What's up Members of the Barrio
It's Jon coming to you from my Tiny New York City Apartment
In Greenwich Village, Manhattan
And today instead of going out to explore this city
Why don't I show you guys around my home
Because for many of you
You might have a dream to live in downtown Manhattan
And you could also be living in a 350 square foot apartment
Like I am
Here we go
10 Tips To Survive Living
In a Tiny New York City Apartment
Before we begin
A couple of notes
The first is that I am not an expert on interior design
But I have lived here for 8 years
And these tips have all worked for me
And second.. having a tiny apartment isn't all that bad
Less space to clean
Less things to break
And less uninvited guests to come over
Make sure to stay tuned til the end of the video
I'm going to tell you how much I spend on rent in this place
But let's get to that list
Think of it like New York City
When you run out of space instead of building out
You build up
And this apartment was not very well equipped with shelves
When we first moved in..
Now we were lucky that we had a friend who was very handy
And he came over and he helped us build a bunch of shelves
Which are still in use today
For example
These two right here
But if you don't have a handy friend
You can always use a website like TaskRabbit.com
Who have happily sponsored this..
No, i'm just kidding
Nobody sponsored this video
I just came up with this idea yesterday
But shelves are so crucial
Let me show you the ones in the bed room
Which we also built
And do use taskrabbit
Though... they're not paying me
Up here..
Look at the extra space that we got
By building a shelf
Above the bed room door
We've got suitcases
We have an air mattress
We have extra bedding
We have extra clothing in there
Shelves are your friends
Mirrors
Plain and simple
They amplify light
And they make spaces look bigger
This is one of the first touches we did on this apartment
When we moved here 8 years ago
In the hallway here we have a full length mirror
Which wraps right over the door
So it doesn't lean out at all
It's excellent just for walking out of the apartment
You want to check yourself out
Make sure you look good for New York City
It's here
And it also amplifies the space I think
When you are walking in for the first time
Into the apartment
Down the hallway so..
Another nice little touch
We have.. 4 different mirrors
In an apartment of 350 square feet
And i'mt not even counting the mirror in the bathroom
This is actually a touch that I did not add
Until Adriana moved into here..
Full-time
And why don't we let Team Adriana tell why she likes having plants
In a small apartment
Hi guys
Well since we don't have a view of the outside world
As you can see
Having plants for me is really important
Because it's like having a little bit of nature inside of the house
It's like having something alive going on
In the apartment
And.. Actually we got these babies.. at the super market
And this one was really small
And now it's super big
So I would recommend you
To look on the internet
What kind of plants do well in a how can i say..
Spaces without light
So they don't die
Or you can have some cactuses to
But i really really love this one
Because it's growing up really fast
And as you can see it doesn't get a lot of light
So it's perfect for this little apartment
And I think it's really cool to have something.. living here with us
Yeah because we don't have any pets..
Or kids
It's our little baby
Taking care of smells
Yeah this is actually more important than you would think
We take the garbage out.. at least once a day here
Maybe more
And if you're eating really smelly food
Like salmon
Which i'm a huge fan of
You throw that away
By the next morning
Your apartment is going to stink
And this is something that you will especially notice in a small space
Because if you look this way
The bedroom is not very far from the kitchen
So it's very important to keep up with taking out the garbage
And the smells
And now Adriana is going to show you..
A little trick that she likes to use here.
As Jon said
He loves Salmon Which gets really stinky sometimes
We eat it at night
And we don't want to run outside to take the trash out
Because we live on the 4th floor
So we don't want to go downstairs
And come upstairs for that
So something I started to do
Is.. in the freezer
I keep a little container like this
With a plastic bag
What I do is when we finish the food
And we have some little left overs
Like something you can't..
You are not going to eat anymore
Instead of throwing it out.. throwing it out in the garbage
I put the rest of the food in this one
It has nothing right now
I put the rest of the food in this little bag
And I close it
And then I put it in the freezer
Just right here
Next to the vodka
So it gets frozen
And it doesn't smell
The next morning when we are going to take all the trash out
I take the little container
I take the plastic bag
I close it
And I throw it out
And it doesn't smell
Because it's frozen
Also good for bananas and some other products right
Everything..All the rest of the food
That you have that are small of course
You can put it there
And it's not going to stink the next day
Decluttering...
This could be the most important tip for living in a small space
We put clothes that we don't use away in boxes..
Especially winter stuff
For example
We have this huge box up here..
