What is your one favorite element in your small, cool home? I live in a pre-war tenement building in the lower east side of NYC. I love the elements of history in the apartment. There are original stripped wood moldings around the windows and door frames, cabinets in the kitchen and antique door to the water closet. Also, the claw foot tub in the kitchen makes me feel like I'm living in another time period.
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What was one of the biggest challenges you faced in furnishing your small home? When you live in a small apartment, you can't fight your space — you have to accept it, love it and play with it. We played with the sense of history in the apartment and installed black and white ceramic tiles in the kitchen and carbonized bamboo floors to match the old existing wood trims. My cousin painted a faux-wallpaper mural on the wall so when we sell, it can be painted over (currently on the market.) Because we have high ceilings, we created a lot of overhead storage space. The captain's bed in the bedroom allows for under bed storage and is definitely the most peaceful nook in the apartment. We used color to add humor to the space and to make each room its own. When my husband moved in with me, combining our furniture and belongings was a real challenge. We settled on hanging all his music/movie paraphernalia in the water closet which luckily won't get water damaged since the shower is in the kitchen!
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That's lovely!
And it's not every day that you see the shower in the kitchen. Wowsers.
I love what you've done with the space, particularly the use of color in your living room. Two people in 350 sq ft is quite an accomplishment, but you've made it look not at all cramped - I can't imagine the discussion where you all had to decide what stayed and what would go when you merged households.
This is a very interesting space.
I also *love* the small black and white tile in the powder room -- a nice echo of the larger b&w tile in the kitchen.
This entire place feels so thoughtful. A lot of care and attention went into making this a really beautiful place.
I have a love/hate feeling about having the tub IN the kitchen... but I admit everything else looks kind of cute. Thumbs up!!
Cook n clean at the same time!??
... loving the uniqueness!
laetitiae - lots of older NYC apartments have tubs in the kitchen (no fun when you have roommates, let me tell you). I've never understood why but always assumed people took their baths in the kitchen before indoor plumbing so it seemed like a good place to put them when indoor plumbing was first introduced. However I've never seen it in the older buildings here in DC, so I've always wondered if that was really the reason. Does anyone have a better answer?
Thumbs-up for the tenement tub alone... love the citron contrasting with the midnight blue (or black?) in the WC as well.
Those showers in the kitchen crack me up. It's so bizarre but so cool. I like what you did to the place. I like the living room wallpaper design and the windows make it feel airy and open.
Ohhh, how lovely. Truly homey, and so ... adult, yet fun. You've done truly brilliant things with an incredibly difficult space. I think this is an all-time favorite for me.
I love this place! this is exactly the type of small apartment I would love to have.
Wow, really neat little space and you've done so much with it. Very funky! The tub in the kitchen would make me a little nervous (seems kinda icky) but very cool space.
This is beautifully homey. I love that you made the place really interesting without making it overwhelming...that is a delicate task in such a small place. The paint in each room is unique, but the warm wood tones tie it all together. The checkered floor tiles on two different scales add a touch of whimsy. Thanks for sharing and good luck!
Lovely place! You guys did a great job of working with the wonderful pre-war details while keeping the place fresh and livable.
The tub in the kitchen reminds me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Anyone else remember how Francie would always get whacked on the back by a random faucet?
i LOVE it!!
I am in awe at how expertly you have managed to accommodate in this space given its size. And it doesn't look crowded at all!
Ah, I love this. Great use of a classically quirky NYC apartment.
Don't quote me, but I think the tub-in-the-kitchen dates from the days before apartments had individual bathrooms--people shared toilets. Then later plumbing was added to individual apartments.
I love the checkerboard/green kitchen. And not many people cause say they can cook dinner and shower at the same time!
What a cute small space!! I love the claw tub in the kitchen!!
as soon as i saw the title, i knew you lived on the lower east side. i live there too and ive seen a lot of old tenements with the tub in the kitchen, most of them were pretty gutted though-- open wiring and piping, no roof etc.
but you have done an absolutely amazing job! you better win this thing!!! the challenges of this type of apartment are far harder to overcome than just small size.
Interesting ad!
A shower in the kitchen! It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer cooks and washes lettuce in the shower! :)
Your apartment looks so warm and inviting. The bedroom is probably my favorite part. Wonderful job, thank you for sharing!
You have done a great job with your space. I love the living room colors... and the wallpaper. A for you.
I. Love. Checkerboard floor tile. It looks so crisp against whatever you combine it with, though I do especially love it with that bright green. This place is just beautiful.
Fabulous! I love your use of color and you've used the space brilliantly.
i love the bed! is it custom? or where did you buy it? such a cool place!
I love the (burgandy) wing chair in your living room. Can you please t4ell me where you purchased it from? Thanks
Awesome, awesome place! And I LOVE that the history of the tenement is so alive in the space.
