apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

It's hard for me to believe that someone living above a bar would be frustrated by that fact, unless they lived in the building before the bar was there.

My current apartment is over a dry cleaners and nail salon.

Before the nail salon was there, a laundrymat was in the space. My apartment always smelled like fabric softner and lint would totally cover the windows that faced out to the air shaft.

I was also worried about chemical smells coming up from the nail salon, but thankfully there aren't any.

Oh, and not only does the dry cleaner take in all our packages/bulk mail, he gives anyone in the building a 10% discount!

I used to live above a wallpaper store. It was pretty uneventful until I found out that the owner's son was a DJ/rapper and wanted to build a recording studio directly under my apartment. My place vibrated to the bass for a couple weeks and luckily someone moved out on the other side of the building and they offered me her place at a reduced rent for my trouble. That place was my smallest coolest entry but I had to leave when the roof basically failed and my apartment flooded. I think all of that trouble was because the store owner was also the building owner and we (the tenants) were basically a bonus and he didn't really care what went on up there.

Now I am in a purely residential building. Thankfully.

i use to live above a computer store (i think they mostly just fixed computers there). below that, in the basement suite was the office of a carpet cleaner, so they were never around just a secretary to take calls. living in a mixed use house was great!

we were a stand alone building so that meant that after hours i had a whole parking lot to myself, never any problems with having guests over. i also had the luxury of having windows on all four sides of my place. i always felt that someone was watching my place while i was at work, and if anything else went wrong with my computer, they would take a look at it for no cost.

the only down fall i found with that is that because of it being a commercial building, my renters insurance was a lot more expensive than if it was just an apartment.

i used to live above a bar. i can say that it was a really hard place to live (i stayed there because the rent was so cheap). but it was a really hard living there, since you have to sleep with the loud music, and you hardly can watch tv at night. ( because you cant even hear the tv). and you definitely can't talk on the phone at night also. and you always have an earthquake every night. :D
but i think it would be ok for somebody that has a working schedule at night time.

I live in a rowhouse sharing a wall with a major Chicago rock concert venue. My husband and I were very worried about noise when we purchased, but we loved the house so much we crossed our fingers and jumped. Very occasionally we'll hear a muffled bass rhythm, or get a soft, ryhthmic buzzing from our recessed lighting, picking up the reverb, but mostly we don't hear the shows at all, and they are the MOST conscientious neighbors -- shoveling our sidewalk, saving street parking for us, updating us on their schedule, and always offering a friendly wave. I know no one will believe us when we sell though!

This is definitely an interesting post, I have always been a little closer to a country girl. Never lived more than a mile from a bunch of corn and soybean fields, even in the condo we own right now (it's all condos on our street). There are downsides to wherever you live, but I always wondered what it was like for the people who lived above stores and such.

I've lived in two apartments that were above businesses before and have had mixed experiences with both.

The first was above a jewelry store and a small private restaurant, and the apartment was gorgeous! No complaints with repairs and the landlord was great - however, hydro wasn't included and the rate was ridiculous! Hydro should only cost, at most (and i'm really stretching this, it would never cost me this much) $60 a month, but EVERY bill was $200-$300. I think the businesses were using the same meter, and we were paying all the costs! The hydro company refused to come out and take a look, and no matter how dramatically we decreased our hydro use, the cost wouldn't go down. We went as far as to time our showers, wash our clothes at the laundromat instead of our apartment, and even unplug the microwave when we weren't using it... all with no result! Suffice to say, after 8 months we were out of there.

My second place was above a thai restaurant. I have no complaints with smells or anything of that sort, but the water pressure was ridiculous! It would randomly slow to a trickle in the middle of a shower. Worst of all, the temperature of the water was inconsistent. And I'm not talking about a lack of warm water... there was too much! The water would just turn scalding hot at random, without any indication aside from a slight change in sound a moment before it happened. Ack. That was enough to call it quits there after a year too.

