Introduction

In late 2012 we purchased an apartment that was the first 2 floors of a Brooklyn Heights town house. This is the first property that we have owned as a couple and we share the building with one other family who live on the upper floors.  We run it together with the other family like a somewhat unconventional co-op. Through the years the building has had a rich history seeing many changes of occupants and layouts, everything from a single family home to as many as 8 different apartments. In the 60's (those golden years before Landmarks restrictions) a floor was added to make it a 5 story building. It is located on a corner plot which has both advantages (like extra windows) and as we later discovered, disadvantages (like way more exterior brickwork to maintain). It is not a typical town home layout with the entrance on the front, but instead the main entrance is on the long side of the building which therefore influences greatly the layout of the rooms inside. 

As most people looking to buy a property do, we had viewed MANY apartments. And like most recently married couples looking for a home they can start a family in, we wanted space, preferably outdoors as well as in. We knew that we were unlikely to find what we wanted for our budget by staying in Manhattan and so, like many before us, we began to look at what was across the East River.  We did not know Brooklyn Heights that well before buying this apartment and though we were 99% sure we would enjoy living here, we were unprepared for how much we would fall in love with the area. 

When we saw this apartment, it had (unusually) been on the market for some time. Perhaps this should have been a warning sign but we were blinded by it's location, it's potential, the  small private garden, beautiful parlour floor high ceilings and wood burning fireplaces.... Naively, we thought we could transform it into our dream home with some minor internal work and a bit of a paint job. However, I am truly grateful that we have actually lived in the apartment before attempting to renovate it. This is because we have learned so much about how we want to use the space and about the renovation process in general that we couldn't have known had we just begun knocking things about straight away. We've looked at hundreds of different layouts, and changed our minds too many times to count. In short, we have driven our architects, parents, friends and each other mad, extended the budget by scary amounts and taken the best part of 14 months to get to the point of actually beginning!

Now that we are finally there, this blog will attempt to document our journey through this process of renovation as we take our (half of a) house and turn it into our home.