For five years, Samantha and Chris Shoemaker squeezed into a one-bedroom rental in Carnegie Hill, which was mostly fine. That is, until they found themselves working from home during the pandemic.
It “made me ready to get out of there and move on to a new place,” Mrs. Shoemaker said. “I was looking forward to a bigger space and a fresh start.”
There were a few frustrations. The kitchen was so small that when the couple had their wedding two years ago, they discouraged guests from giving them kitchen equipment. “Stacking pots and pans, you do the best you can, but there’s never a good way to do it,” said Mrs. Shoemaker, 33, an avid cook. “Nothing had its own place.”
She considered the space-benefit ratio of every item; only the air fryer was worth it, she concluded.
They were eager, too, to escape the endless sirens from the two nearby hospitals. “The decibel level has absolutely increased,” said Mrs. Shoemaker, who works for Audicus, a startup that sells hearing aids online. “Everybody is covering their ears. I’ve clocked the sirens at 90 to 100 decibels.”
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The couple, who met through friends while studying in Pittsburgh, began hunting for a two-bedroom in a co-op building with an elevator last summer. The second bedroom, they thought, could double as an office.
They wanted to remain on the East Side but move farther downtown, where more stores and services would be available. They had little interest in amenities, as long as they had a laundry room. But the building would have to allow Doug the dog, who is part Doberman and part pit bull, “but 100 percent good boy,” said Mr. Shoemaker, 39, an investment banker.
The couple set their budget at up to $1.25 million and spent every Sunday for months going to open houses. After a while, “they blend together,” Mr. Shoemaker said. “For the most part, it was the same thing every single time.”
The apartments they saw were usually “larger junior fours that were basically converted into two-bedrooms,” said their real estate agent, Kevin Maher, a salesman at Bond New York. The second bedroom was often a former dining room or had been sectioned off from a large living room.
Among their options:
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