Category / New York

Closet with hanging shirts, shoe rack, storage bins, and step stool in a bedroom
by Kelly Mattei

New Apartment? You Might Need These

New apartment? You might need these…

My daughter is moving into a new apartment. She had an apartment in college, but this is her first apartment post-college, and she’ll be in New York, where space is limited. She is excited, and so am I, but there are some things we decided she would need that she didn’t need at a college apartment.

  • Countertop nugget ice maker. The refrigerator in her new apartment doesn’t have an ice maker, and ice trays take too long to actually make ice. Therefore, we got her a countertop nugget ice maker. It makes ice in 5-7 minutes, and it’s pretty compact, so it doesn’t take up a lot of counter space. It would be great in any apartment or at the bar in any home, if you don’t have a built-in ice maker. Or maybe you just like nugget ice in your beverages? Purchase here.
  • Windowless Portable Air Cooler. Running an air conditioner can be expensive. I know that for sure, because our power bill quadruples in July and August in North Carolina. Even New York summers are hot, so I got a windowless portable air cooler for her room. She is accustomed to sleeping in our cold house at night, so she can run the air cooler at night to keep the power bill from escalating. The one we got doesn’t require a window tube, hence the word “windowless,” and it’s supposed to drop the temperature anywhere from 5 degrees to 16 degrees in a small room. We got here from Amazon here.
  • Shoe racks. A friend gave us her daughter’s stackable wood shoe racks to put in the bottom of a closet. Before, when our daughter was in college, she had an over-the-door shoe hanger but didn’t use it like she should have. Because she likes to keep the shoes in the bottom of her closet, I’m hoping this will work better. Purchase some similar to the ones we have here.
  • Towel/linens storage. In her college apartment, she had plenty of room and had her own bathroom. Towels could be stored there, and linens could be stored in her huge walk-in closet. Fast forward to her NY apartment, and she is sharing a bathroom with a roommate and has a much smaller closet. Therefore, she needs a place to store those items. We opted for a wicker hamper that will fit inside one end of her closet. She will actually have two hampers: one for dirty laundry and another for the towels/linens…one at each end of the closet. We found a great deal on Amazon here.
  • Tension closet rod. Because she has only one closet, and it it only has one long bar in it, we decided to purchase a tension closet rod, so she will be able to hang more clothes, even if it’s just a lower rod for hanging pants. That will free up some space on the other rod. We found a great one on Amazon. You can see it and purchase here.
  • Thermal Insulated Blackout Curtains. These are great for so many reasons. First, the obvious: they block sunlight when you don’t want it. But also, they block some noise and provide some level of insulation, trapping air between the curtain and the window to help maintain desired temperature in the room. We are big fans of blackout curtains, and my daughter loved the ones she had in her college apartment. Unfortunately, they are too long for her new apartment, so we ordered new ones. We need to just cover the window, because the air conditioning unit is below the window, and we definitely don’t want to cover that! We purchased these.
  • Clothes Drying rack. Some clothes just don’t need to go in the dryer: workout clothes, cottons, etc. And some clothes can be handwashed in the sink and hung to dry…like underwear, swimsuits, and lightweight blouses. Therefore, we got our girl a drying rack. There are different kinds. Some people prefer the tripod version while others prefer the standard ones. Get a tripod drying rack from Amazon here. Or get a standard, folding drying rack here.
  • Folding step stool. Because our daughter is only about 5’5″, we knew she would need a step stool to reach the upper shelf in her closet. Therefore, we got her a folding step stool. It will come in handy when she needs to stack sweaters or whatever she wants to put up there. Purchase here.

We will be moving her into the apartment in two days. I’m sure, as we go, I will come up with more items we need, and I will share with you!

***As an Amazon affiliate, I receive commission on items purchased through my links.***

NYC doorman welcoming female tenants at entrance
by Kelly Mattei

Preparing for the Post-College Move/Job

Preparing for the post-college move/job.

