Make an Offer

June 26, 2018

It was back to the proverbial apartment hunting drawing board. I literally looked at hundreds of apartments uptown, downtown, east, west – but only one apartment on East 82nd Street, captured my imagination. It had everything I coveted, including a beautiful outdoor patio. The challenge – it would require vast renovations, which on top of the asking price made it prohibitive, but it continued to live in the back of my mind.  

It was well into Spring and the hunt continued—I looked at everything new to the market and matched my criteria, but nothing was right. I went back to look at East 82nd street a few times, it was like being in a complex relationship, I wasn't sure if we should break up or get married. In anticipation of every visit I thought this would be the moment I would either walk away or fall in love. Neither happened.

I reached out to my designer, Charles Riley and showed him the floorplan, we came up with a plan and budget (more about that later) that brought me a little closer to love. I visited one more time with the plan in hand and decided it was love. Like any committed relationship, it just needed lots of nurturing. I had my broker put in an offer on the apartment, and after a little back and forth it was accepted. Finally, no longer homeless! Well, sort of.

The moral of the story here is that you must make an offer. It should be informed and calculated and it must fit within your budget. But if there is anything you’re going to stretch a bit on, your dwelling should be the thing. Take a chance and make the offer you can afford, even if it’s not the offer the seller is expecting—you just may get your dream home.

 - Jaqui AKA Mad Renovator

Almost Homeless, Buyer Beware

June 12, 2018

Those of you who have strict parameters on how much space you need and your neighborhood preference, quickly become aware of the real estate offerings that are currently on the market.  It becomes a version of real estate tinder, reading profiles until you find the one thing that makes you ultimately swipe left — no closet space, massive renovations, no outdoor space, no light. Once you find the "too good to be true" match, it has everything you want, you put in a bid, it’s accepted, you (very quickly) sell the apartment you love and then...you discover a deal breaker.  In our case, the perfect match was on 87th and Park Avenue, it had everything, including a break the bank renovation that I could not justify in the end.  Thus, we found ourselves without an apartment. I would never make light of saying we were homeless, I know how truly blessed we are, but it is unsettling to have a a family, plus two cats, without a place to call home. Fortunately, it was the summer and we had the cottage in Connecticut where we lived for a few months, that and Hotel Tonight were home for a few months. Once school started for Calliope, we signed a one year lease on an apartment on 80th and Park. But, I knew that I had my work cut out for me to find a new place to live.

- Jaqui AKA Mad Renovator

Paint or Move?

May 29, 2018

My journey from Carnegie Hill to the East 80’s streets began one afternoon when I walked into my apartment on East 95th Street and caught the waning afternoon light coming through the windows, onto the walls. I was caught in that moment of dread that many New Yorker’s face - “My apartment needs to be painted.” 

Now I don’t want to sound flip, that a decision this big was based solely on a paint job. I had been thinking about the ever-elusive NYC outdoor space as well as Calliope’s transition into the teen years and the imminent need for more space.

I loved my Carnegie Hill Apartment, it had been photographed several times as well as featured on an episode of NBC’s “Open House.” I loved its location between Madison and Fifth, my second floor windows that looked out onto a row of big oak trees for a magical moment of “country living” in the city. But, If I were going to go through all of the trouble to paint, I might as well just look into moving. From there, my journey began.

- Jaqui AKA Mad Renovator

Welcome to the new
Diary of a Mad Renovator

May 15, 2018

Hi readers! If you've followed me before on Traditional Home, welcome back! If you've just started, welcome and thanks for joining me on my crazy journey. Just as apartments and houses need renovations every now and then to accommodate your changing needs, so do blogs, so we've moved from the Traditional Home website to our own and have a new look, a new logo and most importantly a new design project, my new apartment in New York. We've been up at the beach for so long I thought it was time to tackle a city renovation and explain some of the similarities and differences of working in the city versus the country. We'll start next week with how and why I decided to move out of my previous Carnegie Hill apartment to my current home and renovation project on New York’s Upper East Side. But don't worry, we'll still be occasionally visiting Connecticut on our posts and sharing decorating ideas and the ongoing maintenance of a beach side cottage.

I love your comments and feedback, please let me know if there is a subject that you would like me to cover in an upcoming post.

- Jaqui AKA Mad Renovator