Adventures in Manhattan Real Estate: Storage

Our old 450 s.f. apartment--practically all of it!

If you've ever lived in Manhattan, you know that storage, not renovations or photography, is really the biggest issue in selling a home. You know you're a Manhattanite when you go home for Christmas with your small child and all you can think is, "No large gifts. Please, please, no large gifts!" The relatives tease you, calling you Scrooge. We lived for six years in a 450 s.f. apartment, CZ fishing through the trash daily for things I'd thrown away.

When we moved to a 2-bedroom apartment in 2004, we were able to let a little pressure out of the space valve, but of course we expanded, too. We're still not pack rats by suburban standards, but I bought books and cooking supplies, Bob bought bicycles, and CZ bought sheet music. And found a piano in the basement. And acquired things at a much faster rate than she got rid of them. I just closed the door to her 8 x 10 bedroom and figured she'd get tired of the clutter eventually.

So when Amelia, the real estate broker, breezed through the apartment and told me to remove the extra pillows from the closet, I knew we were going to have to tackle CZ's room. "My room is so small you have to spell it with one 'o'!" CZ improvised as we surveyed the job to be done. Though I could have retorted that unlike most New Yorkers, she didn't have to share it with anybody, I was sympathetic. What she needed was an attic, to keep the best stuffed animals, the best books, the best childhood artwork in. But she didn't even have a system.

So in we dove.

A typical "dolphins decode alien vessel" problem

First CZ pulled out six years worth of Steven Tenney math packets. These are no ordinary math packets. They're lovingly crafted, and populated by fairies, invading alien ships, and "strange and beautiful parties." Each type of problem has its own illustrations and story line, some of which CZ had spent hours coloring. She'd gone from simplifying fractions to calculus with them. CZ unstapled a stack of packets two feet thick and separated them all into their various components so she could save her favorites. Copy paper covered the entire living room for three days. There were over thirty different types of problems, each to be nostalgically recalled, and fairy-drawing developments to be noted. And after it was over, the stack really didn't look much thinner.

Next we tackled her filing system. We made a music file and an academic file. The music file was thicker. Some of the findings in the academic file were amusing: A folder filled with nothing but "bicycles for famous composers" drawings. Three unlabeled folders with one practice SAT essay in each, and another labeled "SAT writing." Thirty-five dollars in cash in various greeting cards! A thick file with various papers on Sibelius, and notes for papers on Sibelius. And one folder that I couldn't quite figure out the category for, until CZ explained, "It's stuff I like."

CZ's room, mid-project

We untangled and balled up a huge drawer full of yarn, made piles of clothing and books for the thrift store (all those unread historical fiction books about twelve-year-old boys orphaned in the midst of historical events), and gave away all the unfinished science kits. We gave a huge bag of markers to the neighbor kids. And we probably reduced the contents of the room by a third. But she couldn't bear to part with the Legos, the sewing machine, the pattern blocks, many of the craft supplies, the stuffed animals that had made the cut to adolescence, years and years of music programs, and most of the books. I couldn't part with a smocked dress and a wool jumper she'd worn when she was six. Or her first white baby dress.

This is where I remembered that Amelia had noted, "You're very close to a Manhattan Mini-storage." At first I had balked at the idea. Pay to store stuff you don't even need? But as the de-cluttering project passed its first week and there still wasn't room for everything, I realized it might be a good investment. And then Bob changed jobs and brought home all his old client files. That sealed the deal.

At Manhattan Mini-storage I discovered a hidden world. I was expecting a hot, dusty, rather seedy warehouse full of wire bins and mice, sort of like the place where we used to rent CZ's violins for cheap. What I found instead was something of a phenomenon: An attractive lobby with sliding glass doors, clerks in suits who give you bottled water, a corporate culture, a sophisticated card swiping system, and floors and floors of lockers filled with stuff New Yorkers didn't quite want to get rid of. As I waited for the elevator with our first load (a suitcase full of the office files and a bicycle), I saw a woman walk out of the building carrying a set of bongo drums.

When we got off the elevator on "our" floor, I felt like a Lilliputian in a locker room. Or perhaps a rat in a lab maze. Fifteen-feet high on either side were gleaming white lockers in three levels, with portable staircases to access the upper ones. Fluorescent lights flickered on by motion detectors as we proceeded down the labyrinthine hallways. In my head, I started to hum the theme from the old "Get Smart" show. But most notable were the smell and feel of the place. It was centrally air-conditioned, with wall-to-wall olefin carpeting. Which was distinctly un-Manhattan-like. It felt more like suburban Atlanta. Of course! With so much storage, it had to.

CZ and I figured out the lock system and laughed as we closed the door on our first load of stuff. Across the hall from our locker was a bulging door with a tiny bit of pink chiffon sticking out of it. Would we ever sink to this level?

On our way back to the elevator, we passed an old woman in a plaid skirt and a blouse with a stand up ruffle collar, pushing a cart. "Welcome to the world of mini-storage!" she greeted us. This place was even friendly like suburban Atlanta! But she had a conspiratorial edge to her voice that was distinctly New York.

Adventures in Manhattan real estate: Photography

On Wednesday the real estate photographer came to our now-spiffed-up apartment. We had carefully planned the session to maximize the light, but on photo day it was pouring rain.

