What Albany is like to work in
There is no spare room in Albany. The grid runs about twenty-five north-south streets across, blocks are short, and houses sit close enough that you can hear the neighbor’s kettle. Charles MacGregor built a great many of them in the late twenties and thirties, and his floor plans repeat: a front room, a small dining room with a built-in, two bedrooms off a short hall, one bathroom. Once a crew has cleaned a dozen of these they can read the layout from the porch.
What complicates the work is storage and access rather than square footage. Families outgrow these houses without leaving them, so basements get converted, attics get finished, and the garage off the rear lane becomes a bedroom. Street parking along Marin Avenue and the blocks off Masonic is tight most of the day. Sending the address with a note about where a car actually fits does more for punctuality than any amount of scheduling slack.
Inside a typical Albany home
Single-family stock dominates, nearly all of it built between 1920 and 1945 on lots of 2,500 to 5,000 square feet. Typical interiors run 900 to 1,300 square feet: oak or fir floors, one bathroom with original hex or subway tile, a wall furnace instead of central heat, and a dining-room built-in that collects dust in every groove. Converted basements and finished attics add a level the listing never mentions. Multi-unit buildings cluster along San Pablo Avenue and stay small, usually four to twelve units.