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The new apartment does have the same views as the old, but does offer something we couldn't get before.
Moving out is strange to do. Did we really cram two people's stuff in here? In a matter of days, this matrix will be reset for a new tenant.
Picture credit: jazzkeller.com
We went to see the Lou Donaldson Quartet play in Harlem today. I'm no jazz expert, but I recognized his name from a Blue Note compilation I have, so I was excited to see him play. In doing so, I discovered another extraordinary musician - his Hammond organist, Dr. Lonnie Smith (home). He'll be playing in New York in August, and I hope to catch at least a few sets. The Quartet, by the way, was awesome. Lou has a great sense of humor and the band is tight. Lonnie Smith must live in Harlem - after the show, we saw him strolling north along Malcom X Blvd as we were waiting for a downtown bus.
The main faucet's range of movement was shifted off-center during installation and had to be adjusted. It was easily corrected, but I'm glad I discovered it sooner rather than later. I learned a few things about water filtering, too. Standard kitchen water flow ranges from 1 to 2 gallons per minute. You can filter out chlorine and particles above 5 microns at nearly full flow. Once you start filtering for lead and sub-micron particles, water flow is restricted to half a gallon per minute. It's about what a new Pur filter does at full blast. I had never seen a separate drinking water faucet before our own kitchen renovation.
Left side...
... right side. Quite an improvement after the demolition!
The old kitchen has been ripped out and electrical outlets are being added to accomodate the new appliances. The fuse box was replaced with a circuit breaker, and the kitchen required so many additional circuits that I had to go back to the other apartment to see what I had. It all checked out. Dishwasher? That's a circuit. Microhood? That's a circuit. Fridge? That's another circuit. Oh, and the kitchen itself needs a general circuit. Old Macdonald had a condo. E-I-E-I-O. And in this condo he had a kitchen...
You can see where the refrigerator used to be. There was no dedicated outlet for it, so it must have been plugged into the outlet above the counter to the right. Fresh! The new outlet for the fridge can be seen to the left of its silhouette.
The kitchen vent, which we asked to have vacuumed. There was probably 30 years of dust in there. Does that intercom phone work? Not likely. The old cabinets are visible in this older entry.
The sink will go here. The grey filler at the right covers the hole made when an outlet was added to the bathroom.
The old range was here. Additional outlets and wiring have been added to support the range's electrical ignition, the hard wired dishwasher, and the microhood. In the middle left, an outlet was moved farther away from the range. In the middle top, the first attempt to place an outlet for the microhood appears to have been unsuccessful.
A gaping hole is all that's left of the old medicine cabinet. You can see the back of the kitchen wall.
The seller was surprised. "Why do you need to renovate the kitchen? Isn't it functional?" It was clear she had not stepped foot in the apartment in a long time. Probably not even west of Central Park.
We liked this range, but ultimately didn't want to put in the effort to prepare it for modern use. Our new range may not have as much character, but it will be a lot more functional.
