Oh, for the luxury of living in Manhattan — what would you do? Perhaps try and move all of your earthly possessions into something that wouldn’t contain a sneeze much less the entire existence of a human being OR perhaps two if you’re truly a crazy person who likes to tempt the claustrophobia gods with your wanton double occupancy ways.
Recently it’s been revealed that average rent for a Manhattan apartment is about $3,778 per month. And just what do you get for plunking down such a potentially exorbitant fee? Possibly a 240-square-foot studio or the inside of a wooden barrel, however you want to look at it. Yes, New Yorkers, your soda-banning, nanny-camming, mayor, Michael Bloomberg is checking out and endorsing micro-studios that are no bigger than two parking spaces, but as part of a new initiative these new “small spaces” would run somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,500 per month. A steal if you don’t mind mashing your entire world into a steamer trunk billed as affordable living space. Never mind the fact that he lives in a 12,500-square-foot upper East Side townhouse. You, my friends, can live, eat, drink, sleep, cavort, and breathe in your kitchen sink.
The ministudios will be just big enough for a bathroom, kitchen and sleeping and dining areas – but Bloomberg said tenants shouldn’t plan on doing much entertaining.
Oh, ho! Well, of course not. Where would we put you? Inside our pockets?
But we can’t totally blame Bloomberg. It is something of a NYC culture challenge to not only settle for living in a cell and pay for the honor, but to find fun ways to make teeny, tiny apartments work. How you, or more to the point an apartment developer, can turn a studio into Michael Bay’s smallest, saddest Transformer ever. This is the kind of ingenuity that plagues the minds of those with the stuffed sardine canned notion of living — but that’s not to say that they’re not happy doing it.
Brooklyn couple, Erin Boyle, 28, and her fiancé, biologist James Casey, 30, decided to meet the challenge head on.
Their kitchen, dining table, and living room — is a mere 140 square feet. The $1,500-a-month studio also has tiny bathroom off to one side, a 4-square-foot closet in the hallway, and a sleeping loft built over the kitchen; a curtained-off closet is tucked beneath the steep staircase to the 10-by-6-and-a-half-foot loft, which is barely big enough for a double bed and a single dresser and impossible to stand upright in.
This doesn’t sound like something you do voluntarily. And yeah, lofts? Lofts are like the studio godsend. Need more space? Go up. It may look and feel like sleeping in a morgue drawer, but really, you’re just sleeping, right? Well, maybe.
It all may just come down to following a few tips, or so says Erin Boyle on her blog:
- Hide your clutter.
- Go small.
- Be creative about storage.
- Buy beautiful versions of everyday items.
- Be selective about art.
- Cut back on garbage.
- Keep the windows clean.
- Put things away right away.
- Limit what you buy.
- Make the city part of your living space.
“I say the rule of thumb is to only accumulate things that you really love,” she says. “James and I think really carefully before buying new things. We save our pennies for special and handcrafted products that we know we’ll want forever. We’ve also had incredibly good luck buying things like furniture on Craigslist and we’ve always been pretty good about giving something away if we find something new that’s a better fit. It’s definitely more important to us to have a space that feels livable than to be surrounded by lots of stuff!”
Uh-huh. I’ll just say. “Clutter happens.” This is a keychain or a refrigerator magnet in Tulsa, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Mark my words.
So perhaps for some this can suffice, but it still looks like a lot of work just to be comfortable and relaxed. And isn’t that kind of what you want when you come home? To not have to think about one hair elastic on the floor making your place seem like a garbage scow, and that taking a shower and cleaning a pot should be two totally separate activities, or how falling into bed after a hard day shouldn’t end with a concussion from the ceiling and scraped knuckles from the floor? And well, I just need a place where I can hide old exercise equipment, winter coats I haven’t worn in a decade, and enough hats that we could host a Shriner’s parade, right?
Who said, “I’d sell your sorry ass for more closet space?” Every couple who leaves Manhattan for New Jersey.
