Phew!

Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. We found an apartment. A really amazing one. I had spent about 3 days this week looking at various places and being frustrated that nothing was remotely acceptable for the amount of money we wanted to spend. Then I saw one that seemed pretty darn good. I put a hold on it ($300 cash down and completed application) and made an appointment to come back the next day with J. But then I was looking at other listings and made a call about one of them. It turned out to be one I had already seen, but the broker asked me my budget and said that he had an amazing 3 bedroom pretty high up on the Upper West Side (a little higher than the cutoff of 88th street that we initially didn't want to be above), less than one block from Central Park. Three bedrooms? We weren't looking for those at all because they weren't remotely in our budget. It sounded too good to be true, but his description sounded earnest and so we went to check it out. We saw it yesterday morning at 11:00. By 11:30 we were in a cab rushing downtown to get our application in. By 1:45 he had texted me, saying our application had been approved (thanks to our excellent credit, but also to having accumulated in a nice little folder all those documents I listed in a previous post...we were ready to go!). Yesterday afternoon we went to the bank to get bank checks for an exorbitant amount of money (first and last month's rent, plus another month's rent for the broker fee, for this guy who spent less than one hour with us...) and this morning at 11:00, we signed the lease. I can't believe it.

This place is the entire second floor of a traditional New York townhouse. We have original parquet floors and fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom (not working though...). The master bedroom is nice and big, though the two other rooms are pretty tiny. But we are thrilled to have a room for J. to have as his man-cave (which we were going to have no matter what...) and also have a room that could maybe, possibly, some day be a room for a baby. That means we could actually stay in this place for a while. Which is good, because I hate moving.

So on the down side, it is a one flight walk-up. I don't mind that now, but it could be a drag if I make it to 8 months pregnant. Or with a stroller. But thousands of New Yorkers do it all the time (to even higher floors), so I'm sure I can handle it. Also, the kitchen is pretty darn small. It is not the smallest New York kitchen by any stretch, and it is at least separate from the living room, with a little pass-through. It has a full size stove (many NY kitchens don't!), though the fridge is 3/4 size. Not a big deal. And it has a dishwasher, which is also a big plus in a NY kitchen. Everything in the kitchen is brand new (cabinets and appliances), though pretty much the cheapest ones you can buy. I'm not complaining though - these are the things that put this amazing apartment into our budget (just barely! I actually had to negotiate it down to be at the top of our budget).

So, we are going to get packing and will actually move 2 weeks from today! I can't believe it. But that means that we will be moved in before we go out to Denver. I hope I don't get too stressed out. Moving stresses me out and I hate packing. But I'm excited about this move, so hopefully I'll be more motivated to get packing. I'm taking today off though - I am so exhausted from going in and out of the city everyday in the heat for the past 4 days. Not to mention that house hunting is just emotionally draining. I was about to hyperventilate in the cab yesterday, as we were going to submit our application. Our broker was not the only one showing that apartment, so I had no way of knowing that there wasn't someone else headed to their broker's office to submit an application on it as well. It was a tense couple of hours waiting for approval. Like I said before, finding an apartment in NYC is a very competitive business. I feel like we went in fighting and came out winners!