00:00Hi, my name's Angela and welcome to my four-floor sweet digs. Take off your shoes and come on in.
00:06I live on the border of Gramercy and Kipps Bay with my husband Andrew. We pay
00:10$3,750 in rent. I really hesitate to say I think it's worth it for the space in New York,
00:15but I think you'll kind of see maybe what I'm talking about. We moved from Hong Kong to New
00:20York, so we had our eye on this specific building. We are all over Street Easy, like salt to pepper,
00:26like bread to butter. No, that's not even a thing. The history of this building is super unique. It
00:30is a former ice cream factory turned into a brothel, and you'll see these kind of like unique
00:34characteristics throughout. Fun fact, there are two entrances to this apartment. The front one,
00:38as you saw, goes right onto the street. It used to be a loading dock when it was an ice
00:41cream factory,
00:42and when it was a brothel, it was a private entrance. It has so many unique characteristics,
00:45I can't wait to show you. And here is my kitchen. I'm making tomato sauce later. I'm the one that
00:51cooks in this household because Andrew, I don't want to say that he can't cook, he can. It's just
00:56very basic. When we first started dating, he cooked me our first meal ever, and you know,
01:00you're kind of expecting this three-course meal. It was a chicken breast and sauteed spinach. And I
01:05was like, oh, okay. And he said, what? It's all protein. So now I do the cooking, and my favorite
01:12thing to cook is shrimp scampi. This is my bathroom. This is the only place in the whole house that
01:16has
01:17a door, and it's the only place you can ever get a little bit of privacy. It's on the first
01:21floor,
01:22which makes it kind of a pain, especially at night if you have to go. The bedroom is on the
01:26third
01:26floor. You need to wake up. Be careful. Go down death-defying stairs, do your business,
01:31and then come back up and go to bed. I wish the bathroom was a sanctuary for me. However,
01:36it's not. It would be my favorite place to hang out in the house if it was all white,
01:40but it's not. It's kind of dark and a little bit small. This is the second floor.
01:46The dining table is right behind me, and this is my office. I spend about 50% of the time
01:51at my desk, and the other 50% of the time at the dining table. So I guess it's all
01:56the office.
01:56I am a fashion and beauty blogger at Mostly Black on Instagram, because I mostly wear black. I cover
02:02a lot of the sample sales in New York City, so I'm always looking for a deal. So what we
02:05did was we
02:06went to West Elm and Crate and Barrel, we found all the things we liked, and then we searched every
02:09day
02:09on Craigslist for those items until we got them. So the most expensive thing in this apartment
02:13is definitely this glass table. It's about 8 feet long by 4 feet, and it weighs 300 pounds.
02:19I'm not even joking. I think it retails somewhere between $6,000 to $8,000, but I got it for
02:24free
02:24off Craigslist. We don't do much hosting in our place because usually I become the only host and
02:29Andrew becomes the guest. So the new rule is if we're hosting or catering, and catering is just
02:35too expensive. These stairs lead to the third floor. Come on up. This is the third floor landing,
02:40and up these steps is the fourth floor. This is the living room slash guest bedroom. When we
02:46originally saw the listing on StreetEasy, the space was completely different. It was all digitally
02:50rendered photos, so when we came to see the apartment, it was completely different than
02:54what we thought. The biggest surprise was definitely the pink rug on the fourth and third floor. I have
03:00to say I don't mind it. I kind of like it. It's really fun, like a Pepto pink. We moved
03:04from Hong Kong
03:05to New York, and we spent two months living in hotels. When we had our eye on this specific building,
03:09we needed to wait for a unit to open up. Once it did, we were the first people to call
03:13the realtor.
03:14We had all of our stuff in one big stack, and we submitted it right away. I'm originally from Canada,
03:19and I moved to Hong Kong for four years. Back in both Hong Kong and in Canada, actually the landlord
03:25pays
03:25the broker's fees, and you don't. So it was quite a shock to see an extra 15% price tag
03:31on top of your rent.
03:32Back down to the third floor landing, we call this area the runway. Watch your head. This is an iron
03:38beam. It hurts a lot if you hit it. And this is our bedroom. Andrew and I met in Hong
03:43Kong on Tinder.
03:43We both swiped right. I was his first Tinder date. It was one and done. I wouldn't say it was
03:48a lot
03:48at first sight, but I definitely knew we were going to be together. On our very first date,
03:52I walked up the stairs. I saw Andrew looking down at his phone, and in my mind I said, it's
03:57done.
03:57The most sentimental thing in my apartment is a book Andrew wrote for me called What I Love
04:01About Angela by Andrew. He has 50 things that he loves about me, and I love it because I'm kind
04:06of a words person, and here it all is written down. Like 23, I believe the world needs your unique
04:12perspective of life. The space was really challenging to decorate because on its own it's very unique.
04:18We have exposed brick, industrial beams, a pink carpet on two floors, ladders, and steep stairs all made
04:26out of dark wood. Besides that, Andrew and I have completely different design aesthetics,
04:29and the only thing we could agree on was beach house chic. It doesn't exactly translate in this
04:34space, but we're hoping when we move to our next place and it's all on one level, everything will
04:39come together. My favorite places to get decor inspiration are RH Modern, although I don't live
04:43in a mansion, so it's hard to put any other stuff into my place. ABC Carpet and Home, I think
04:48everything
04:48is beautiful, albeit a little bit overpriced. And if I'm on a budget, an H&M is perfect for reasonably
04:54priced items. My best home find is definitely my three-piece reclaimed barnwood set from West Elm.
04:59I got them from three different vendors, my bed frame, my dresser, and my dining table. And all
05:04from Craigslist! The next thing I would look for in an apartment is definitely natural light. There's
05:08only one window on the third floor, so it means the first and second floor don't really get light.
05:13The fourth floor gets a little bit of light. And since we have blackout curtains, it's kind of like
05:18living in an eternal darkness. I cover a lot of sample sales in New York City, and I often get
05:23asked,
05:23where do you put all your shopping? Well, I have five and a half closets. This is one of them.
05:29And
05:29here we have another closet, and this is closet number three. This is closet four. That's closet
05:33five. And this is closet five and a half. I know a lot of people are curious about what's inside
05:38people's closets. I'm happy to show you mine, but it's not Marie Kondo's.
05:44So I like to organize everything with my shoes up at the top. I have bags over here that are
05:49flat.
05:49And then I've tried to organize things by color and commodity all the way through here. Andrew is
05:55definitely the organized one between the two of us. I think I'm causing him anxiety. He actually
06:00said to me the other day, we need to clean. And I said to him, don't you dare use the
06:04C word with me.
06:07So yeah, I'm kind of the method to the madness, and he's the one who's neat and tidy. It's really
06:11hard
06:11to decide on my favorite part of the apartment. There are so many spaces that I love. I probably
06:15spend the least amount of time in the living room. I obviously sleep, so I spend a lot of time
06:20in the
06:20bedroom. I spend a lot of time in the office, and I still can't decide which is my favorite, to
06:24be honest.
