Home Sweet Home

As some of you may have read on my Facebook, we now have a home!

At 12:30 today we met up with Broker Kim and went into the apartment that we saw the outside of yesterday...the one with all the beautiful flowers.  As a reminder:

So pretty.

We entered through the main door which empties into the living room:

The pictures don't show the true size of the room.  It really is pretty large - it can easily fit our furniture.

When you are standing with your back against the main door - the door in the picture above - Henry's bedroom will be to the left.

It's a pretty small room, and doesn't have a closet, but it will work...and it has lots of light due to it being the front room with a big band of windows.

On the other side of the living room is our bedroom.

Again...the pictures don't truly do the size justice.  It is a very nice size with a row of windows on the wall, a small closet and is definitely large enough for our king sized bed!  YAY!

The the door that you see in the picture above is the kitchen.

I really, really, really like this kitchen.  It's not huge, or anything fancy, but the light is wonderful and it's just plain homey and cozy.  There was a small table to the left of where I am standing.  We'll probably put a butcher block type cart there instead and a small dining table in the living room.

Here is the other side of the kitchen.  The door at the end of the kitchen opens into a tiny little entry way with another small closet and a door into the main entry way/hallway area.  So, there are actually 2 doors into the apartment.

Just off the kitchen is the bathroom.

The toilet is to the right of the shower.  Yep, it's tiny.  And nope, there isn't a tub.

And you saw the outdoor space yesterday.  We failed to get a picture of the main entry way, but just picture a decorated hallway.

We were pleasantly surprised at the size of the rooms.  There are only 2 small closets, so we'll need to be a bit creative, but we take that on as a challenge!

Of course as we were leaving the apartment our rockin' Broker Kim notified us she had another one for us.  Earlier this week she had nothing...now we have options.  She rules.

The second apartment today was on the second story of a house on the same block - just on the other side of the main road.  It was BIG.  But the bedrooms were tiny.  And there was no outdoor space.  And the landlord required there be carpet, and didn't want to change what was currently in there...hideous, old, stained pink carpet.  And not just any pink...it was gag-me-pink (blue in the bedrooms).  Along with a pink bathroom and a bit of an outdated kitchen.  However, it did have an awesome amount of closet space and was still just slightly below our budget.  One cool tidbit, it was next door to George Cotanza's mother's apartment from the tv show Seinfeld.

Despite the pink-ed-ness, the size and the closet space made it a strong competitor.  It was a bit hard to say no to that much space.  But the putrid pink carpet was hard to deal with.  And the landlady lived downstairs.  While she was very nice, she seemed quite particular about things and Broker Kim had never dealt with her before.  Having an iffy landlord can make life more difficult.

So, we weighed our options.  And the cute flower apartment won out.  The landlord is a sweetheart and very easy going, the rent was cheaper, we have outdoor space, and hardwood floors.  And really, truly, I like the apartment overall much better.  It just had a better overall fit for us.

After we signed everything, met the landlady's son that lives downstairs (he's a contractor and fixes up everything in the apartment - very nice to have him downstairs!), paid the deposit, rent, etc.  Broker Kim remembered in the past that when she rented this apartment the utilities were included.

Say what?

Yep.  A quick phone call to the landlady's son verified it.  Utilities (aside from cable and internet) are all included.  Wow.  Unheard of!

Outdoor space.

Prime location.

Below budget.

Utilities included.

We thank everyone who has been praying for us to find our home.  This is far beyond our expectations and is not easily found.  God is faithful and so, so good.  Joe and I are very excited to move and settle into our new home!  

Later in the day we were playing in a BEAUTIFUL park that is pretty close to the new place and Henry busted his chin open.  It's a nasty gash.  He's okay and the bleeding stopped quickly.  We purchased a sweet treat and some Toy Story band-aids.   That along with a smiley face sticker from a girl at the park, made him feel better and he very soon wanted to be zipping down the slide again.   At first I thought he was going to need stitches, but thankfully, he doesn't.  Please say a prayer for his healing.

Tomorrow morning we say good-bye to New York.  But, in about 20 more days we'll be back...to stay!!!

An Apartment and a Half

I'm skipping ahead in our NYC adventure to apartment hunting today, because it's exciting news.  Nope, we haven't signed anything yet...but we have two good options.

At least it seems we may...we'll know more tomorrow.

First up is a nice two bedroom that will be available June 15.  Perfect date and the price is more than right, it's downright incredible.  It's not in our #1 choice location, but close to--and the area is decent.  A bit of a walk to amenities, but not bad at all.  It's under complete renovation right now, so you gotta use your imagination!

Kitchen.  There may be a new counter top and sink, the cabinets will be touched up, and there will be a new fridge and new flooring.

Bathroom.  There will be a sink and vanity!  The entire tub area may be tiled as well.

The living room.  It's layout is a bit complicated, but it's a good size, the ceiling fan is a HUGE plus and there is a big closet.  There is also a big closet in the entryway.

The master bedroom.  There is no ceiling fan in here, and actually doesn't have a closet, but it's on the corner so it's got another window on the left wall and is big - would easily fit our king sized bed, a desk and a Ikea-type closet.

This would be Henry's room.  Slightly smaller than the Master, an okay-sized closet and a ceiling fan.

Check out those beautiful floors!  All the floors will be redone and all the walls will be painted.

And here is the outside of the building.  There are, I believe, 4 apartments in it, should we choose this one we would be on the bottom floor.  Ideal for a family.  The outside door is leads into a small entry way where our mailboxes also are, then up just a few stairs and through a locked door into a hallway type area where the door to our apartment would be along with stairs up to the 2nd floor.

