00:00Hi, this is Julie and welcome to My Sweet Digs and just so you're aware we have a
00:06cave troll so be wary. Come on in. I live with my husband Kyle. We live in downtown
00:14Brooklyn. I bought the studio in 2012. We paid a little under $300,000. I don't
00:20think it's market value anymore. We pay $1,000 in maintenance and $800 in
00:25mortgage. So all together $1,800 per month. We've got a doorman, we have in-building
00:30laundry, and we have a roof deck which is pretty cool.
00:39So hello from the kitchen. One of the cool things that we did here was renovate
00:43the countertops and the sink and the faucet. It was probably the moment where we
00:47felt most like adults I think. More so than just like living in an apartment but
00:52actually having to fix it and pick out things that have to be permanently
00:57glued in places. I felt like that was a big moment of adulting for us. We have
01:02one of the holy grails of New York City living in that we have a working
01:05dishwasher. Except I grew up without using dishwashers so when I first tried to run
01:10it I flooded the kitchen so I thought the dishwasher was broken. I had to hand wash
01:15dishes for a year and a half. Then finally at a party one of our friends bumped into it
01:19ran it perfectly. There was a moment of much embarrassment on my part because I
01:24realized it wasn't the dishwasher it was me. I feel very guilty that I misled
01:28Kyle but it's not my fault. I didn't grow up with dishwashers. My parents used it
01:32for storage like most Asian immigrant parents do but I also feel like
01:36dishwashers in general are dumb. First off you have to pre-clean it to put it in
01:41the dishwasher which makes no sense like shouldn't the dishwasher just clean it to
01:45begin with. That said I guess it has been a lifestyle improvement to have a dishwasher
01:51in my life. And here we have the bathroom. The previous owner had sort of chosen a brownish
01:57taupe color which we didn't really like for the bathroom so we went with full on white. We
02:02replaced the faucets, we replaced the countertops and we also retiled the floor so it's all nice
02:07and shiny. This is our dining room area which we have all of our meals at. This dining room table
02:13came from Ikea but then by slapping some paint on it it's now personalized. We picked up this really
02:19cool art print. One of the things we're probably going to do with this painting is scare our future
02:24children. Basically tell them that their parents are witch hunters and if they don't behave the
02:28witch will come out of the painting and eat them. So I think we're going to be really great parents.
02:33Maybe. When Kyle and I travel I think we always end up gravitating towards the weirdest thing to buy.
02:39Among our creepy acquisitions is a Norwegian troll, a marionette from Prague and a golem.
02:46We have a cave troll or an apartment troll to be more accurate and he kind of finds different
02:52places to hide. The troll was originally brought back from Norway by my grandmother and since then
02:59it's sort of passed around between various cousins houses. The troll's never been to the big city before
03:05so we decided to bring him down to the apartment, give him a change of scenery. People are like they
03:09think we're so weird. I know. Oh my god these guys collect like weird paintings and talk about
03:15their troll as if it's a new roommate. Kyle and I love to collect board games and one of the
03:20problems
03:21we were having was that they were just kind of shoved into this one corner of the apartment
03:25and looked really cluttery so we recently got these doors to kind of cover it up. So when you walk
03:30into
03:30apartment you're like oh what a normal apartment and then when we're ready to play board games boom.
03:36And then this is our living room. I think our home style is kind of geeky quirky collector hoardy.
03:45If our apartment were a character I think it would be most like Kaylee from Firefly. That was a one
03:52season wonderful science fiction series by Joss Whedon. Kaylee is just a very bright cheerful person who just
03:59likes collecting things on sentimental value and I think that reflects us. I've lived in this apartment
04:03for about five years and since then it's gone through multiple evolutions. The biggest one being
04:09when Kyle my husband moved in. I think the hardest thing to merge was actually our book collection.
04:14There were a lot of duplicates. There was a lot of discussions about whose edition should remain
04:18and whose edition we should give away. I work at Random House as a marketing director specializing in
04:23science fiction and fantasy books. Nerd. I also in my spare time write children's books. I wrote a
04:30middle grade trilogy called Mice of the Round Table. It's about anthropomorphic mice in King Arthur's
04:34Court and I also sold a picture book recently. Hopefully one day if we ever move out to a real
04:39house
04:40we'll have one of those Beauty and the Beast libraries or maybe open a bookstore or something.
04:44Our tastes are probably very well matched for a couple. Kyle tends to like a lot of wooden things.
04:50When Kyle first brought in the ship I thought it kind of didn't make any sense. It doesn't necessarily
04:56fit with Julie's more modern decorating style but the apartment itself actually has a lot of dark
05:02hardwood floors and the loft area as well so I feel like that ties the modern furniture in with the
05:09rest of the apartment. Our compromise is that we put little Christmas lights on it so it acts like a
05:14nightlight. Julie was not a fan of the ship at first but I think she came around. It just really
05:20doesn't fit. We also have a projector set up here which is just pointed at the wall there. It's a
05:27pretty
05:28big screen so we can post movie nights and Oscars parties. I just want to brag on my husband for
05:33a
05:34little bit. We can play music from like anywhere in the house and I know that doesn't sound like voodoo
05:38magic but it is to me and if it was just me I'd just be playing anything through the computer.
05:43So I
05:44think Kyle really brought an awesome part of the apartment into the house when he moved in.
05:50It's just a sound system. Kyle and I met on OkCupid. We went on five dates and I actually ghosted
05:58him
05:58which I am very sad and um regretful of. I didn't really notice because Kyle's a pretty quiet guy that
06:07he was awesome. After I want to say three months um Kyle messaged me about Game of Thrones and how
06:15you know we could just watch his friends. I hadn't heard from her in a couple months at that point
06:21but
06:21I still couldn't stop thinking about her so I gave it another shot and thankfully she responded. I was
06:29like I don't have HBO so I said yes. I do. And he had HBO. So really this is all
06:36to say that Game of
06:37Thrones brought us together and we also have two shelves dedicated to George RR Martin books now.
06:44When the snow does fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.
06:51This is sort of the workstation slash dressing area. This apartment is super interesting in that
06:57it has really really high vertical space and not a lot of horizontal space so instead of just
07:03leaving the dressers as is we try to put shelves on top of it. I've put jewelry on mine and
07:08also just
07:09a row of little knickknacks that I've collected in my travels and Kyle keeps our wedding cake toppers
07:15which are actually our D&D characters. Now we're walking up to the loft area. This is my least favorite
07:22part of the apartment if only because there's only four foot clearance and we are kind of removed from
07:28the windows so when we wake up we actually don't know what time it is. The loft is probably my
07:33favorite
07:33part of the apartment because it's just so cozy up here. We also have a pretty obnoxious beam in the
07:38middle of the loft and the previous owner had to wrap it in bubble wraps because it's so easy to
07:43bump
07:43your head against it. I'm lucky that I'm only five foot two. Poor Kyle over here has to pretty much
07:49bend at
07:50the waist to go anywhere. It's not that bad. Just crab walk. Crab walk, yes. Okay now I'm curious.
07:56What were your experiences coming into my this apartment? Um, it was great. I just fell in love
08:04with the apartment. Love at first sight. And me. He fell in love with me. And you. He fell in
08:10love with
08:10me. Not the apartment. Okay we're getting real squishy now. When Kyle moved in I think it kind of
08:16was the perfect fit because he kind of brought in all this cool stuff, even the dumb ship.
08:22But it made it seem like a more whole like life. New York is really tough and to have a
08:28sanctuary you
08:29can come home to and feel safe and feel at peace is really important. Our lives together meshed really
08:35really well. So I have to say we kind of moved in. It felt like home.
