My New 1926 Apartment

[Mr. 'H']

Bathroom

SHower door with the apartment crest. Is this original?

I'm in love!

Uuuaahhh!!! To die for!

All lovely working original. So nice.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Beautiful place... and it looks well-maintained.

We lived in an apartment built in 1911 and it too was eccentric in layout. No two apartments were the same and some of the second floor units had secret stairways to the basement!!! All units had back decks that looked out onto a wide courtyard with a lawn and the original mews.

All the interior fixtures were original, and by all, I mean ALL. The wiring - knob and tube - wasn't even grounded and the floors hadn't been sanded or refinished since, probably, ever, so walking barefoot was a bad idea, unless strolling over hedgehogs is something that gives you pleasure. Eventually a developer got hold of the place and it is now coming down to make room for a mish-mash of 80 cookie cuttter units.

Crying shame... so, love your new place.

This place is the same -- all kinds of unusual touches in the layout. And no two apartments have the same floor plan. We have a door in our kitchen that goes out to an alleyway. I don't know if it's a fire escape or not -- we haven't been out the door yet -- but the apartment across the way has the same door.

We have friends who live there and they told us the fuses are always blowing because they are so old. I think my friend said there's some type of bulb you need to get (??) when the fuse blows, but they're hard to find because they don't make them in large quantities anymore. Maybe someone here knows more about what I'm talking about?

That's really the only thing that's "bad" about this apartment. And I hear the landlady is crazy once you move in, but that type of stuff doesn't bother me

 

[Chas]

Nice!!

I love your bathroom.

I live in a nice 20's apt. here in Vancouver, which are becoming as rare as hen's teeth. One I have 'er tidy I will post pics of mine.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Just don't have two heat sources going at once, like the microwave and pop-up toaster, or the hair dryer and space heater, and you won't have so many blown fuses. I have several fuses still on hand, of the bulb type and the mica window type, even though I switched to a circuit breaker several years ago. (I don't throw much away.) The fuses always seemed to blow on a holiday, and at night.
Looks like a china cabinet is the intended use after all for the nook. Makes sense, as people wouldn't bump into it if it's securely in a nook.

 

[dhermann1]

Wonderful place! Miraculously well preserved. The nook is for a side board, I'm quite sure. The kitchen seems to beg for original appliances. I've heard that the original ammonia fridges (as opposed to freon or other gases) are more efficient than modern ones, but the tiny freezer sections would be useless and would require defrosting. But one of those with a white "kitchen" radio on top would be so cool. Enjoy, and post pics when you're settled.
I'm moving (God and the mortgage folks willing) into a 1937 deco apartment soon. It's really nice, but not as many original details as yours. Congrats!
BTW, those hexagonal bathroom tiles are wonderful. Note how closely set together they are. Modern tile work is so sloppy in comparison. Those tiles are tightly laid, and I'll bet the surface is completely smooth. Same with the wall tiles, right? One of my favorite things in the NYC Subway system is the wall tiles in the old 1904 vintage IRT stations. They're heavily glazed, dead flat, and placed lie a mirror on the wall. Just gorgeous.

 

[KObalto]

Beautiful!

I've got the same tile in my 1931 home.

 

[Liz]

Great apartment, and I love the bathroom! It's always nice to see deco-era apartments going to people who will appreciate them and keep the period features (I recently heard of someone buying a place with an original '30s-era pink and black bathroom and the new owner wanted to get rid of it all because she thought it looked so "outdated"!).

 

[Sefton]

I'm with everyone else on this one:you've got yourself a great place. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere near the front door there was set into the wall a small space with a ledge/shelf. That would be the "altar" for your telephone!

 

[dandelion-vint]

I love it! I'm very partial to green, so I really like the green tile work in your bathroom. The arched doorways are great too.

Be sure to post some photos when you get moved in.

 

[fourstarbanner]

What a find! :eusa_clap I hope I'm as lucky as you when I go looking for my new apartment!

