how to make an apartment a home
come over
thank you to Brooklinen for sponsoring this essay of angel cake (!!!) anyone who has been to my apartment knows how much i love my Brooklinen towels and sheets, they were the first “adult” items i bought for my apartment, i genuinely adore them more than anything. also thank you to my talented friend
for shooting my apartment (i added captions to all the photos at the end, don’t skip them team).the minute i signed my college acceptance letter i started strategizing how to make my freshman year dorm room a reflection of my idealized, mature, sophisticated, cultured self. i spent hours finding the perfect assortment of posters to cover the depressing cinderblock walls, i ordered marble contact paper which i stuck over ugly wooden furniture and one accent wall (may we all keep in mind this was 2016 and i was 18 years old), i saved my money working as a shampoo girl at a hair salon and bought myself a neon sign that said “hey” (brilliant) and hung it over green banana leaf wallpaper. my mom exuded her anointed level of patience as i rearranged my posters on the wall and moved lamps around with the sense of self-importance of an art curator at MOMA. during my first night of college everyone was weaving in and out of rooms etching crucial first impressions into memory. a group of boys wandered into my room and took a look around, their mouths agape at the neon sign i hung on the wall. one of them exhaled and said, “it seems like you know what you want and how to get it.” and i did. (and still do).
my first few apartments in new york were with roommates, i trepidatiously proposed concepts for our shared living spaces which were usually shot down given the specificity of my taste (which is fair). i am someone who has always dreamed of living alone, a byproduct of being one of those annoying people who describes themselves as an “extroverted introvert.” in july, i magically signed a lease to my dream apartment by myself. i say it was magical because it came to me through a friend of a friend as opposed to a sterile listing on street easy. the second i held my new keys and walked into the empty space for the first time i felt unbelievably proud and disgustingly overwhelmed. i didn't sleep for weeks because i was so concerned about finding the right coffee table and what type of lighting situation do i want oh my god lighting is so important and was the rug i ordered the right size? i tend to put a lot of pressure on myself, the more i thought about filling the space the more anxious i grew that nothing would come together. over ice cream in the park i started spiraling to a friend who graciously took my cone out of my hand and told me, “you need to take a breath dude, you’re getting everything you want. it will all come together because you’re you and you will naturally find things that you like. relax.” the stripped-down honesty of his words snapped me out of my self-entered stupor and i started to just let the things i like come to me instead of searching for them.
the biggest quirk of my apartment is that my bathtub is in my kitchen, i immediately set my mind on a mission to elevate the tub as everyone would immediately be assaulted with its glory upon walking through the door. it was memorial day weekend and Brooklinen was having a sale, i took this as a sign to buy a set of fluffy striped towels i had been eyeing for the past few months. oprah famously has revealed that the first thing she ever splurged on for her home was nice towels, i thought about this every single day i used my old, tattered towels from [REDACTED BIG BOX RETAILER]. like oprah, now every time i use my new towels i think about how the tiny luxury of enjoying something you use every single day will never lose its nostalgia on me.
