Enjoying the outside, inside

Looking for a silver lining in an old apartment building

Fall is here, and by ‘here’ I mean inside my living room.

Last weekend in The New York Times real estate section there was a profile of a youngish Brooklyn couple who had renovated a brownstone in my neighborhood (Bed-Stuy) down to its bare bones and replaced everything with high-tech, energy-efficient substitutes. They have fancy double-walled windows a…