It works like this sometimes: if you're extremely lucky you hear about an apartment from a friend, relative, etc. that is being moved out of. You convince friend to inquire about apartment with the superintendent of the building. The super says, "why, of course! it's going to be available right after the renovations are complete! How much would you like to rent it for?". Then you move in ;)
It works like this most times: you have no friends with apartments magically up for rent. You must then go through a broker who is going to try to charge you 15% of the annual rent for his/her fee ($2,000 a month rent = $3,600 fee). You pay first month's rent and security deposit up front as well. Starting to feel the burn a bit? Oh, ya. And with the application for an apartment, you almost always have to fork over $75 - $100 per person in order to run a credit/background check.
Pretty not awesome. In our case, we applied for 3 apartments total. The first, a BEAUTIFUL and HUGE apartment... loaded with bedbugs. The second, a more modest, but updated 9th Floor apartment with GORGEOUS views of the sky ("what's that, you say? Yes, the sky. As in, we're not staring out our windows into the trash alley or neighbor's kitchen"). Number two's management company, which we later discovered was voted one of the top ten WORST management companies in NYC, never ever ever got back to us. We waited for 2 weeks and had to move on.
And then we get to #3. Ah, number #3.
I mean, Lua could build small forts in these closets.
Is it in our favorite neighborhood? Nope. Is it within the budget we had originally intended? Nope. Is it renovated? Not even close. In fact, it's so old and crusty, Andrew wasn't sure I'd want to take on such a project. But I immediately saw something pretty special. First of all, it's HUGE for a 2 bedroom in the city. 2 King sized bedrooms, an eat in kitchen and a living room that could fit a banquet. Is the bathroom slightly frightening? Yup. But I'm confident that some elbow grease and a few plants will make it feel more like our home and less like a serial killer's.
And now we start the more fun process of moving in and making this space our own. We decided it was time in our lives to stop asking our friends and family to lift heavy things (especially because they'd have to do it totally by themselves while Andrew is in rehearsals 6 days a week and I am not supposed to be lifting anything heavier than a bowling ball (ha)). We hired movers on Friday after quite an ordeal with a NYC snowstorm and now my parents are here for an entire week cleaning, fixing, repairing, cleaning some more. We can't even begin to repay them! More pictures as the nesting continues!
