Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Morning Floor Plan Porn: Before and After

Listen butter beans, Your Mama is short on time this morning because we have to get out of the house early to go film for The Gossip Queens program on the gay gay gay Logo channel. But before we git on our hobby horse and ride, we thought we'd leave y'all with a little New York City floor plan porn to ponder.

A man named Steven Ells, the co-founder and CEO of the ballooning Chipotle "Mexican" food franchise, has been making real estate headlines in New York City for the last year or so with his increasingly fat real estate portfolio of properties located in various areas of the West Village neighborhood of New York.

The burrito bigwig not only owns and a full floor loft style spread on Waverly Place–bought in March 2008 for $5,650,000 and currently on the market with an asking price of $6,250,000–he also possesses a speck-tack-u-ler Steven Harris designed townhouse on Jane Street that he snatched up in early 2008 for $13,400,000.

We don't know if townhouse livin' didn't suit Mister Ells or if he's just got an serious case of the Real Estate Fickle, but in December of 2009 it was reported that the King of the Barbacoa Burrito forked over $11,000,000 for a third high-priced West Village spread, this one a 10-room penthouse with wrap around terraces atop one of the best buildings on lower Fifth Avenue.

Because the acquisition was well covered by the lovely Miss Malle at the Observer and fine folks at Curbed and New York magazine, Your Mama opted to not discuss the posh, pre-war penthouse pad.

However and although we are not nor ever will be in the market for an eleven million dollar penthouse–or an eleven million dollar anything else–Your Mama did take a serious shine to the penthouse aerie. So, we spent a few hours re-working the floor plan (below) to better suit the lifestyle of Your Mama, the Dr. Cooter, our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly and our mean ol' pussy Sugar.
Even though it would make most domestic live-ins swoon with envy, the first order of bizness was to blow out the staff quarters in order to create a more open kitchen layout with a pair of fancy steel framed French doors that open directly out to the long terrace that runs the entire length of the north side of the penthouse. We figure that iffin we can cough up eleven million dollars for a penthouse in Greenwich Village we can afford to buy our madcap and totalitarian house gurl Svetlana her own studio or 1 bedroom apartment in the building.

We left the living room untouched since it's pretty much perfection with its trio of French doors that open to the south facing terrace, but since we're not big on hosting banquet style dinner parties we chose to shorten the formal dining room in order to make room for a new corridor that connects the entrance hall to the new powder pooper and the luscious guest suite fashioned from what the original floor plan called a study. Notice how we've lined up the corridor on axis with the swinging door that connects the kitchen to the entrance hall?

Since we do not or ever plan to have actual children, we chose to convert the second bedroom to a privately situated office/library wrapped in bookshelves and closet storage. Next came the master bedroom. Since we don't really care for a large sleeping chamber we partitioned part of the original bedroom off in order to create a dressing room that leads to the private poopers. We're sure that some will whine and complain about the puny size of the master pooper but we don't care for a large private bathroom since we really don't spend much time in them.

To complete the transformation we removed the hideous greenhouse that covered the terrace off the master bedroom. Your Mama just hates those horrid things. They just remind us off all those naughty boys in elementary school who thought it was cute and fun to use a magnifying glass to scorch the life out of bugs. Anyhoo, in our plan we installed a gate between the terrace off the living room and the terrace off the master bedroom in order to carve out a private outdoor enclave for nood sunbathing.

10 comments:

Domestica DeLaCruz said...

A maids room with a terrace and a pooper with a window and cross ventilation? Get me a uniform !!!

Anonymous said...

Mama please let us know when your episode will air on LOGO. Thanks much, Sydney.

Lilithcat said...

Love your new floor plan! I particularly like the direct access from the kitchen to the terrace - perfect for an herb garden. Nothing I like more than stepping out my kitchen door to pick a few herbs off my back porch container garden.

Must say that the original dining room isn't that large. Mine is 15' x 17' and I can't host banquets!

The master bath is a bit small (okay, I'm spoiled, I've got a built-in linen closet with hamper plus floor to ceiling shelving in mine - the joys of a 1910 apartment!), but the extra dressing/closet space is fabulous. I'm of the opinion that a girl can never have too much closet space (and there's the drawback of a 1910 apartment!).

Southgate said...

Leave that maids room as it is and I will change my name to Svetlana!

I love your changes, Mama, particularly the delicious guest suite!

lil' gay boy said...

In-town is so much better than "bridge & tunnel", status-wise...

;-)

Lovely redo, Mama; those prefab greenhouses are a plague upon the rooftops of Manhattan ––– little more than an upscale Tar Beach that keeps the rain off on cloudy days. Give me an open air terrace, please.

Have fun on LogoTV! I will admit to the guilty pleasure of watching more than one episode of The A-List ––– quelle drama! Truly cringe-worthy. As I told hubby last night, "I wouldn't turn my nose up at their money, but I certainly wouldn't want their lives..."

Botox at thirty? Bitch, please. An hour-long, nails-on-the-chalkboard-fest.

Anonymous said...

Mama:

Love your remodel! The kitchen has plentiful dining space. Why not install an adult playroom in the unused formal dining room, if you catch our drift?

Studly and Rodney
Trenton NJ

Anonymous said...

Nicely done, Mama...

I do however have to have space for my live-in Valet...a studio in the building just won't do. For whatever reason, my staffing issues seem to drive my desire or lack of for my new real estate purchases!

Fun post!

Flats Wirral said...

Love the plans- enjoyed reading this post

Anonymous said...

Mama:

An adult playroom designated perhaps for bridge, chess, mah jongg, and Chinese checkers? My Studly is so thoughtful and creative!

Hedda

Carla Ridge said...

LOVE what you've done with the place, Mama.

And I expect an e-vite to the screening party, LOL.