00:00Hi, I'm Marcella. Welcome to your Airbnb. I mean, my sweet digs. Come on in. Just take your shoes off.
00:07Thank you.
00:10I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and rent is $2,900 with all utilities included, plus the $10,000 that I
00:19invested into the space.
00:20It was just one big, empty rectangle. So I turned it into what essentially is a four-bedroom, one-bath
00:28bed and breakfast in the middle of Brooklyn.
00:30It's also my home, and then we also rent it out for film and photo shoots.
00:34For what the space was, when I found it, it was too much. With the work that I've put into
00:39it, I think it might be a little too little, but it's definitely more in the ballpark.
00:51So this is my kitchen. All of these knobs I've been collecting for maybe a decade or so.
00:56My favorite one, probably the elephant or the dinosaur.
01:01I'm actually thinking about changing the kitchen cabinets to be like a powder yellow. I'm not sure.
01:07Going over here to the refrigerator. This is definitely one of the most expensive things in the apartment.
01:13I bought it for around $1,600 or $1,800 in Burbank, California.
01:19There's this store that refurbishes old stoves and refrigerators.
01:24And I found this guy, and they paint it whatever you'd like.
01:28So I had them paint it red, and then they had a Coca-Cola decal that they put on it,
01:34and now it's just my Coca-Cola refrigerator.
01:36Because it's from the 1950s, it has little things inside that they just don't put in refrigerators today.
01:42They have like 12 eggs for you to put all of your eggs in.
01:45The Lazy Susan shelves that come out, the shelves rotate to show you what you need that's all the way
01:51in the back that you can't reach.
01:53So, my dining table, I pretty much stocked it for about three years.
01:57I found it at Cost Plus World Market, and it was $800, and I couldn't afford it.
02:03I am a regular Craigslist searcher.
02:06After three years, eventually someone posted it for $300, and I bought it up really fast.
02:14Yeah, it's a pretty cool piece.
02:15This is the washer and dryer.
02:17Obviously, having a bed and breakfast where you need a lot of sheets and towels to be constantly washed,
02:23I needed to have a washer and dryer in the space.
02:25And then we built this box that hides the washer and dryer, as well as a countertop for our dumping
02:32ground.
02:33Over here is our bathroom.
02:35When we first moved in, it was just white and bland and boring.
02:40I wanted to do something really wacky.
02:43The wallpaper I found on Etsy.
02:45So, there is a seller who sells a bunch of vintage wallpaper.
02:49I wanted to do all of the bathroom, but there just wasn't that much.
02:52So, instead, I matched the orange in the lion and just painted everywhere that the wallpaper didn't cover.
03:00I know it's very loud and very kitschy, but when you put all of these things together, it just works.
03:07Going over here to the rest of, like, where we kind of hang out.
03:11The swing, um, I just wanted a swing in my home.
03:16It's $40 worth of materials at Home Depot.
03:19My handyman came over and did it in a couple hours, and I paid him $70 for him to do
03:24it all.
03:25A cheap little thing that can be really fun.
03:28These are blue velvet chairs.
03:31I am a little tired of them.
03:34I've had them for five years, and I look at them every day, so part of me wants to either
03:41reupholster them or completely get rid of them and get new chairs.
03:45One thing I will never get rid of is this poster of the cigarette girl from the 40s.
03:52It's from my parents.
03:54Every time I see it, I remember my home that I was raised in.
03:59I was also born in. I was born in my living room.
04:01I moved to New York, um, a little over two years ago.
04:05I've always wanted to live in New York, and I just thought, why not?
04:11I was searching for a loft that was either big enough for me to build inside it or that already
04:17had rooms built out.
04:19Then eventually I found this space.
04:21The windows and the natural light that came in were just gorgeous.
04:24I was like, ah, I can do something with this.
04:27And I wrote the landlord asking if he was okay with me building.
04:32I told him about Airbnb, about film and photo shoots, and he was totally okay with it.
04:38I was making his investment a lot nicer.
04:42I built out the layout of the loft, so the three bedrooms and the upstairs balcony and stairs.
04:49We just kind of added all of that in.
04:51Luckily, it did work out.
04:53I made it back in just a little less than three months, but it definitely was a gamble.
04:58The guest rooms are all right here.
05:00Two of them with the siding barn doors.
05:05This is the room with a view, because you have a view of the living area, but still, it gets
05:12really beautiful light in throughout the day.
05:14It's an old, reclaimed window, and we kind of built the wall around it.
05:18I've been doing Airbnb for a pretty long time, and I've met people from all over the world.
05:23I remember a couple from France, they brought us bamboo toothbrushes with our names on them.
05:30It was so, so, so incredibly sweet.
05:31Bad experiences.
05:33Hmm.
05:33If you are staying in someone's home in a shared space, don't walk around in your underwear.
05:42This is the tropical getaway in Brooklyn.
05:46I found this bread spread on broken outfitters.
05:50I also have the Edison ball marquee lights around.
05:53The top, the worst part about the loft, we have a big wall heater, and it makes like a loud
05:59sound, but it just kind of sounds like white noise.
06:03When the heater shuts off, you can hear a pin drop.
06:06It's super, super quiet.
06:08In the middle of the night, if we have to go to the bathroom, and the heat turns off, I
06:13have to be really quiet, otherwise somebody might hear me.
06:17This room, which you don't really realize is a room.
06:21This is the backpacker's dream room.
06:24Originally, this was going to be our walk-in closet, so we thought, well, why don't we just rent this
06:28room out to also make back some of our money, and then we'll turn it into a closet again.
06:33And this was actually the room that everyone started booking nonstop, so we were like, okay, well, then maybe we
06:39should just fix it up and make this a proper room.
06:42Upstairs is my room.
06:45This is my boyfriend in my room.
06:47This ledge is where all my books are, and this is my kind of workspace, even though most of the
06:53time I'm on the bed with my laptop.
06:56This is my husband pillow.
06:57I have my boyfriend and I have my husband.
06:59Whenever we set up to watch a movie or hang out in bed or something like that, he'll ask me,
07:04do you want your husband or am I good enough?
07:06I usually go for the husband.
07:08My home style.
07:10It's basically a collage of many styles.
07:13I buy what I like.
07:14If I see something and I like it, I don't think, oh, is this going to match what I have?
07:19Because nothing matches.
07:21And when nothing matches, you can get whatever you want and you don't have to worry about that.
07:24Funky.
07:25That's why it's the funky loft.
07:27Sharing the space with my boyfriend and other people, guests.
07:32We haven't come up with any issues yet.
07:34They're out most of the day and night, seeing the city, being tourists, doing what they came here to do
07:40in New York.
07:41So we definitely get a lot of private time to ourselves.
07:43I don't want to live alone.
07:45I like having people around me, especially if you have such a big space.
07:49So it's just like, you know, always having friends over to visit.
07:52One of my favorite things is when someone comes in and the look on their face is just like,
07:57this is so great.
07:58Oh, my God.
07:59I've never seen something like this.
08:00This is so homey.
08:01It always just reminds me like, okay, you know, this is a cool thing that you did and maybe it
08:06is worth it.