If anyone is interested, I found it listed in the NY Times for $325k.
Oh, you poor New Yorkers! I feel for you in that tiny place but, bless you, you've truly made the best of it! Fantastic job!
Please let us know the name/make of the green paint
Really nice. You did a great job making your place comfortable looking and I bet it wasn't easy.
I love what you've done here: taken a tiny awkward space and made it inviting, interesting, warm, functional and totally awesome. And I don't think you're "poor" at all. You get to live in one of the great cities on the planet; kudos to you to do be able to do it in such a fabulous style.
Lovely -- we need to see more of this on the smallest coolest.
You must have some funny stories with that tub in the kitchen.
This is my fav so far. The tub in the kitchen is so darn cute!!
It's true. People took their baths in the kitchen because you heated the water on the kitchen stove. As a little girl I remember taking a bath in a galvanized tub in the kitchen of a farm house I was staying at in the country with a cousin.
There were still lots of farm houses then where the running water came from a pump in the kitchen sink. If you wanted hot water you had to heat it on the stove.
I love the colors in this house! So cheerful.
this is an incredible little gem.
my favorite entry so far!
great work with the tile and paint.
having a bathtub in the kitchen would seriously make me cry.
I adore the living room--those are really beautiful windows. Pretty colours, too.
I agree that small apaces are hard for the even designers to figure out what to fit in where. i love the checkmate tile floors and the lime green shades used for the walls giving it the sunny shiny warm feeling.
Jeanne
Nice job. I like it a lot. Imagine this place before flat screen TV's.
Truly beautiful!
I am LOVING the lime green!!
Wow....a tub in the kitchen? Interesting....you do what you gotta do in a small space, I guess. Overall, I love it! It has a lot of character and warmth.
This is the most lovable space I've seen in years, on AT or anywhere! I especially love your combination of chartreuse, deep mauve, and the black and white tiles, all of which go so beautifully with the old woodwork and general feel of the space. Love your water closet door with the old glass. Love how tidily the tub's tucked into the kitchen! And I have to say, in a tiny space you've done a great job of combining two people's possessions--it doesn't look like you did. You say the apartment's on the market: I'm sure you'll always remember this home with great fondness.
So many challenges overcome with this entry. Beautiful outcome. You've done an absolutely lovely job. Hope it sells!
the moment i saw the "wallpaper" in the living room, i knew i was going to love it. let me get "country" for a minute... "Y'ALL STYLED THE HECK OUTTA THAT PLACE!"
Ah, yes. The bathroom in the kitchen. A downtown fixture, so to speak.
Well done. Melikes.
I love the colors! You've done a brilliant job with a tiny space--well played.
Alex, Hi. Your place is amazing, you guys did such a great job with it. And i love the tub in the kitchen, just lovely.
The bath tub in the kitchen. That's the first time I have EVER seen that.
value and style...
very peaceful place, love the living room and bedroom, kitchen
bathtub ?????
Audrey
Tiny and cool!
I believe that when the building was an old tenement, they had shared water closets in the hallways so each apartment had a tub in the kitchen where they bathed. I've been told that families would put a piece of wood over the tub when not in use and it was used as a table. For more modern uses, it's great to fill up with ice and beer when you're having a party. And, you can totally monitor your eggs from the shower.
a few questions from commentors:
-The wing chair was something my husband found on the street and we reupholstered with fabric from Mood.
-The lime green paint was hard to find. I tried a few that looked like baby diaherria before I found this. It was a few years ago but I think it was a dutch boy color from Kmart.
What color/brand is the paint in the bedroom??
No matter how this competition turns out, Alex and Cory-- you guys are the winners in my book! This is the very definition of Small and Cool!
Hey neighbors! You have my vote!! -ophira
Adorable apartment with an amazing use of space!
Awesome use of space, and really cute!
The apartment looks so awesome!! I wish we had seen it when we were in NYC for your wedding last November!
Love, Cousin Jane in Florida
My ex's parents have an old rent control place that still has a bathtub in the kitchen - although their decor and design is not nearly as nice!!
Love this place, and love this series - useful in trying to get ideas for my own 350sqft place in Prospect Heights.
LOL, I adore this place - the bathtub in the kitchen is AWESOMELY quirky. Want to trade apartments?
Compact but beautiful!
I have been so overwhelmed by all the votes and amazing supportive comments today. It is not easy to live in such a small space- trust me! I feel so proud just hearing all the feedback and praise. That is award enough- thank you. We really hope to find someone who will love and cherish this apartment as we have.
The bedroom color was from home depot and definitely from behr but I forget the name. Sorry.
Hey Underhill- We're looking to buy a bigger place in Prospect Heights. How do you like the neighborhood?