We like this apartment.  It's a great size and we like the idea of everything being new/redone.  Plus the price is a couple hundred below our max budget.

However....on the way out of this building Broker Kim got a phone call from a landlord she has dealt with more in the past.  This apartment is in our #1 choice location...and the price, while not as incredible as the above apartment, it is also very good and below our budget.  And, this landlord is the type that does not ever raise the price on her current tenants.  Also on the first floor...of a house.  So....

The lady there is the landlord.  She is Greek, barely speaks English.  Her son lives downstairs and her daughter upstairs.  She loved Henry.  She is very, very sweet.  She has told our Broker if we want it, we've got it.  She wants us in her apartment.

That would be our front door.

And to the left there would be a little garden area.  Yes.  OUTDOOR SPACE.  Drool.  The landlord maintains all these beautiful flowers all over the front garden and up the stairs.

Oh...but wait...there is more.  There is a BACKYARD.

Well, not a yard, but space.  Enough for quite a few plants (the current tenant had plants along where Joe took this picture) and space for a GRILL.  And enough room for a little boy to ride on a toy or perhaps go down a plastic slide.  :)

Just around the corner from the apartment

The location is superb.  It's right around the corner from the main shopping street in the area (pictured above).  Steps from a heavenly smelling bakery, laundromat, grocery stores and more.  We were able to enter the front door into an entry way sort of area that the landlord has decorated, it was very homey and there was a front closet we would have use of.  We couldn't get inside the actual apartment because the current tenant was not home and asked the landlord not to enter the apartment unless she was home.  Our broker has rented this apartment in the past, so she explained it to us.  It is smaller than the first apartment we saw today, and doesn't have as many closets, but could still work for us well.

We have some pros and cons to weigh.  Location + outdoor space + a landlord we know that loves us, and we like her OR indoor space + slightly cheaper.

Currently we are leaning for the location + outdoor space + a landlord we know that loves us.  I never expected to get outdoor space...let alone enough for a garden!  Tomorrow we will see the inside of the apartment and then we'll decide for sure.

Good Morning

Just wanted to post a quick note...today we have a meeting with another Broker (Peter) who I know has a really beautiful apartment, but we aren't so keen on the location.  Hopefully the location is better than we think, and/or he has more to show us than that one.  We are also awaiting a call back from Broker Kim on the excellent location apartment in Astoria...and maybe anything else she gets new today or digs up.  Aside from that, we are about to dine on breakfast sandwiches, will enjoy our slow morning, and perhaps fulfill another request of Henry and go see the Brooklyn Bridge later today.  Joe will post more pictures later...

NYC Day 2

Sorry for the long delay but we were so tired last night that we couldn't post anything.

So we woke up late and took a leisure morning, had breakfast sandwiches from the grocery store just outside Shawn's front door - very tasty! We then left to go on our apt finding adventure by swinging by the rental office for the building complex down the street from Shawn's just to see if it was anywhere near our budget - um, no. The first sign should have been the application sheet's salary range box starting at almost twice what I currently make. We then promptly left on a train to Astoria - more our price range.

We met up with our agent and she took us to the first place on her list. It was a small 3 bedroom place in a neighborhood that didn't have many amenities and was about a 12 minute hike to the train, not too bad but it was a bit small and we just didn't have a good feeling about it, so we passed on this one (here's some pics):

Our broker actually didn't have any apatments to look at after this, but as were were heading back to her office, she got a call from another lady with something for us and so we went over to go look at it. We went in and immediately found that it was a great place, not too bad of a location and pretty good size. As we were walking out, our broker told us that the land lord had told her while we were in there looking at the place that she didn't want kids in her unit so we had to walk away from that place - we have some pics, but I won't take the time to post those now, sorry folks.

We then walked around Astoria for a while, getting a feel for the area, probably spent an hour or so walking around.

After this, we headed back into Manhattan and decided to go to central park to take care of a few of Henry's requests, a hotdog from a hotdog stand and a juice and some play time.

After this we traveled to Madison Square Park for some burgers from the Shake Shake - mmmmmmmm goood! Which took like an hour in line but it really was worth it! After this we were just wiped out and decided to turn in for the evening. Hopefully will post today's activities later tonight, but we're off to go get something to eat.

NYC Arrival day summary

So we arrived on time with uneventful plane ride, but that was the end of uneventful things. Our only task today was to get to Shawn's apartment, so we found the M60 bus and hopped on along with every other person in the city, but our bus mates were quite nice with one guy that lent his portable game system to Henry for the duration of our ride. We got on the N train in Astoria and headed into Manhattan. We didn't realize the train turned into an express train once it got into Manhattan so naturally, we missed our stop, had to get off, hit up two elevators and hit the local train back to the 23rd street stop, got off and promptly lost where the bus stop was for our next leg of our trip so we decided to walk - which turned out to not be too bad of a walk. We go to his apartment and were wowed by the views:

We settled in a bit and then went out for dinner at a cool Italian place (no I didn't have pizza yet) and some ice cream on the way back - we now settling in for the night and getting ready for tomorrow's apartment finding gala.

Landed in NYC

And of course Henry fell asleep 10 min before we landed.

Leavin' on a jet plane!

But we do know when we'll be back again...Wednesday.  And hopefully with a signed contract to our new home in New York City.  If possible Joe or I will update here with pictures of the pads we check out and which one we decide upon...along with other fun pictures and stories.  If we don't have time/the ability to update while in NYC, we'll be sure to share all when we get back!