 

[LadyStardust]

Wonderful place, it's obvious you'll love it. It's a bit strange looking at the pictures for me, because my apartment is almost exactly the same, especially the bathroom, the only difference in mine being the wall tiles are just plain white, and the radiator is fixed on the wall. And that's really neat that you have a separate bath and shower, I don't know how common that was back then. And also, the exterior is GORGEOUS, I'm absolutely in love with it. Just a couple blocks down the street from my own apartment is another historic set-up that looks similar to yours, I actually mistook it for a private residence the first time I ever saw it because it looks so grandiose. I would love to move in there.

 

[LordJohnRoxton]

It's hard not to love those 1920's apartments. My own building is from 1928... it was a showcase for all of the electrical conveniences at the time. I've seen a newspaper write up about it at the time, and I think I would still have chosen the building back then!

 

[deadpandiva]

That's a beautiful apartment. I lived in a building built in 1925. It was so beautiful. I now live in a 1960's colonial style monstrocity. It's hard to find a two bedroom from that era unfortunatly.

 

[jake_fink]

This place is the same -- all kinds of unusual touches in the layout. And no two apartments have the same floor plan. We have a door in our kitchen that goes out to an alleyway. I don't know if it's a fire escape or not -- we haven't been out the door yet -- but the apartment across the way has the same door.

We have friends who live there and they told us the fuses are always blowing because they are so old. I think my friend said there's some type of bulb you need to get (??) when the fuse blows, but they're hard to find because they don't make them in large quantities anymore. Maybe someone here knows more about what I'm talking about?

That's really the only thing that's "bad" about this apartment. And I hear the landlady is crazy once you move in, but that type of stuff doesn't bother me

Ha ha! My place had a crazy landlady too. We had to tell her we were married in writing before we could sign the lease (which made me furious); laundry could not be hung out on Sunday, and she didn't want anyone cooking curry or garlic in the apartments. She was a cat lady too, and the mews (tee-hee) were filled with feral cats that just kept on reproducing so the courtyard occassionally felt like some mad Balthus painting come to life. When she died her heirs dumped the old place just as soon as they could. Scumbags.

 

[Brooksie]

This apartment is way too cool, I love it! Have fun living there and thanks for sharing the pics with us all.

Brooksie

 

[Mojito]

Now that is an apartment! That's the apartment I'm looking for next year when buying my first place - although I think the equivalent in Sydney will be prohibitively expensive. It just looks so perfect.

 

[dostacos]

That is one of my big problems with Southern California, most of the houses were built in the 50s or later. {yeah I know there are some, but they either are in an area I don't want to live in OR so expensive that it does not matter.}

I would love to get a Craftsman house, but I need wide doors and most of those are on the small side.

My other real complaint would be the same sunny days over and over, day after day lol I have surfed on Saturday and snow skiing on Sunday. My two older sons still surf/snowboard in the same week.

So I guess I am a little jealous for your apt, and it would be nice to have more than 2 seasons [summer and almost summer]

 

[VivaciousLady]

Gorgeous apartment! :eusa_clap I just love that bathroom. Congrats on getting it!

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I'm with everyone else on this one:you've got yourself a great place. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere near the front door there was set into the wall a small space with a ledge/shelf. That would be the "altar" for your telephone!

I guess that would be this?? Haha,

A few more pics because I love the place so much...

Art Deco peep holes

Going up?

Yes, I'm in love with the elevator

Inside the elevator

Atomic age (?) cabinets in my kitchen

 

[BegintheBeguine]

I love it!

A few more pics because we love the place so much, yes!
Telephone in the hall: why was this? To keep conversations short by making the converser be in an uncomfortable, drafty, non-private area, because time was money? To have it in a central location, even though you had to run to answer the telephone because no one was ever in the hallway when the phone rang? I don't know, but mine is still in the hallway, on a table my granpere made. We used it as message central, propping up notes to each other on the telephone.
Now, not to sound like a Granny Grunt, but please make sure you mount that fire extinguisher somewhere. Just yesterday I found out that if someone happens to bump it and it falls, it immediately acts like a missile in the apartment, taking out everything and everyone in its path. Yikes, like a bomb through Wile E. Coyote's gut.
Ashley