in terms of art, i had a few photographs and framed advertisements i’ve collected over the years, but i desperately wanted a piece of original art. i do not make anything close to Original Art Money so this was really a farfetched dream in the distance. a year before signing my new lease i walked into rosemary home in the east village. it’s the kind of store that looks like i threw up all over it as it has a robust assortment of whimsical vintage trinkets like ceramic leopards from italy and ornate cigarette cases from the 50s. it’s awesome. hanging on the wall was a painting of a girl with a pursed expression covered in hues of pale blue and pink, i immediately fell in love with it. i nervously asked the sales girl how much it was and felt myself deflate at her answer. i walked out of the store and thought about how badly i wanted that piece. flash forward a year when i had just moved into my new solo apartment, it was one of the last sticky saturdays in september and i decided to take a long walk to my old neighborhood as i am never not a nostalgic person guided by the familiarity of a routine. i stumbled upon a flea market on east 11th street, i slowly walked through the stalls picking up various items and chatting with everyone i came in contact with as i usually do. as i was about to leave i saw out of the corner of my eye these dramatic glass bookends in the shape of horses. obviously i had to have them. the middle-aged woman manning her table was on the phone fighting with her dad saying things like, “I REJECT THAT! ART IS SUBJECTIVE.” i smiled at her exuberance for the things she cares about (a quality we share) she caught my eye and hung up the phone. we talked for almost 30 minutes as she told me about the brownstone in brooklyn that has been in her family since the 60s which is where she stores all her antiques, we gabbed about our favorite restaurants and art exhibits we’ve seen recently, she recommended movies for me to watch and books i have to read before i die. she asked me where i lived and i dramatically described my new apartment in the village. she smiled and said, “you’re never going to leave new york i can tell, you like it for all the right reasons” and i replied, “and you’re probably right.” she offered me the bookends for 50% off as a “gift to a lover of new york.” coincidentally i was around the corner from rosemary home, i decided to visit the painting of the girl with the pursed lips i had been pining over for the past year. in an act of masochism i decided to ask the sales girl the price of the painting once again. she looked up and said, “oh we’re actually trying to get rid of it. its 75% off.” i gasped and slammed my credit card down. i floated home carrying the ornaments of my serendipitous day, smiling as i bounced up every steep stair because i was slowly collecting things i could never have dreamed of when i was anxiously spiraling in the park.
in the end, the rug was the perfect size, the bed i picked up from facebook marketplace fit (barley), my art seamlessly hung as though they were always designed to be there together, i didn't need a bedside table after all because i have too many books anyway, my coffee table was the perfect centerpiece and was worth carrying up the stairs with a scrawny shrimp of a task rabbit who supposedly “specializes in heavy lifting.” there is a lesson to be learned here in leaning into the excitement and sugary treat of a new chapter as opposed to anxiously going stiff which i tend to do when confronted with good things. as i was writing this i glanced around at the books piled high next to my bed and the magazines lying on my coffee table, and the framed photo of my grandmother who i desperately try to be like every single day and the plant that a bunch of boys from ohio brought to me as a housewarming present at a party (which i’m realizing right now is almost dying i should really go and water it) and the cherub salt and pepper shakers valerie gave me and pale blue ash tray angelina gave me and the hearts my friends drew through the dust of my mirror that i still can’t bring myself to clean. i thought about the power of a space being reduced to a feeling, it’s why so many people still go to restaurants with sub-par food when the room feels so compelling it makes you forget you’re spending $80 on arguably bad steak frites. the feeling of being in my space confronts my inability to be anything other than myself (for better or for worse!). i have anointed my apartment to be a sacred space, it has held me at my highest and lowest unwavering in its judgement. in its grasp i’ve acted in ways i’ve regretted and have also shown the depths of my kindness to those who walk through the door still out of breath from the six flights of stairs. it is the only place i feel i have any ownership of because i am drenched in my ability to put my fingerprints on a teeny tiny part of manhattan. it reminds me that i can make the best out of any bad situation like a bathtub being in my kitchen by throwing parties where i fill it with ice and buying fluffy striped towels to make the space a little bit better.
at my party last weekend, a stranger came up to me and said, “i don’t even know you but i can tell that every inch of this apartment is yours. it’s really beautiful.” this comment instantly reminded me of that boy on the first night of college. i felt comforted by the fact that through the span of almost 10 years i am still the same girl who loves seeing people gather in her space because to know her is to be in her apartment.
THANK YOU FOR READING! this was very special to me!!!!
and as a BONUS! here are some pictures of my freshman year dorm, unfortunately i couldn't find a picture of the wall with the neon sign, i had to drudge through some dark photographic eras to find this so ENJOY! xo
in retrospect my dorm room was a lot less embarrassing than i remember and kind of eats… proud of her!
BROOKLINEN FTW
Neon hey and banana leaves is such an incredibly strong visual <3 I am transported.