Now I'm happily situated in an all residential building, with hydro included in the rent and great water pressure.

you should read jane jacobs', (who also left the u.s. for canada, in her case nyc for toronto) "the death and life of great american cities", for really well thought out ideas on neighborhoods and mixed use streets. without them cities die and crime kicks in.

i'm over a law office across from a school, a park, and a spice factory. groceries, bars, reupholsterers, welders, doctors(western and holistic), a packing store, a yoga salon, voice lessons, several architects, and gyms are all within two or three blocks, as are warehouses, two bus depots, highway ramps, empty lots, and the mobile homeless. because of mixed use, it is very residential. the park's floodlights for night baseball and noise are more than offset by less vandalism and a small town vibe in an industrial part of san francisco.

I love my current apartment--a third-floor walkup above a furniture store, between a florist and trendy clothing boutiques, and across the street from great restaurants and and a fabulous chocolatier.

Even the weekend street noise from the sports bar across the street or the midweek reverberations from a crappy jazz bar at a nearby wine bar cannot shake my job at my awesome location.

I do want to move to a single family in the next couple of years, but even then I want to be in a mixed-use neighborhood with lots of stores and restaurants nearby.

I now live in a largely residential building that also has offices mixed throughout - it makes for quiet evenings and weekends. We're also above a 7-11, a salon, dry cleaners and restaurant ... but the best part of mixed-use, by far, is being right across the street from the (free!!!) zoo!

I'll second the jane jacobs comment - a must read. Really makes you think differently about mixed use properties.

I have a corner store downstairs, which is great because they're a mom and pop shop (actually brother and sister) and they let me leave things for friends with them and take my parcels... they are great!

In fact, my neighbours are way worse that the stores on my block!!! (fingers crossed, they get evicted this week!! :) (I'm not cruel, they are just really really awful))

Living in a mixed use building has always been a plus for me, even when I lived above a lively sports bar in Lincoln Park for a year! In fact, the ONLY places I've lived have been mixed use.

Here are some pros: they will usually allow UPS/FedEx to drop off packages and you avoid the hassle of driving to the parcel pick up warehouse nightmare downtown. The landscaping/building up-keep tends to be better as business leasors often demand it/see a need for it to keep customers. Sometimes the business you share a building with will keep an extra set of keys for when you get locked out (just be sure you trust the owner). More foot traffic in the area, especially at night, usually equals a safer area. And finally great discounts for salons, cleaners, bars and retail stores! I used to get wine with my haircuts at the salon below my apartment. :)

Here are some cons: living above a bar is not for everyone, obviously more noise, more people, the usual aches and pains. Shared laundry space can be tough when its with a business like a salon or bar, oftentimes they monopolize the area. Busier less residential areas (where mixed use buildings are abundant) equal more people equal more people parking. Even on a permit street I had trouble when there was a high ticket sports game on TV or on Saturday nights when everyone goes out.

All in all, I think mixed use has always worked for me and I would never caution someone against living in those spaces. Sometimes what you think at first is a con is really a plus!

healthyhome and suziegoombs,
You're right - the Jane Jacobs reference is perfect. I wish I had mentioned it in the post. For anyone interested, the book is The Death and Life of Great American Cities and part of it speaks directly to mixed use and its advantages. The book sites areas of cities that are NOT mixed use, like downtown cores w/o residential = ghost towns after 6pm, or strictly residential areas that have no presence or "eyes" during the daytime when you're away at work. Then sites vibrant mixed use neighborhoods where the mix of res. and business provides "eyes" during the day, street life at night: a safer, more lively atmosphere.

I just moved out of a mixed-use building. It was actually the quietest building I've ever lived in - we were above a yarn store and a high-end men's clothing store - and I loved being in the center of downtown, just ten second's stumble to the major bus hub.
(Unfortunately, our fire escape was an easily-accessed stairway at the end of a dark alley, close to bars, and people would frequently scale it while roaring drunk and wake us up in the middle of the night. It wasn't quite enough to get us to leave until someone actually peed through our kitchen window and ruined our entire cookbook collection.)
I'd happily live above stores again, though I don't know that I would want to live above a bar or restaurant - just living a block away from the major bars in town proved troublesome.