The movers arrive in ten days. They will scoop up a bed, mattress, dresser, night stands, vanity/desk, chair for said vanity/desk, some wardrobe boxes, and some boxes full of our daughter’s personal effects and drive them to New York. “Personal effects” sounds like a prison term, but whatever. There’s not a whole lot to move, fortunately, because her roommate has her own stuff and some living room stuff too. I’m guessing I will buy whatever living room and kitchen stuff they still need after they get there. Or maybe I should say “after I get there.” There is a very real possibility that I will have to be there to accept my daughter’s belongings when they arrive in New York, because she might still be enjoying a long weekend at Lollapalooza in Chicago.

A mother’s work is never done.

The movers pick up in ten days, and once they pick up, they will call me to let me know when they will be arriving at her apartment in New York. Chances are, I will have less than 24 hours to get there to meet them, so I will keep a bag packed (much like when we were awaiting her arrival into the world) so I can hop on a plane immediately and get there. And I will wait for them. However, I’m not sleeping in the apartment, because I like to sleep in a meat locker, and they just won’t have that apartment cold enough for me. I will stay in a hotel, thank you very much. If my daughter isn’t there yet, I will supervise the delivery of the furniture and boxes without her. We have drawn up plans for how/where she wants her bedroom furniture placed. If she is there, I will be there for moral support and to take her shopping for whatever she needs. Not gonna lie…moving to New York isn’t cheap. Heck, moving anywhere is expensive, but moving to New York is especially expensive.

Add in all the time required to move there. First, we had to find an apartment. That can take a while, but we were very fortunate in that regard, as she has a lovely roommate who had boots on the ground, and we (she) found an apartment pretty darn quickly. We paid the deposit, filled out the application, went through the application process (not fun), and secured the apartment in a good part of town. Don’t get me wrong…there was a lot of worry involved for me. I had visions of never finding an apartment, but our “boots on the ground” came through! It’s actually a pretty roomy apartment by New York standards, and I am so excited for them to live there. They will even have a skyline view, a rooftop garden, a 24-hour doorman, a gym, and their very own balcony. Win! We haven’t actually seen the apartment yet, but the “boots on the ground” did send us a video, and we were happy with it. Additionally, I have spent time communicating with the movers, and I have had to communicate with them repeatedly. If you ever plan to move to New York or plan to move one of your kids to New York, you should know in advance that the movers will need to send a Certificate of Insurance to move you in. Otherwise…no dice. The building will not let them in without it. It’s not difficult to get from most movers, but it’s something you have to do. Since our daughter is working at an internship in Charlotte this summer, I have tried to help her with some other things too…like getting the electricity at the apartment put in her name. The roommate secured the wifi service.

I find myself feeling sort of how I felt when we were getting ready to send her off to college for freshman year. The foyer is filling up with boxes just like it did then. The garage is holding the furniture we ordered. There are boxes everywhere as I wait for her to pack them with her “personal effects.” Fortunately, she banks with a large international bank, so she won’t have to open a new account after she moves. She will need to find a new doctor and dentist after she settles in, but she has seen both locally in the past month, so she should be good to go until she finds someone.

And honestly, we won’t know what we are missing in the apartment until we know what we are missing. At that point, we can run to TJ Maxx, Target, Home Goods, or somewhere else in the city and get what she needs…toiletries, paper goods, etc. I’m not paying movers to haul toilet paper or cleaning supplies from North Carolina to New York.

In 1989, when my parents moved me to Atlanta from Alabama after graduating from college, I had already secured the apartment on my own and had all the utilities put in my name. In fact, I was already living in the apartment when they drove over with a sofa, a TV, and a few other small items. I purchased a bed plus boxspring and mattress, so that’s basically what I had in the apartment. That’s all I had for a little while. I didn’t care. I was living in my own version of the “big city of dreams” and loving life.

