A post about Nora Ephron and loving where you live.

(photo credit)

Upon hearing the very sad news of Nora Ephron's passing last week, I've found myself pouring over articles and interviews lately. What a gift she had. And how she will be missed.

my favorite Nora Ephron film, You've Got Mail (photo credit)

I am currently obsessing over this article in The New Yorker written by Nora in 2006 about her love affair with her rent-controlled 5 bedroom home at the Apthorp, a classic Upper West Side apartment building that I am forever drooling over. I love this article. I love her descriptions and her wit and her sentiments on the neighborhood and the feelings of utter devotion and love conveyed for her apartment (plus it's always fun to get an inside peek into incredible NYC real estate). I like to imagine her sitting in one of her 8 (yes, eight!) rooms pecking out the first draft of You've Got Mail, her Upper West Side inspiration right under nose outside an open window. She recounts the unfortunate circumstances (the end of rent stabilization and therefore a HUGE increase) that eventually forced her out of her love-at-first-sight home. 

The Apthorp (photo credit)

I could definitely relate to her sentiments. It is true that a place (specifically -- in her case and mine -- a really great New York apartment) has the ability to crawl into your heart, right alongside the relationships you hold near and dear. The nook-y fifth floor walk-up near Lincoln Center that Dan and I shared our first year of marriage is that place for me. I fell head over heels in love with that apartment immediately, with it's high ceilings, loft space and working fireplace. It felt like home the moment we walked in. 

our beloved old apartment building on Columbus

Perhaps it was my fondness for the space that made that year so lovely...or maybe it was the happy/gooey first-year-of-marriage bliss that sweetened the space. Either way, I feel a whole lotta love when I think of those times and that apartment, and find myself still sometimes tearing up a bit as I walk past our old building. And while we are now in a place that is much better suited for our family of three, a bit farther north in the same neighborhood, it's not quite the same...I'm just not as charmed by it and it didn't knock me off my feet the first time I saw it (though it was so far superior to every other place we'd seen during our arduous search that the words 'we'll take it!' tumbled out of our mouths a mere 5 minutes into the tour, if for no other reason than to "beat" the other couple who had just walked in...it was slim pickings in NYC last summer!). The happy memories we are creating with Miles in our current apartment more than make up for it's lack of high ceilings and fireplace, and I really have no complaints. But as Nora puts it at the end of the article (regarding the perfectly lovely Upper East Side apartment she eventually moved into): "It's not love. It's just where I live." 

And now I am off to go watch "You've Got Mail" for the millionth time and to fall in love with the Upper West Side and Nora all over again. 

*Tom Hanks remembers Nora 

*Seeing Nora everywhere

*Movies and Dreams: my link to the Shop Around the Corner
--and--
*another interesting NY Times article about the Apthorp

Space.

new studio space!
Look! Dan put together the extra desk we had in storage and set it up in my "studio." Now I have room to spread out and a place to put works in progress (besides the floor -- my former storage area -- which Dan didn't like so much (thus the motivation to pull this sucker out of storage) :). It's a little large for the space, but I so need an extra work surface, we're willing to live with it for the next 8 months. I spent most of the day arranging and organizing my new space and now am feeling ready and inspired to get to work. (picture of old space here)

We have a dreamy night of NOTHING planned for tonight. Ahh, nothing, how I have missed you. Take-out and a movie are pretty much the only things on the agenda. So looking forward to a down weekend at home; it's been awhile.

Have a good one! :)

Apartment tour!

Last week we hosted a small dinner party for some of Dan's classmates, which was just the motivation I needed to get those last few boxes unpacked (or shoved in closets), pictures hung, and shelves de-cluttered. Thankfully, I remembered to snap a few pictures while it was all still clean & shiny. So here it is, at long last -- our Cambridge apartment tour! Click on images for hidden notes & random info :) (everything looks very yellow/orange in these pictures. granted, most of the walls are painted yellow or orange (what they call "provencal"), but it doesn't feel so yellow/orange living in it as it does looking at it). Anyway. Onward


hallway to the kitchen. we have a hallway! with built-in bookshelves! so grown-up :)


a close-up of those built-ins (which I spent hours arranging and rearranging, using every HGTV design trick in the book)


my favorite room in the apartment ~ the kitchen (seen before here)


right off the kitchen is the guest bedroom/Dan's study nook (his desk is tucked back in the corner)


our bedroom, which we still need to work on making more cozy/pretty


our cozy living room ~ terrible lighting, my apologies


more built-ins and HGTV stylings, located in the living room adjacent to the couch


my "studio" (aka the art nook) which sits right behind the couch in the living room area ~ not so easy to keep this area clean


a close-up of my art desk, in all it's cluttered glory

And that's all folks! Thanks for joining me :)

top six

Harvard Square
top six reasons to love the new apartment (today):
1) proximity to this beautiful place (above)
2) dishwasher
3) spacious open kitchen (hello, counter space!)
4) oven that works*
5) little outdoor porch right off of the kitchen for morning coffee sipping
6) room for a real kitchen table** for proper sit down dinners (like the yummy one my husband made tonight)

(yes, i'm in love with our new kitchen)

*our oven in nyc caught on fire the first time we used it. it therefore had to be monitored closely whenever we ever cooked/baked. it basically burnt things to a crisp unless the door remained propped open at all times.
**no room for a real kitchen table in nyc apartment, only a little fold up guy, which basically became our mail holder.
(despite those two things, i still miss it. our new york apartment. our new york neighborhood. the city, in general. sigh).