{"id":17719,"date":"2014-05-01T00:43:14","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T07:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=17719"},"modified":"2014-05-01T00:43:14","modified_gmt":"2014-05-01T07:43:14","slug":"i-brake-for-floor-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/i-brake-for-floor-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"I Brake for Floor Plans — I Like to See How Those Other People Live"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Floor<\/a>
I brake for floor plans like these of a condo on East 86 Street with juliet balcony, walk-in closets and a huge kitchen — by Manhattan standards.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s Sunday morning. I pull the New York Times Magazine from the fat stack of newspapers on the breakfast table, fully intending to read the informative, thought-provoking articles inside. But I get no farther than page two, because that\u2019s where the real estate ads are \u2013 the ones with the floor plans.<\/p>\n

I brake for floor plans.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

They are floor plans for glorious multi-million-dollar condominiums in Manhattan, complete with foyers, parlors, media rooms, powder rooms, balconies and walk-in closets.<\/p>\n

I used to live in Manhattan. What a great place to be \u2013 tiny groceries where you can buy real filo dough and real pumpernickel bread. Restaurants that serve clam chowder \u2013 Manhattan<\/em> clam chowder. Quickie lunch spots where if you ask for your coffee light they know what you mean \u2013 milk, and lots of it.<\/p>\n

Now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area \u2013 in a house. But those floor plans in the Sunday New<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A storybook Tudor house for sale.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

York Times stop me every time. What if I\u2019d stayed in New York and wound up a high-powered editor on Good Housekeeping or Vogue or Gourmet? What kind of apartment would be mine?<\/p>\n

Probably not one of these \u2013 with price tags of seven and eight figures. But that doesn\u2019t stop me from dreaming. I pore over the floor plans, inhabiting them. My morning tea grows cold. Those enlightening articles on the social issues of the day languish on the pages ahead.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a Sunday morning, and I have time to indulge this, my guilty pleasure. I walk through the rooms, I imagine myself taking in spectacular views of skyscrapers and bridges, I try hanging my jeans and Zumba sweats in the walk-in closets.<\/p>\n

I linger. This one\u2019s got a foyer with a powder room off the entry. But the kitchen \u2013 as with so many of these high-priced condos \u2013 is dinky, not much bigger than the the walk-in closet. Don\u2019t these rich people cook?<\/p>\n

Much as I enjoy my Sunday morning reveries of New York City, a floor plan doesn\u2019t have to describe a multi-million-dollar condo on the Upper East Side to catch my eye. It can be up the street from my house right here in California.<\/p>\n

And so, like a lot of people \u2013 and you know who you are \u2013 I brake for estate sales. I park the car and go into the house \u2013 not to shop, but to check out the floor plan. Same goes for open houses. A for sale sign in front of a house and I hit the brakes.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Our\u00a0 midcentury house is typical of the 1950s, with three bedrooms and one bath upstairs. Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I like to look at other people’s floor plans. I like to see how they live. Are they big-kitchen people? Or are they satisfied with a microwave and a couple square feet of counter space to heat and serve the take-out?<\/p>\n

Have they splurged most of the upstairs square footage on an over-the-top master bedroom with TV and breakfast kitchen and left the kids with one ten-by-ten-foot space each for bed, desk and play space?<\/p>\n

I like to see where architects are putting the laundry. It used to be the basement, with a laundry chute, maybe. Now you see washers and dryers in the upstairs hall or even in the master bedroom.<\/p>\n

I wonder about those trendy great rooms. Do people mind the kitchen odors and noises wafting into the living space? Would I?<\/p>\n

Does the master bedroom<\/a> have some privacy but not so much that you can\u2019t hear the toddler crying<\/a> down the hall in the middle of the night?<\/p>\n

These days, of course, you don\u2019t have to get inside a house to study its floor plan. You can go to the realtor\u2019s website and take the slide-show walk-through. After that you can go to Google Maps and stroll up and down the street.<\/p>\n

Peter and Emily are looking for a house to buy \u2013 in the faraway Midwest. Jon and I flew in to do some house-hunting with them a few weeks ago. That was fun, but, truth be told, we could have gotten almost as good a tour of those same houses without ever leaving home \u2013 just by going on line.<\/p>\n

Peter has been sending us links to other houses, and \u2013 major confession coming up here \u2013 I spent all of last weekend (and I mean the whole weekend) touring houses on line. Bathrooms, back yards, laundry rooms, garages.<\/p>\n

No floor plans are provided on this real estate agency\u2019s site \u2013 just pictures. But that didn\u2019t stop me. I studied photo after photo and puzzled out the floor plans for myself. One house had a huge<\/p>\n

\"Living
A condominium with juliet balcony for sale on East 86 Street, Manhattan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

deck out back. Another was a stone\u2019s throw from the Minnehaha Creek Parkway. Another had an adorable stone and stucco Tudor fa\u00e7ade and a knotty pine entertainment room.<\/p>\n

When Jon and I bought our house way back in 1978, we bought it in spite of the fact it had only one bathroom upstairs to serve three bedrooms.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t think we could make it through the teen years sharing a bathroom with a couple of kids. But we did. We never got around to adding a second bathroom upstairs. Too expensive. Too time-consuming. Didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

I’ve spent hours and hours over the years trying to figure out how to squeeze another bathroom into that upstairs space of ours. And hours and hours looking at other people’s houses to see how they’ve managed it. So far I haven’t figured out a good way to get that second bathroom. But when I do, I’ll draw up a floor plan.<\/p>\n

More stories about houses at “A Generation of Preschoolers Trapped in Their Back Yards”<\/a>\u00a0 and\u00a0 “Getting a New Kitchen? Here Are Five Things I Like About Mine.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Floor<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Sunday morning. I pull the New York Times Magazine from the fat stack of newspapers on the breakfast table, fully intending to read the informative, thought-provoking articles inside. But I get no farther than page two, because that\u2019s where the real estate ads are \u2013 the ones with the floor plans. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[470,34,988,1200,1201,1202,444,55,709,82,56],"class_list":["post-17719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-architecture","tag-dont-miss","tag-emily","tag-house-hunting","tag-houses","tag-midcentury-houses","tag-minneapolis","tag-family-stories","tag-new-york-times","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-peter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}