The following year, the couple’s daughter was born and they transformed the place into a two-bedroom with a small office. During the winters they were joined by Mrs. Spivey’s mother, Annie Spivey, who lives in Syracuse, NY most of the year.
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After tripling and sometimes quadrupling the population in the apartment, Ms. Spivey and Mr. Richie felt increasingly cramped. They longed for more space, an extra bathroom and even a little outdoor space.
“I’ve lived in New York for 22 years and never had a chair to sit on — nothing more than a bench,” said Ms. Spivey, who works in advertising. “I’ve never even had a fire escape that felt safe enough to stand on.”
So they decided to look for a single-family home, setting a budget of up to $900,000. The couple, both in their mid-40s, hoped to stay in or near Ditmas Park. They knew they couldn’t afford one of the beautiful Victorian homes in the area. But they wanted to be close to their daughter’s school and the Q train.
Ms. Spivey did much of the online hunting, while Mr. Richie pounded the pavement. “I walked around some neighborhoods looking for for sale signs,” he said.
Street parking was an important detail. During the pandemic, the couple bought a car so they could drive to Syracuse and New Orleans. Now they use it to take their daughter to all kinds of activities. “If you have swimming lessons here or dance lessons there, it’s difficult with public transportation,” said Mr. Richie, a documentary filmmaker who is in graduate school to become a therapist.
While they were hunting, they also had to put their apartment up for sale and clean up before each open house, which they found stressful. “We had to cut the life out of our lives,” Ms Spivey said.
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