Interiors ace Dee Dee Eustaces rules to live by

Last spring, Toronto-based architect and interior designer Dee Dee Taylor Eustace had an epiphany: At age 50, it was time for a life change.

And that meant moving to New York City.

Eustace a Canadian TV regular who has hosted a pair of HGTV shows and also appeared as a guest on Oprah began the hunt for the perfect Manhattan live-work space last summer.

After looking at 10 apartments in one day with Sothebys agent Brigitte Goldenberg, Eustace found her Manhattan dream rental: A two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2,000-square-foot duplex set in a charming, 1894 brownstone on tree-lined East 80th Street.

The sun-filled home once gallerist Dominique Levys live-work space immediately caught Eustaces eye, thanks to its sprawling south-facing living room with bay windows.

I walked in here, she says of the apartment, which occupies the entire third floor and half of the fourth floor, and I saw the 11- foot ceilings, three fireplaces, the bedroom upstairs and the courtyard in the back. I saw it for five minutes, and I said, OK! Ill take it! Architecturally, it was one the most interesting homes I saw.

New to the Manhattan real estate scene, Eustace admits, I had no idea how real estate works here. I paid a year of rent in advance!

At approximately $15,000 a month, that was a sizeable check to cut. But it was worth it, and in August 2013, she moved in.

The building also met one of the doting mothers most important criteria: Proximity to the Hewitt School on East 75th Street, where she enrolled her daughter, Rachael, then 13, in the ninth grade (her son Jake remains in Canada for university).

The one thing I said, was that I want to walk my daughter to school every day, says Eustace.

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Interiors ace Dee Dee Eustaces rules to live by