So all that decluttering and cleaning and fixing up, the account of which I just *know* that all of you have simply been *gripped* by as I’ve been all obsessive about it lo these past few weeks? It all came together today with the open house.
And apparently, it went pretty well. Response was very good, so good that the realtor ran out of information sheets. Several people took offer submission sheets. And that’s even with another 1 bedroom FSBO in the building and having an open house today as well. It was called a “one-plus” in the ad, so maybe it’s priced higher than mine.
I’m really hoping mine will go fast for a few reasons: One, it’s one of the cheapest 1-bedrooms on my realtor’s site (and they’re a big one, able to pull in buyers). If you’re going cheaper, you’re going into East Flatbush, which is great and all, but I’m only two blocks from Prospect Park and East Flatbush is not. Two, it’s priced very attractively for first-time buyers, who may very well not do better renting. Three, it’s a really damn nice apartment:
That there would be the living room, which only a few weeks ago was piled with papers and tools and general crap. Remember when I was so triumphant that I had gotten the dining table cleared off? That’s it there.
It also occurs to me that, other than the cat condo and the stuff I got at Ikea, I don’t have any furniture in this room that I bought both new and in perfect condition (and even the cat condo I got on sale). The dresser was in my mother’s place; the chair (which you can’t see) was my grandmother’s; the coffee table/trunk I got at Pottery Barn, but the top was warped so it was discounted; the dining table came from a flea market; the dining chairs I got at a discount because they were water-damaged. Even the rug I got at a discount because even though it’s an all-wool Karastan, something went awry with the weaving process and it pulled in a little at one side. Which you can’t see, what with the way I’ve arranged it.
On to the foyer:
I’ve been pretty ruthless about culling my book collection down to where I can get them onto these two bookshelves (not including cookbooks, which live in the kitchen). The criteria is, essentially, “Will I read this again?” If no, it goes into someone else’s library. Either I give it to a friend or, if I didn’t really enjoy it all that much, it goes into the laundry room for someone else to grab. I’ve found some good stuff that way, too.
The naughty books are on the bottom shelf.
Hey, remember when I finished my tub? Here’s what the room looked like after it was all cleaned up and decorated:
The kitchen:
And finally, the bedroom:
I will say this: the dust, people! I got this place all decluttered, but the dust will. just. not. go. the fuck. away.
Now that I *have* gotten it this clean and decluttered, I look around and wonder why I haven’t done this before now. It’s so nice! It’s so easy to keep clean! I mean, I had my pictures leaning against the wall for 6-1/2 years. It would have been easy enough to find the damn hardware to use the picture rail already, oh, five years ago.
Didn’t *I* deserve this? Don’t *I* deserve to live like this on a regular basis, rather than putting on a show for *other people*?
One thing that’s going to be very weird is that, now that it’s clean, and decluttered, and repaired, and the big event done with, I will now no longer be sitting around stressed out about my apartment, and the state of it. It’s clean. It’s tidy. It takes only a little effort to keep it that way. Previously, I would fret about it all weekend long, and the guilty feeling that I should be cleaning my apartment shadowed everything I did on Saturday, and did not translate into action — and not nearly enough of it — until Sunday night. At which time, I’d still feel guilty because I hadn’t cleaned enough. The rest of the week wasn’t any better, what with being too tired to do anything, but still having the crap staring me in the face.
Good lord, what will I do with myself now?
That looks like a great place, I hope you sell it soon.
I have the same issue that I have a hard time keeping a place neat and clean just for me but if someone is coming over it gets clean in a hurry and I wonder why I can’t do it for myself.
Well, if you’re REALLY wondering what to do with yourself now, I have this house over here that could TOTALLY use someone to tidy it and make it look purty (someone who has good taste, I mean, which I very clearly DO NOT..) or, at the very least, to fret over it not being clean..
Either way, that is one GOOD lookin’ place!
If you ever find a solution to the dust problem, PLEASE, I implore you, make it known to the world. No matter how much I rearrange, pair-down, delouse and generally CLEAN, I am never able to make the dust just go away!
Oh my, that sounded rant-y. I apologize. What I really wanted to say was you have an incredibly lovely apartment and I wish you good luck on your desired bidding war and subsequent sale.
Lurker going back to lurking now…
1. What happened to the cool Sin in Linen bedspread?
2. I do like what you did with the bedroom, despite its absence.
3. Apparently we have similar decor taste; I have the same super useful magnetic spice rack. And
4. Your apartment makes me hate my white walls.
I don’t have the full set; the bedspread I got had that weird oh-look-it’s-navy problem and I haven’t actually sent for another (I do have the sheets). The paint was based on the bedding you see in the photos, which is very West Elm Summer ‘06. So for the main showings, I figured I’d go with the matchy-matchy stuff, which I do have a full set for.
Also useful for hiding the ugly adhesive marks from the obligatory appliance stickers. There’s a reason that the takeout menus are turned on their sides like that.
Best. Part. Of. Ownership.
I thank those of you who have said nice things about my taste.
I think it’s learned; I grew up with a mother who was obsessed with interior design, and who had learned how to hang her own wallpaper (wallpaper’s cheap, allowing you to do multiple redos, but wallpaper hangers are not). I was often waylaid coming in the door from school and asked to give my opinion on some wallpaper swatch or another that was tacked up to the wall.
My taste definitely runs to the far more nontraditional than my mother’s does, but that doesn’t mean that I reject her style utterly. In fact, I have fun with reinterpretations of the traditional style of my mother and grandmother; for instance, I had my grandmother’s wing chair reupholstered in a (fairly subtle) animal print. The dresser you see above? Was part of a set my grandmother rescued from a garbage pile (to my grandfather’s great dismay; he liked to think he’d moved beyond that in the immigrant experience).
I’m actually annoyed that there’s so much purple in that rug, which I got about a month ago, but I have orange $11 side tables. I want to throw a sari or two over them, which my mother would never do, but which she’d still find tasteful.
Wow, the floors are gorgeous! (And your kitchen is the same color as my bedroom.)
By the way, where are you going once your place has sold? You may have mentioned it before, but these days I can’t even remember what day it is.
My husband reads the same book multiple times, once for pleasure, and then he goes over it and makes notes like he is still in effing grad school… then he reads it years later, AGAIN. So, you can imagine the mess around here! I’ve pleaded and pleaded, but unfortunately I have been suckered in, too… I end up re-reading old books (now that I am older and wiser, I get Thomas Mann, for instance) and he preens at me and says SEE??? (Now I can’t get rid of them either.)
But I SOOOO admire your bookshelves! ENVIOUS!!!! I’d love to be so disciplined!
And lovely apartment, too, but I am always amazed at how tiny New York kitchens are. No wonder everyone eats out all the time!
Short-term, probably a rental in Astoria until I figure out what I want to do long-term. What I do long-term will depend very much on the outcome of the election in November. Also on my ability to get into library school.
Library school? Very cool!
And I’m with you re: the election results. For the last year or so, I’ve gotten it into my head that I may want to move to Scandanavia, or to the Netherlands. Never been to Europe, but the democratic socialism is very tempting. And if McCain gets in, that’s it for SCOTUS. It’s done. Turn the clocks, no, the calendars back.