That has a lot of clothing
Now we're in the other room
And this is Adriana's.. winter stuff
All in this bag
Out of site
The closet doesn't look to stuffy
But when I say decluttering
It's not all about clothing
For me it's also what you have
Hanging on the walls
And let me show you
We don't go to crazy around the apartment
We have one portrait here
We have one portrait that actually Adriana drew herself
Over there
I've seen a lot of small apartments where people put tons of personal things on the walls
A lot of pictures
And when you have a small space
And the walls are really cluttered up
I do not think it's going to make this space
Look any bigger
And now I want to show you something in the bathroom
And credit to Adriana for helping me organize some of these things
On the shelves here
We barely have anything
It's just make up and deodorant
And a few other little touches
And then we put a lot of things into hiding
I opened up the mirror in the bathroom
All hidden here
And then up here we have extra things
Like shavers
Etc
When you actually come into the bathroom
You don't see a ton of stuff
And it makes your bathroom feel
A lot bigger than it actually is
Making sure that everything is sized appropriately
You really have to be paying attention to detail
On space here
Adriana's desk is by far the best example of this
It is shaped like a Pentagon
I have to google this
I forgot what it was called
My geometry was really bad
Look 5 sided art desk here
It literally slides into this corner
A perfect utilization of what we've got here
We used to have a couch here
And I did not think that It was so smart
Now coming this way
Something we've also added recently
Is this little rectangular table
For the coffee maker
We never had it before
We used to put the coffee maker on the table
But it just slides into this corner
And we are not over utilizing our space
Notice we don't really have anything that's circuluar here
Most of the shapes are rectangular
And then come and check out the shelf by the front
This is like..
A jenga piece
It just completely takes up almost everything..
Leaving just a small indent here
For umbrellas
I think we have a scale
And another umbrella up here
A little space up here
For printing paper
For stationary
And then we're going to walk..
Into the living room
And look at the size of the couch
It is just.. enough
Where we have two little tables
On either side
Even the TV
We could have went.. much bigger than this
But it would have been overkill
For the amount of space that we have
In the living room
So always think what is the perfect size for everything to have
In a tiny apartment
Because it really is
Like a jigsaw puzzle
For your mental health
You need to leave a small apartment at least once a day
And this is something that's really helped me out a lot
I mean New York City is your living room
You don't really need a living room
And if I'm cooped up in here for more than 24 hours
I start to get this need to leave
I meant rent is expensive enough as is
But go enjoy the city when you get the chance
Because one of the big problems with many of the Tiny Apartments in New York City
Is the view
Or should I say lack of view
Perfect example right here
Our view outside the kitchen
Is of a wall
One thing i miss about living in a house
Is being able to look outside
And see some of the changes in the weather
So don't.. let that keep you from getting a tiny apartment
Without a good view
Because remember you can always go outside and you've got New York City right there
Light colors give an apartment depth
And I think in a very small space
It is absolutely crucial..
And the room we use light colors the most
Is the room that we changed the most
We turned this into our living room
So come with me now
Look at the color of the couch
Look at the color of the pillow
I think these all complement each other .. very well
With this space
I think we're lucky as well.. that we got
Light walls to begin with
I could not imagine living here
With darker walls
And then even the curtains
We had a choice
I was going to put blue or black
And then with light colors
You always want to let that light in
When I start my day
I pull the shades up
I want lots of sunlight
When you don't have a lot of space to work with
Having the right amount of cutlery Kitchen supplies.. very veyr important
As we don't have a huge table
And then I'm going to let Adriana talk about
Some of the changes she made
When she came to this apartment
Which I completely needed some help with
Well.. when I was here
When I came here Jon had a lot of stuff.. inside of this cabinet
Like a lot of pans
And old stuff to cook
But he didn't actually use them
So I threw them out
I gave some to other people that maybe needed it
And I just kept what we needed
And it's like.. 4 plates of every single one
And it's just Jon and I
And sometimes we have some guests
We have extra if that's the case
But we can't have a lot of people over
Because the apartment is small
Guys check this out
Limited edition Here Be Barr coffee mug
Adriana bought me this as a gift one year
One of the coolest gifts I ever got
Let's throw it out.
Removing your closet doors
Did you know that when we moved into this apartment
There was actually a door right here
So imagine this
I'm opening a door
And it's coming out
Right here
Now this desk would not work
With closet doors intact
There are some people
That say.. get a sliding door
For me..
I like having the openness
I don't have a ton of guests running around my room
Anyway
Looking into my closet
So removing closet doors
Is just a small thing that you can do
To get more space
In your bedroom
And especially when that space is very tight
Alright guys we're getting down low for this one
Bonus tip
Underbed space
This bed did not come with these little
Lifts
We had to buy them
But look how much space
We got under the bed
I mean this bed is full sized
Takes up practically the entire room
So we have space for files and different things
Extra clothing
I have a big box under there
That's rectangular
Go to the container store
And get things like that
Slide them under your bed
It frees up a lot of space
Make sure that you get some kind of a lift
Underneath any kind of bed
When you live in a tiny apartment
If you're curious of our rent
$2,700 dollars a month
Yes, it is a lot of money to live in one of the best neighborhoods in my opinion
In all of New York City
And guys please tell me down below in the comments
What you thought of my tips
Do you have any other tips for people
Moving to small apartments
What do you think they should do
What should they buy
What shouldn't they buy
I'm very curious
Guys check out my other New York City Playlist as well
Thank you so much for watching as always
Hope you enjoyed the tour
Until next time