I used to live above a Chinese restaurant, and their dishwasher made our floor vibrate. We didn't get any discount either, even though we ordered food from them quite often.

I need peace and quiet, so I prefer living in an all residential building. Some of the residents in my current building work from home, so I have the "eyes" during the day and quiet at night.

I used to live upstairs from a bagel shop. Every morning, I'd wake to the smell of fresh-baked bread. Must have gained 10 pounds...

I lived above a building like that in Chicago for nearly 5 years. Loved it! Wish I could have found something similar when I moved to California last month, but no go.

i've lived in the same building (in two different apartments) as an indian restaurant for 8 years. unfortunately some of the guys from the resaurant live in one of the apartments too. they are dirty and incourteous. (i don't want to think what goes on in their kitchen). they leave a greasy trail up the stairs that runs right to their door, and ON the door and the wall next to it. they never make sure doors coming into the building are closed. they just dump wrappers, junk mail, cig butts, on the floor and stairs. they talk as if they have to shout at each at top volume all the time. and you can tell when they have just walked in the hallway because the smell of body odor makes you want to dry heave. and occasionally they'd have afterhour parties where they would blast the groovy indian tunes (especially the one that sampled the knight rider theme song) in the ceiling speakers of the restaurant....which were basically floor speakers for ME! how many of them live there? i can't even tell you! it's like a frickin' clown car! they just keep on coming out.i could go on and on. if i didn't like the neighborhood and my apartment(s) so much, i'd have moved ages ago.

I don't have a story, but a goal. I want to live under either a book store, an art supply store, a indie gallery, or a coffee shop (not corporate though).

I adore the quirks of living above a college bar. At first, I found them either distracting or inconvenient, but now that I know how to live with them as part of my daily routine- that at least make for good stories. The bar I live above is painted like a huge mug of cheap, yellow beer, frothy top and tap on the doorway included. They even added sparkling lights as carbonation a few summers back. There's nothing like sleeping in a glass of Miller Lite.

Living above a bar means no showers after 9pm. At that point, people are onto their second round and start using the restrooms. This transition didn't take me long to adjust to- a couple of showers pressing myself against the walls to avoid the stream of hot water was all it took to start taking showers BEFORE class.

Living above a bar means you know all the base beats to the best dance songs. Justin Timberlake, I got it. Britney, yeah, her too. From the 'funky chicken,' to 'beat it,' I know 'em all.

Living above a bar means you get all the good gossip. Every loud interaction (and they're all loud by that point) on the streets outside post-closing time, I get first row seats. But for every boyfriend-girlfriend yelling match, there's five ridiculous comments or drunk conclusion.

Sure, these may all seem like reasons to avoid a bar-location apartment, but suburbia will have its time. Peace and quiet will have its day. For now, I've got stories and I'll take 'em.

I lived above a photo developer in the mid-90s. It was fine, except that their security alarm would go off in the middle of the night on a regular basis, and apparently the owner/manager lived far enough away that they didn't always bother to come in to turn it off.

The other thing is that I always suspected that we were paying for some of their electricity. I was gone for a full billing cycle once, and I unplugged EVERYTHING in the house except for the fridge, which I put on super-super low, and I *still* ended up with an $80 electric bill. (But that's not their fault -- it was the landlord's.)

I lived above an insurance agency one summer in college. The agency owner was a nice guy and would always try to give us friendly insurance advice, but several times he asked us if we could walk around less during the day. My roommates and I were spending most of our days sitting around watching TV, so we weren't quite sure how much less walking we could really do, but we tried. He later gave us all our deposit back, with interest, so I guess crawling around our apartment instead of walking paid off.

But, the best part of that downtown apartment was that our kitchen window overlooked an alley with a McDonald's drive through in it. Listening to the drive-through orders was an entertaining way to pass the time when washing dishes.