These tenament apartments were built to house the thousands of immigrants coming through Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th C. Showers and tubs in the kitchen saved on space, and rooms were very small. Luxury was having your own WC, often it was shared in the hall. I lived in an apartment like this on Thompson St. for years and loved the shower in the kitchen, which was hidden behind a bookshelf on wheels. This place is a wonderful example of creative problem solving, and I especially love the kitchen.
The best part is that you took a space lots of people would shy away from and made it picture perfect. It's just so darn cute and cozy!
I was just reminiscing with someone about my 350 sq ft apartment. Some of the happiest times for me. Shower in the kitchen and all. But yours is waaay cooler than mine was.
love it! Almost makes me wish I lived in a smaller space! :)
Wow, I really think you guys should win with this... it epitomizes small & cool. I think I would use some kind of storage to contain bath products in the kitchen because the mix makes me seriously uneasy... I don't mind the concept, just the product mix (weirdly enough)! I absolutely love the living room... such gorgeous floors and the lavender tones are perfect.
The plumbing for the entire building is all connected, thus the shower/tub in the kitchen (not because you heated water on the coal stove).
This is place is great, and it doesn't have all that DWR stuff jammed into it. It looks individual, not cookie cutter.
This design is ah-mazing. Your apartment looks beautiful, classy, cozy, fresh, modern, romantic, quirky, and itsy bitsy all at the same time!!! Really beautiful... this is the kind of design I look for when I read ApartmentTherapy! And major kudos to you for being able to live with a bath/kitchen... I'm too OCD/germ-phobic (thanks mom), but it's so charming and story-like...
I am sitting in this apartment right now and can truly say that even with a group of people hanging out here, it feels comfortable and never cramped. Alex and Corey did an amazing job with the space and went above and beyond with decking it out creatively. This is one of my favorite apartments to come hang out in!
I love love love this place. Congratulations on a well put together space.
This space is truly my favorite so far amongst ALL categories so far. Nice and comfortable space you've creates with so little space.
You probably never have to wonder:
"WHERE am I going to brine the turkey??"
LOL
I love your whole place.
love! especially the color palette..
You did a great job with the design: it doesn't seem that small at all, it seems like a space with a very warm/quirky/charming/lovely energy to it.. you'll definitely find a buyer. :)
---Yeah, the old tenement buildings for immigrants. My old friend, the wine mavin Alex Bespaloff, had a similar space, with the bathtub in the kitchen. As someone else mentioned, he kept a big board on top of it and used it as his kitchen table. We would sit at it and taste wines. His place also had an old-fashioned feature that I'm certain you don't: when we went in (kitchen entrance) and turned on the light, you could hear the scurrying of cockroaches! Those were the good old days!
Fantastic job! Everything about it screams fun, creativity and comfort, bringing the past into the present and adapting to & enhancing what you have, which to me is the best definition of design. Yay, LES.
Is the painted mural the pink design? LOVE IT. Your cousin's welcome to come paint my walls any time.
I've been to this apartment, it's gorgeous! Beautiful light, great use of space, comfortable - amazing.
love what you've done with your cozy yet stylish home!
if your cousin is for hire, i'm actually on the hunt for someone to do a similar treatment in my foyer... pls have her/him feel free to contact me at olukemi at hotmail.com.
thanks a bunch & good luck!
k.
Sooo creative!! This is the mother/mother-in-law's review. Seriously, looks and is cute, good job!!! VCR
You've made it whimsical and fun! The checkered floors and lime walls, very Alice in Wonderlandish -- I half expect to see the white rabbit pop out of the water closet! Great job!
I think tubs were put in the kitchen for the heat factor...kitchens had the stove and the rest of the apartment would have been on the cold side...I grew up in a tenement and they can be quite cold and drafty so before central heating bathing in the kitchen area made sense...my grandmother bathed all her children in the kitchen near the stove in a big tub that could be moved around...wonderful colors in this samll apartment and good use of space..
That's the most inviting living room I've seen in a long time.
I love it. You both did a wonderful job. I hope you win : )
Chartreuse & cerise . . . lovely !
You've taken something that could be dreary and depressing and given it an updated, hip vibe that would appeal to all generations. Excellent!!
Are you all from the same church group or something?
Yay! Go alex
LOVE the tub in the kitchen. And there's room for an eat-in kitchen? Just crazy! I also appreciate you're not afraid of dark colors in a small space.. the WC is fantastic.
Love the colors, charm, and testament to compatibility!
The faux-wallpaper is incredible. Everything is placed in its perfect spot. As for the bathtub in the kitchen--a lot of people might not dig this, but it reminds me of a simpler time--I love it. Nothing better than taking a bath while someone is baking you a cake RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!
Seriously, love this place.
There is an attic apartment just like this one in San Marcos, TX. I had to check the location to make sure it wasn't the same! A bath tub in the kitchen is definitely something you never forget.