Hey guys, I’m Melina, welcome to my fifth floor walkup…I mean my Sweet Digs.
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I pay $2075 a month in rent.
I live in the West Village and this is a
studio apartment, and I’m on a fifth floor walkup.
I moved from Los Angeles where I was
paying 1250 a month in rent,
and I had a studio that was like 3 times the size.
So in comparison to that it’s kinda a lot.
But once you’re like in the New York mindset and
you hear what other people are paying
it’s actually a pretty good deal.
This place is about 300 square feet, but it’s really one big long rectangle,
and because there’s windows on both sides
it actually feels a little bit bigger than that,
and it feels more light and airy.
Here is my bedroom area.
I put my bed width wise across my apartment.
Mainly because that was really the only way that it fit.
I actually have very slanted floors
in my bedroom area,
and I actually had to put risers
on the bottom of the bed, about 6 inches, to level it out.
There’s a little space
on the other side of the bed that I have to roll over my bed
in order to get to it.
It’s a little bit of a challenge,
it’s a little annoying,
but it also creates kind of a,
a fun, like calm space.
I really liked this nightstand because it’s a clear acrylic.
So by having this clear table and you don’t notice it.
We have my bathroom.
My shower is interesting because
the shower head is actually
on the side of the shower.
You would normally stand like this in the shower, I stand like this.
Then I have this clear shower curtain
just so you can actually see through the room.
It’s all kinda part of living in a tiny New York apartment.
This is my living area.
You’ll notice that there’s actually a little step up.
Having that step up really creates a natural division of the space.
I’ve only had like a couple stubbed toes.
One thing that helps is
I have this really cozy rug right at the edge of the step itself,
and it’s like a visual reminder, okay I have to step up.
The hardest part of decorating, um,
in such a small space is really finding pieces that
I really like and are really unique but don’t take up too much room.
One of my apartment splurges was this coffee table from West Elm.
Because I have such a narrow space
I was looking for a coffee table that would actually fit
within that,
and would be really long, but pretty narrow.
It was like $350 or $375.
I don’t have a dining room, I eat here,
I do work here, and so it was worth the investment.
One of my most sentimental pieces is this pillow from Anthropology.
It was out of my price range at the time,
but I told myself,
“Okay when I graduate college
I’m gonna splurge on this pillow for my first adult non-college apartment.
For me it was just symbolic of
okay I’m entering this new phase in my life,
post-grad, I’m adulting, I can afford an $80 pillow.
It’s a nice reminder of LA and home,
and also just like that first moment where I like
bought this nice thing for my apartment after college.
Coming in from here, um, is I guess my little office space.
On Saturday mornings
what I love to do when I have the time is wake up and actually do
some creative work.
I get really inspired sitting in this spot.
I work in social advertising,
but in my free time and really my creative passion project
is my blog called 5th Floor Walkup.
It’s a mix of lifestyle content, um,
since moving here you know I’ve gotten really into home decor,
so I try to sprinkle that in.
I do photography on the side, and so I like to share that.
And so that’s been a fun creative project.
This is my kitchen area.
In my next apartment,
I would love to have more counter space.
So right now,
I’m pretty much just working on this tiny little space between my sink
and my stove.
My desk area actually also doubles as a counter space when I’m cooking.
It gets a little chaotic.
I try to always have avocados in my fridge.
Avocados!
Coming from California,
like, you can get avocados for, I don’t know, 25 cents each.
In New York
I think I once saw an avocado for 5 dollars.
It’s my little treat to myself
and I try to always keep my fridge stocked with them.
The way I found this apartment was I saw it on NakedApartments.com.
They actually said that the unit that was listed had been rented,
which is pretty typical
if you ever look for an apartment in New York.
But we have a unit in the building
that is not listed yet,
do you want to see it.
This was still under construction at the time,
it was on the fifth floor.
I saw the space and I immediately loved it,
and I’ve been living here a year and a half now.
I had really just been a SoCal girl my entire life,
and I think I was just ready to experience something knew.
When I got a job in New York it just felt like the right thing to do.
There’s so much going on all the time,
you’ll hear sirens, you’ll hear people yelling,
there’s just kinda chaos.
On one end, you know, that can be negative
because it can be almost information overload,
but in another sense it’s actually really inspiring.
I was feeling like I was in a little bit of a
creative rut when I was in LA and since moving, I feel like,
more creatively inspired,
and I really think that the city has so much
to do with that,
experiencing it every day but also the people that you meet really play
into that just like overall creative energy.
Thanks so much for watching my Sweet Digs.
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