Cribs: NYC apartment edition.

I was looking back over old blog posts, mainly the ones from when I was moving in and setting up at my apartment. I realized I never posted any pictures of my room. That was the last thing to come together for me because E and I both put the emphasis on the common areas first. I still have some finishing touches to do on my room, specifically in the decoration department. You have to excuse the mess. I am in general a super clean person, but sometimes that has to fall to the side. Cleaning is at the top of the list of "get your shit together Sunday" as soon as my Policy paper is finished. Anyways here we go:

This is what my room looks like if you're standing over by the door. Now, let the tour REALLY begin....


"...and here's where the magic happens..." You know how everyone says that on Cribs?? whatever. My bed fits perfectly in this one corner of the room. My bed frame itself is a platform bed with 4 drawers and a cabinet for extra space. I haven't figured out a nightstand yet. I'm thinking of a corner shelf thing that would just fit into the wall on the side of the bed that meets the wall. We'll see.


Since floor space is hard to come by and NYC apartments are awesome about the tall ceilings and doors, I made it a point to build up. Behind my room door is where all my shoes are (seasonal, of course. The others are stored in a bin in the cabinet under my bed) That amazing shoe rack came from Bed Bath and Beyond. Such a clutch buy.
I have 3 windows in my room. only 1 us used for actual light. The other 2 make for great storage for some of my boots.
See those silly snow boots there? I bought those when I was still living in NC. a complete impulse buy because, obviously I didn't need them there. Apparently they are going to save my life up here when the snow ans slush take over the roads and sidewalks. Pretty happy to have them now, not sure how to wear them though....

My desk area. I adore it. Something about desk space is important. I go to the library a lot, but it's also good to have a work area at home that's conducive to getting it done. I used a set of plastic drawers to make for extra drawer space and it fits nicely under the desk.

And I got this little light weight metal and glass book shelf to hold the overflow desk and bookshelf stuff.

The living room set I bought when I was living in Durham came with E and I, but the arm chair didn't fit in out living room properly, so it found a home in my room. Unfortunately it ends up looking like that, covered in my school bag, purse, clothes I decided against wearing, etc. But I'm working on making a habit of NOT dumping everything there!


The closet is at the back of the room (across from the bookshelf) My hanging cothes go in there, and the jeans are folded at the top, along with hand bags and my luggage. I fold a good portion of my clothes, so all tees, tanks, gym stuff, undergarments, sock, tights, are either in the drawers under my bed, or in the wooden cabinet (seen in 1st picture)


The top shelf in the cabinet holds my jewelery. it's funny I have so much stuff because I pretty much only wear the same few pieces. At some point I stopped wearing dangle earrings (when my hair was at its shortest) but I think they will make a comeback sometime soon.



So, thats the room! I love it, and I can't wait to finish decorating and getting all the pictures in frames/art from home on the wall.

Bedroom Plans.

I've posted pictures of my New York Kitchen, Living room and Bathroom, but have omitted the bedrooms because they are not complete. We only spent 1 week in the city, and with my mom there with us we spent the time focused on the common areas of the apartment. For my room, I have been struggling to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with it. The challenges I am faced with are, 1) I like things very simple. clean and neutral. That doesn't leave a lot of space for anything too out-of-the-box. and 2) my room is has a peculiar shape, which allows for numerous windows and natural light (a plus) but not much space for a whole lot of furniture, which is fine, since I opted out of downsizing my bed.

Each of these hurdles seemed to solve themselves, however, which is nice. Being a minimalist, I don't care for much bedroom furniture, I don't fold much of my clothes, so adequate/efficient use of the closet is paramount (my clothes and closet will be a post all their own....). The pictures are all pulled from the

"apartment ideas" folder on my desktop. These are things I've seen on this blog that caught my eye, and are more or less the direction I am going with my room. I have decided against a for

mal bed, I'm going for a platform base with storage cabinets and drawers (in lieu of a dresser or nightstand). I love picture frame collage as an alternative to a headboard. Also, My room had this perfect window nook at the south end, which would house a little simple desk. It outlooks the fire escape, which E and I will use for outdoor plants/flowers, making for the perfect view.

My next big task is figuring out what to put on my walls. The apartment has huge tall walls and seemingly endless wall space. E and I combined our art from our previous apartments and it filled out the common areas pretty nicely. More on my wall space later.

Pictures: the bathroom

more pictures

kitchen bar-- stool side, sink side, cabinets, bottom of pantry

Pictures of the New York apartment.

The pictures are of the kitchen, pantry, and living room. We haven't hung any pictures yet (thats for tomorrow) Niether E nor I have touch our rooms yet, so those will come later. I also finished the bathroom yesterday, and will post those pictures a little later. Enjoy these, they are pretty barebones. I can't wait to get back and have the time to really complete it.