I hope our daughter will love life in The Big Apple. I hope she will settle in as quickly as I settled into life in Atlanta way back when. I pray she will stay safe and keep her head on a swivel.

As soon as I get her settled in, my husband and I plan to take a vacation we postponed because of this move. I remember that I went on vacation as soon as we got her settled into college freshman year too. I have a feeling I will appreciate the relaxation more than ever. Hopefully, she will stay settled in a for a while. Every move just ages me a little more. Like I said, a mother’s work is never done.

by Kelly Mattei

She Graduated From College

She graduated from college.

If you have followed me for any amount of time, you saw me write about my experiences with a daughter in middle school, high school, and then on to college in 2022. You read about her last middle school dance, her transition to high school, and then everything that went with sending her off to college 450 miles away. Well, in May, she graduated from college! She has been here in Charlotte all summer, working an awesome internship. It will carry her through the end of July, and soon after that, after she goes to Lollapalooza in Chicago, she will be moving away again, this time to New York.

Years ago, my mother made me laugh when she said, “No house is big enough for two women.” I thought it was funny, and she did too, but she actually meant it. While I have loved having our daughter home for the past ten weeks, she is ready to move on, and I’m going to be happy for her when she moves to New York for her first “big girl job” and leaves us in the dust. She will be living her dream. I’m also going to be happy that I’m not doing extra laundry. The sheer amount of laundry that girl produces is unreal. Yes, she does some of her own laundry, but if I’m putting in a load of clothes, I might as well add hers to it. I have a feeling that, when she is doing all her own laundry again, like she did in college, she will remember how to wear things more than once between washings.

When I graduated from college in the late 80s, I moved to Atlanta (the big city of dreams back then) and took a job that paid me pennies. I got an apartment in a decent part of town. My parents gave me a car and paid my car insurance. Occasionally, they would send me a check (yes, a check) just because they wanted to, but for the most part, I lived within my meager means. Looking back, I’m still not sure how I did it. And even though I was making pennies, I still managed to save money.

Maybe our daughter will find a way to save a little money too. I mean, at least New York has awesome thrift stores and sample sales! We will need to furnish the apartment for her, but she should be pretty well set at that point. Furniture, toiletries, kitchen supplies, bathroom supplies…we will take care of all that for her. If she can’t be there to accept delivery of furniture, I can spend a few days there and take care of things. It’s what moms do, right?

You know what else moms do really well? Worry. I’m not a big worrier by nature, but I do worry about my daughter. Before she started preschool, kindergarten, middle school, high school, and college, I worried. Things worked out. Were there hiccups here and there? Yes, but I can’t remember most of the hiccups and can’t remember details of most of them. The one I do remember: when she had mononucleosis and pneumonia at the same time her junior year of college. I had to fly down and take care of her. I got a hotel room and ran errands for her, took care of her, and just handled things for her. She had managed to pick her prescriptions while she was miserable, but she needed a nebulizer, and they were tough to find! I finally found one after driving all over town…found one at my fourth stop (after the employee at the 3rd stop secretly told me where to go, so her boss wouldn’t know she told me). Our daughter would never have been able to go all over town looking for the nebulizer. She was miserable. As soon as she started breathing treatments with the nebulizer, she perked up a bit. That’s the only big hiccup I really remember. And that tells me most of what we worry about doesn’t happen…something else my mother said.

Yet, here I am…worrying about my girl. We have found a good apartment for her. She will be living with a friend from college. We are collaborating on decor, so I’m not worried about that at all. I just want our girl to stay safe and enjoy life. I’m excited for her. I know she will love living in New York. I know she has lots of friends there. She has a great roommate. I know it will be the experience of a lifetime. I’m thrilled she gets to do it.

I know I’ll feel better when she settles in, but for now, I’m just a mom who has mixed emotions: excitement, worry, and yes, a little sadness. Every time I start to get sad, I remember she will be just one flight away. It’s a great thing that we live in a hub city for American Airlines.