00:00Hey, I'm Rachel and welcome to My Sweet Digs. I'm from Maryland, so make sure to keep an eye out
00:04for all of my Maryland Easter eggs hidden in my apartment.
00:07All right, let's go check it out.
00:09I live in a two-bedroom apartment in Harlem with my roommate, Remy.
00:13We spend $24.80 collectively in rent, and that's $12.40 apiece.
00:17I think that's a really good deal.
00:19In my last apartment, I was living with three other people, and I was spending just $100 less.
00:23We get great space, great light, utilities are included. I think it's pretty good.
00:29The living room area, I wanted to make sure that it was comfortable and clean, but also inspired a lot
00:35of creativity and didn't feel too stuffy because I work from home primarily.
00:39My biggest splurge for the apartment was definitely the couch.
00:42I saw this green, velvety couch on Wayfair, and I just thought, well, that's delicious, and I have to have
00:48it for my apartment.
00:49About $650, but I knew it would be worth it in the end.
00:52I'm happy to say that this is not a television shame household.
00:56We have a TV in every room, and that's great, so we feel comfortable watching a show together in the
01:01morning or in the evening or something like that.
01:04But if I want to binge a show on my own, I feel comfortable doing that in my room.
01:08I was very lucky when it came to finding an apartment because my boyfriend lives in this building, just 23
01:13floors upstairs.
01:14I found a broker on StreetEasy who works exclusively with the building.
01:18I told him, my boyfriend lives here.
01:20I really want to live here, so that anytime there's an opening available, just let us know before it's even
01:25on the market, which is what happened.
01:27Even before I moved into this apartment, I still lived in Harlem.
01:30I just lived about four blocks away.
01:31I just love how this neighborhood in particular still feels like a community.
01:36I say hi to my neighbors, and I see them walking down the street, and I'm not afraid to stop
01:40and talk to them.
01:41Even though the neighborhood is changing and expanding, it really has that old-school vibe to it.
01:48And this is the kitchen.
01:52When it comes to the design of my apartment, my roommate and I really did a 50-50 split when
01:57it comes to furniture.
01:58So she got this dining room table.
02:00I think she got it from Ikea, as well as the chairs.
02:03I've always wanted a bar cart in my place, so when we moved in here, I knew we had to
02:08get one.
02:09So I have wine glasses, port glasses, martini glasses, whiskey glasses.
02:14And usually when people see that, they're like, man, look at all these glasses.
02:17You must love to entertain.
02:18And I do.
02:19I love to entertain myself every night.
02:21My first job ever was in the restaurant industry.
02:24I actually worked at a fine dining restaurant when I was 16 years old.
02:27So I've always wanted to live somewhere that had an amazing kitchen.
02:31So I had a separate space to prep and cook while my roommate was in here, and we don't feel
02:37like we're on top of each other.
02:38There's actually too much space.
02:40We have some cabinets in this kitchen that don't have anything in them because we don't have anything to put
02:44in them, which is a good problem to have.
02:46I love a really nice, neat kitchen.
02:49Nothing bugs me more than coming in in the morning and seeing a bunch of stuff all over the kitchen.
02:53However, I will say that because we have this nice big island, the corner of the countertop is okay for
03:00piling things like keys, letters, you know, when you come home and you check the mail, stuff like that.
03:04My favorite thing to cook right now is this slow cooked pot roast in a crock pot with a lot
03:10of root vegetables like carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, rosemary, thyme, lemon, everything that makes food tasty.
03:18In my last apartment, I had a very large bathroom that I enjoyed.
03:21This one, not so much.
03:23I would love a freestanding tub because I love to take baths.
03:27And then a separate space to shower.
03:29I'm quite tall.
03:30I'm about 5'10", 5'11", so I don't really fit in the bath.
03:35That feels more of like a kid bathing in the sink, which isn't super fun or relaxing, but hey.
03:42This is my room.
03:44I work from home a lot.
03:45So I'm in my apartment almost all day.
03:48And I really wanted to make sure that my room was a nice, cozy, zenned out sanctuary.
03:54The first thing that I wanted to do was fill the room with a bunch of plants.
03:57I love plants.
03:58I love green.
03:59I like it to feel like the space is really alive.
04:01I also wanted to keep it quite minimalist so that it feels very relaxing to be here and it doesn't
04:08encourage me to make a lot of a mess.
04:10I built almost everything in my room myself.
04:13The shelves that I did, that was a bit of a challenge.
04:18I built the shelves with my boyfriend, actually.
04:20We built one shelf that holds my TV together and it took almost two hours and I thought we were
04:26going to break up.
04:27So then a few days later I was here and I wanted to put up the second shelf myself and
04:31I did it in like 15 minutes.
04:33Maybe I should never build things with him or possibly that experience helped me to learn what not to do.
04:39The most sentimental thing in my apartment are all of the different tributes to my home state of Maryland and
04:45the city of Baltimore.
04:47My favorite Maryland recipe is a cookbook.
04:49I like following the recipes from that book and making them my own, which just means adding more seasoning.
04:54I also have a Baltimore pennant pillow in my room.
04:57There's a Baltimore Ravens winter cap that I actually got the last time I was at a Baltimore Ravens game.
05:02I think that's all of the Baltimore things in my room.
05:05I would describe my home style as a zenned out, minimalist, creative pad.
05:12Natural tones, woods, white.
05:15My home style was definitely inspired by this family that I babysit for downtown.
05:19The dad is a photographer and the mom is an artist, graphic designer.
05:23They have a really nice, warm, industrial, minimalist chic apartment that has a lot of industrial piping and wood shelving.
05:32Natural tones, it's not a ton of color in their apartment,
05:35but I was very into that.
05:36Living in the same building as my boyfriend is actually perfect.
05:40I feel like it's a nice compromise of sort of living together, but also having my own space.
05:45It's a nice baby step before living together.
05:48I met my boyfriend Barry on Tinder.
05:50We actually went to this French restaurant that's just two blocks away called Maison Harlem for our first date.
05:56And it was really cute and really nice.
05:58And now we go there all the time for brunch and dinner.
06:01And we sit at the bar and the staff knows us pretty well.
06:04So that's fun.
06:05I went to school here.
06:06I went to NYU and I've lived all around the city.
06:09I've had great apartments for different reasons,
06:11but this is the best combination of everything.
06:13I love this space.
06:14I love that I'm only sharing it with one other person.
06:19This is my favorite apartment that I've ever lived in.
06:21I love it.
06:24What do you say to my part?
06:27That, much, I love you.