Mini updater and recent purchases

It really is 3:21am, don't be deceived. We worked through the evening to finish up the living room, bathroom and kitchen. Everything is amazing so far. I absolutely love the apartment and all of our things are wonderful. E and I will worry about our rooms tomorrow and Thursday. Tomorrow our cable and internet will be installed. However, I'm picking up some sweet ass wireless from someone else, so I'm pretty sure we're gonna cancel the internet and just keep renegading it. More importantly, our air conditioner is being installed tomorrow. It is hellishly hot in NYC and in the apt. We brought 2 fans with us, luckily and they have held up down more or less the past couple days, but this AC is going to change my life. Alright, tomorrow I will publish a more legit post tomorrow, with pictures of the apartment thus far. this is some stuff I ordered for our spot today. A hook for our keys, 2 runners for the hallways, these cute branch looking hooks to hold the curtains back, and the jewelry organizer for E's room. All found here.

Things for the apartment

Here are a few of the things i've recently ordered to have shipped to my apartment. I loved both rugs, E and I thought it would be nice to have some consistent decor through the apartment, so we've got the same rugs, and we have streamlined the curtains. I have ordered the set of frames because I plan to use them to make a headboard of sorts, as opposed to a fully structured bed. I sure hope everything turns out as I'd like it.... Rugs and frames are found here

Apartment Ideas: E's Room

So my sister's room at our apartment is a bit smaller than mine. It is a perfect square shape with a nice window, but no closet. She's already pretty comfortable with being creative with space, as she has been living in an amazingly decorated and utilized studio in DC for the past year. I have been thinking of different ways to maximize space and function of her room and have found some really neat stuff. I am a complete minimalist when it comes to most things, and so decorating our beautiful pre-war apartment will be interesting. I saw this clothing rack at Bed Bath and Beyond and liked the idea of an exposed closet, as opposed to a dresser. Like me, she's more inclined to hang her things. So that may take care of the closet. The other needs were: Bed, desk, Storage. I saw the model room on sweethomestyle, and loved it. After digging around I found some pretty neat versions of this. My favorite was the wooden bed with the drawers, shelves and desk. I love that it only takes up the floor space that a bed would, but in addition you'd get all the storage and functions of 4 pieces of furniture. Another plus is that it's not so high up off the ground, so after removing the guardrail, I think it makes for a pretty awesome space saver.

This is my new home.

I spent last week in NYC apartment hunting. That was one of the most unpleasant, hellish weeks of my life. I've never really searched for a home before... my first college apartment, my friends picked it and the first time I had even driven over there was when I went to sign my lease. My apartment that I live in now, I found completely by accident, signed the papers on the spot and didn't see the inside of it until the day before I moved in. Needless to say, I like to use as litle energy as possible when it comes to finding suitable housing, I know what I'm looking for and it's usually pretty specific so that rules out a lot of places right of the bat.

We get to New York and immediately meet with our first broker, Roz. She was a mix between the lady that plays on The Nanny and like... a middle school algebra teacher. or a Pharmacist. Imagine my state of mind. I'm exhausted, sweaty, and motion sick from the shitty-yet-amazing driving skills of the taxi that brought us from our from our hotel on w 77th to the brokers office on 5th. So, you know... I'm sleepy, smelly, and sick. moods a little sour, obv.

Initially Roz was very sweet. My sister had spent a lot of time on the phone with her, so I felt confident that the woman had a good idea of who we were, what we were looking for, etc. um. No, that was actually not the case at all. We take the train to the apartment she is showing us. The minute we stepped out of the subway I was effing astonished. I have never been in the middle of the true life projects in my life. Not to sound all classist and egregious, but seriously, what the fuck was she thinking? The homeless were spilled all over the street. Harlem Hospital was on the corner and all the hospital patients were somehow OUTSIDE of the building. My problems straight away were:

1) it was 4:00pm on a Tuesday. WHY were there so many people who should reasonably be at work-- NOT at work? Don't they have 9-5, M-F there??

2) if the Hospital was so full that all the people were on the sidewalk out front (on a Tuesday, at 4pm) What the hell would it be like on a weekend?! on a holiday?

The apartment itself was nice, but that doesn't matter at all because not only did I refuse to live there, I don't think I'd even go visit there. If someone told me a box of cereal was $1.00 over there--- I'd still pay the $3.99 on my own part of town. Hum.... prob. can add "snobby" to the aforementioned adjectives.

Roz became really pushy and jumbled when she could sense we were disinterested. She starts to fumble over her words and at one point says "Look. I live in the one of the best neighborhoods in Manhattan..." I blocked her out at that point. Not to be a bitch, but she looked sort of poor. E, my mother, and I don't. So really I was left trying to figure out why she took us to see an apartment in the middle of Section 8 housing. Would you encourage an anorexic to find clothes at Lane Bryant? No, you would not... because it wouldn't be appropriate. But, I digress...

What took the cake was my Mother stating, with disgust and alarm all over her face, "I think that lady on the corner had AIDS." she could see the AIDS.

So after viewing 10 more apartments, all of which displayed various levels of utter homelessness.... I found our beautiful home!! The pictures are of my room, 2 shots of the living room, the kitchen, and my sister's room (E, shes gonna be my roomie). It's in a beautiful brownstone right by campus, a 5 minute walk to the front door of the school of social work. It's perfect.

I will be in New York permanently by mid- Aug. super pumped!