensible home prices and city living (albeit, the outer boros), we returned to Bayside, Queens for another look. On this trip, we took in two open houses: both condos in Northern Bayside. The first was a 3BR/2BTH in The Kennedy Street Quad complex on Corporal Kennedy Street. While our daughter slept… Continue reading Back to Bayside
Author: Brett Still stinging from our near-miss on a 3-bedroom Colonial in Port Washington, NY, we decided to switch gears and started looking somewhere we had always intended to check out, but had never quite gotten to: Bayside, Queens. Bayside is sandwiched between the Clearview and the Cross Island Expressways and is cut in half… Continue reading Looking By The Bayside
Author: Brett When last my house-hunting anecdotes graced the screen, we had been off to take a gander at homes in Marine Park. In the past, we had not been too interested in the neighborhood because it is a bit further from public transportation (think: bus to subway) but now that we have been living… Continue reading Marine Park and Madison: An Update
Author: Brett Our whirlwind real estate tour of Riverdale concluded at the massive Briar Oaks Apartment Complex on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Unlike the small, modern Waterford building that we had seen in the morning, Briar Oaks is the old-school apartment building (circa 1950s) where Mom grew up and where you went to visit Nanny… Continue reading Riverdale: Part II
Author: Brett After a “luxurious” Saturday of apartment-hunting in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we loaded the wee ones into the car on Sunday and drove Northward to The Bronx. Riverdale is a Northern Bronx neighborhood which looks suspiciously like a Westchester suburb (minus the outrageous property taxes). Wooded and green with winding streets, Riverdale’s many apartment buildings… Continue reading Over To Riverdale
Author: Brett I don’t know about you, but I am sick of developers’ overuse, misuse, and outright abuse of the word, “luxury”. Slapped onto every new construction from the squat, Soviet-era-looking condos in my neighborhood to the brazen, amenity-laden monsters stalking the skyline of every outer boro, “luxury”, it appears, has lost its original meaning.… Continue reading Luxurious Williamsgburg
Author: Brett We did not take the house in Westfield, NJ. We had eventually agreed on a price, after the owners left us hanging all week. In turn, we left them cooling their heels while we called the town’s tax offices and made sure that their many renovations would neither raise our taxes nor cause… Continue reading Strike Three!
Once we put our bid in, it didn’t take long for the shenanigans to start. Sure, we started the bidding 100k lower than their asking price, but we had good reasons for doing so. We weren’t even planning to see the house at all, but when we took the drive out to look at other… Continue reading Reality Check
One of the most frustrating things about living in someone else’s home is the utter lack of control over my environment. If my in-laws were putting the house up for sale today, the listing would have to read: “needs TLC”. Paint chips off of every painted surface, the kitchen cabinets are splintered, the carpets are… Continue reading AFM Safecoat
Author: Brett Last Saturday, the next door neighbors moved away. We knew that it was coming; they had told us the week before, and of course, we had been there when the “For Sale” sign had gone up last April, the same day that we had left Manhattan and descended on the Boro of Kings.… Continue reading Welcome to the Neighborhood
Author: Brett We have not been out house hunting since we lost the last one. It’s not that we can’t bring ourselves to look even though we are practically in mourning. While buyers all over the country seems to be getting great deals on homes, we have yet to see any houses we want to… Continue reading Housing Slump
Author: Brett Andrew and I have employed a couple of methods over the years in order to pinpoint the town that is right for us. Some of them are zany, like looking up the area where a certain film was shot because we liked the street or studying the train map and researching the towns… Continue reading Affordable Burb: Cranford, NJ
Author: Brett As 2007 came to a close, it didn’t seem possible that nearly an entire year had gone by since the sale of our coop and the cancellation of our home sale due to a heinous home inspection. It’s hard not to think about all of the agents that we have crossed paths with… Continue reading The 2007 Realtor Awards
Author: Brett There it was, painted a creamy yellow color, which supposedly has the best “curb appeal”, but it did not need selling. A 1920s Colonial. From the enclosed porch to the backyard, this house was by far the nicest we had seen in the over 2 years that we have been looking. The house… Continue reading Home Search: The One That Got Away