"No matter," said Amelia. "The photographer can make it work."

When the photographer showed up, he set up a tripod and did time-lapse exposures. But not before the real estate team had "staged" the apartment. They pulled out a chair here, removed a lamp there, placed plants strategically, put in Granny Smith apples to reflect my kitchen paint color, and generally made it look like I was about to throw a party.

I had expected as much, but I was a little surprised when I heard Andrew say to the photographer, "Lose the pipe." He was referring to a little water pipe at the base of our refrigerator which I had always considered part of the charm of a prewar apartment. True, it was probably going to look more prominent in the fish-eye lens photo than it did in real life, but was he going to photoshop out something that was actually there? When I saw the final photo of the kitchen, I realized that yes, he had!

Anyway, I've posted two photos of our living room above--the photographer's and my own, taken within a few minutes of each other, from the same angle. That way you can play spot the differences, too.

Now of course I know they have to do this. You have to be able to see the whole room in the photo to decide whether you're interested in going to the open house, and I want to get people into my apartment just as much as they do. But when my cozy, private self looks at these photos and thinks, "Which room would I rather live in?" I choose my photo, not theirs. My photo is of a room in which you could sit around and have a conversation, take books off the shelf, or (as we did last night) host a chamber group rehearsal. And it's the room I know and love.

***

Update: Just because you asked, I'm putting in the kitchen photos, too. Unfortunately, since I had to move them down, I don't know how to make them enlarge-able.

The graphics look very 1950s magazine, don't they? I like the way there are no shadows under the fruit bowl.

Adventures in Manhattan real estate: Renovations

One of my full-time jobs during the past two weeks has been to get our apartment ready to sell.

The minute we knew we were going to sell, we hired our favorite agents, Amelia Gewirtz and Andrew Phillips of Halstead. We met this duo eight years ago, when we were looking for our present apartment. We walked into an open house for an Upper West Side pre-war co-op apartment* that had never been renovated. The kitchen still had a basin sink from the turn of the century. But the living room looked like there was a cocktail party going on in it. There were at least thirty people there, all eyeing each other competitively. "We'll take bids until Wednesday," they said. We put in what we thought was a fair bid, but they sold it for $50,ooo over the asking price.

We had been trying to sell our small apartment by owner all summer, but in New York, it's just hard to get momentum without an agent. So we hired Amelia and Andrew, and within a week they sold our apartment for over the asking price. With a dead mouse in the refrigerator motor. (It took me a while to find the source of that funny smell.)

This year's market is not the same as 2004's, but Amelia and Andrew still know what they're doing. Amelia breezed through the apartment a couple of weeks ago. "Lose the stack of pillows in the closet," she said. "You need white stunt towels in the bath. And a new floor--Your tile is cracked. And new countertops, white marble ones. This apartment is all about the light."

I flinched, but I obeyed and called the contractor she recommended. A week later Joe Pesci's twin, voice and all, showed up at our apartment. His name was Eugene, and he was shorter than I was (which is saying a lot). "Nobody can renovate your apartment in one week," he practically shouted at me. "But I'll take care of you. I want you to sell. I loike you!"

I got to know Eugene quite well over the next five days, at least if I can believe half the things he said. He claims that he's going to be the lead in a reality TV show next year, that he has stock tips, that he is seventy-years-old, that he got in a fight with Donald Trump in a restaurant, that Calvin Klein won't let anybody else do work in his home, that his Sicilian father owned a whole chain of grocery stores but never sent him to school, that Osama's execution was a cover-up, and a million other things. His favorite exclamation was, "They cheated ya!" This was directed at the people who did the last renovation.

CZ liked Eugene, which is saying a lot, because she doesn't talk to just anyone. "You know, you look like that actress. That actress on TV," he suggested the last day of the renovation. Of course we had no idea what he was talking about; we don't even own a TV. But she nodded dryly, "Oh, yeah. That might have been me..."

"I loike you! I loike your style!" shouted Eugene.

Amazingly, Eugene was true to his promise, and the renovations were complete by Tuesday morning. We cleaned furiously for the rest of the day, finishing just in time for the photographer's arrival on Wednesday. The result: Totally worth it, especially the entertainment.

Our kitchen, with new countertops

*This is New York real estate-speak for an apartment built before WWII. Most of the apartments in our neighborhood, in fact, were built around 1910, just after the subway was constructed. A co-op means that everyone who lives in the building owns shares in it and the building is managed by a resident board.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge this year...

...but at least now I know the name of the river. It's the Po.

Perhaps I should explain?

My frequent absence during the past several months is because we're moving to Turin, Italy. That's also the reason for the two trips we took this fall/winter. Bob has gotten a job with an Italian law studio promoting reciprocal relationships between law firms in the US and Italy. We should move in August.

For months, I really couldn't tell anyone what we were doing. For one thing, we didn't know what was going to happen ourselves. And perhaps that was just as well, because it took a while for all of us to get used to the idea. But now it's pretty much a certain thing.

How exactly will this move work? On many of the logistical questions, your guesses are as good as mine. This move is a big step in the dark. But I trust that, whatever happens, the Lord directs our steps. And we hope to find out more as we go along.

So, I guess we'll be a Torino family now.

Photo of Turin from Villa della Regina, by Ricktosko, Google images