The Parlor Floor Conundrum

THERE’S NO ELEGANT WAY to make a typical brownstone parlor floor-through into a one-bedroom apartment. Either the kitchen’s in the middle, or the bedroom is. But I don’t care. I want the ceiling height, the long windows, the moldings, the mantels – the grandeur, however faded — even if it means having hardly any closets, a minuscule kitchen, or a bed in the middle of the space.

The parlor floor (upper part of a duplex) on Dean Street I recently left - DUH! - with the new tenant's fab furnishings

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve gone from wanting ONLY a parlor floor, to considering third-floor apartments, which have more square footage because they include that ‘extra’ room above the entry hall — to insisting on a parlor floor again. I’ll have to find one in a wide building so it doesn’t feel too cramped.

Nice apartment but not a parlor floor

In thirty years of Brooklyn living, I’ve ALWAYS had a parlor floor (and then some). Middle-class Victorians, I’ve read, hardly used them. They were carpeted and stuffed with furniture and bric-a-brac, and only opened up for visitors, while the family cooked and ate on the garden level, and slept and really lived on the floors above.

Parlor floor in my 1830s row house in Boerum Hill, detail-less and loft-like

Parlor floor on Verandah Place in Cobble Hill (we opened up the hall and added the columns)

Meanwhile, my whole quest is more or less on hold, as my closing on the cottage in Springs approaches (this Thursday Friday – YAY!)

I never intended to live ‘out there’ full time, as a primary residence, but since I’m without a fixed address in Brooklyn at the moment, I may just do that for a while, and resume my parlor-floor rental search at a later date.

Urgent Real Estate Questions: My Two Cents

C.W., a reader from Brooklyn, e-mailed to ask my advice on, as she put it, “what/if to buy right now.”

So here’s my advice. But please, take it with a keg of salt.  We’re dealing in opinion here, not fact.

C.W. wrote: “My fiance and I rent a pleasant 2BR in Boerum Hill for $2,500.  Our lease ends in September, and we could certainly renew.  I have a job that pays $84K, perfect credit, and $100,000 cash to put toward a home purchase.

I’m torn between wanting to buy the best apartment we can afford in Fort Greene/Boerum Hill/Park Slope/Windsor Terrace, OR a one- or two-family somewhere in upstate New York, the North Fork, or PA that I can rent out, at least for part of the year, to generate income.

Ideally, I’d like to do both, of course, but I suspect that NYC prices haven’t fallen as far as they may, whereas we might find a bargain out of the city.”

That’s the prologue.  Here are C.W.’s questions and my answers:

At Laaast: ‘This Old House’ Discovers Brooklyn

Finally!  After 30 years, the producers of the long-running ‘This Old House’ PBS TV series have noticed that Brooklyn has a few 19th century houses (the nation’s largest stock, actually) in need of spiffing up.

For their next reno project, they’ve chosen a modest, bay-windowed 1904 Prospect Heights row house owned by a young couple with three sons.  The house is absolutely LADEN with original, late-Victorian woodwork from the days when builders ordered from catalogues of mass-produced millwork.

(Click any of the above images to enlarge it)

“The more the better” was the attitude, and this house has intact everything, from oak archways, classical columns, and gingerbread fretwork to built-in birds-eye maple cabinets and fancy brass door knobs and hinges..

It’s not just a refinishing job; they are also reincarnating the four-story house as a three-family, with an owner duplex in the middle and rental units on the garden level and top floor.

The Brooklyn segments start airing in mid-February.  In the meantime, there’s more on this project in the January/February issue of This Old House magazine.