Still, his first memory of that visit isn’t particularly bright. The home was being repainted in a yellowy cream. “My first thought was, Why would they choose such a crusty color?” But the living room was bathed in light and dogwood trees visible outside were bursting with flowers. Surely, it was a sign. “I promptly called the broker and mumbled, ‘I think this is it, tell me it’s still available.’” Of course, it was not. There were two other hopeful applicants. By the time he finished submitting (what felt like) hundreds of DocuSigns that night, he already had a vision for the home.
The first thing Juan did when he got the keys was paint the walls white, and more specifically Benjamin Moore’s Simply White—a shade not too cold for winter, nor too warm for summer. Because he couldn’t change the layout, he sectioned it off instead, fashioning a dining nook in one corner of the living room. Some things, such as the old casement metal windows in the living room, he embraced as part of the home’s character. “It overlooks a charming courtyard surrounded by the thing I love most about New York: its [various] characters,” Juan laughs. As for the bedroom—the home’s only one—he added a hydraulic bed to optimize space during the day.
