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 York,
00:20so 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.
00:55It's just very basic. When we first started dating, he cooked me our first meal ever. And
01:00you know, you're kind of expecting this three course meal. It was a chicken breast and sauteed
01:05spinach. And I was like, oh, okay. And he said, what? It's all protein. So now I do the cooking
01:12and
01:12my favorite thing to cook is crimp scampi. This is my bathroom. This is the only place in the whole
01:16house that has a door. And it's the only place you can ever get a little bit of privacy. It's
01:21on the
01:21first floor, which makes it kind of a pain, especially at night if you have to go. The
01:25bedroom is on the third floor. You need to wake up, be careful, go down death-defying stairs,
01:30do your business, and then come back up and go to bed. I wish the bathroom was a sanctuary for
01:35me.
01:35However, it'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 a
02:02lot of
02:02sample sales in New York City, so I'm always looking for a deal. So what we did was we went
02:06to
02:06West Elm and Crate and Barrel. We found all the things we liked and then we searched every day
02:09on Craigslist for those items until we got them. So the most expensive thing in this apartment is
02:13definitely this glass table. It's about eight feet long by four feet and it weighs 300 pounds. I'm not
02:19even joking. I think it retails somewhere between six to eight thousand dollars, but I got it for free
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 rendered
02:50photos. So when we came to see the apartment, it was completely different than what we thought.
02:55The biggest surprise was definitely the pink rug on the fourth and third floor. I have to say I don't
03:00mind it. I kind of like it. It's really fun like a Pepto pink. We moved from Hong Kong to
03:05New York and
03:05we spent two months living in hotels. But we had our eye on this specific building. We needed to wait
03:10for
03:10a unit to open up. Once it did, we were the first people to call the realtor. We had all
03:15of our stuff
03:15in one big stack and we submitted it right away. I'm originally from Canada and I moved to Hong Kong
03:20for
03:20four years. Back in both Hong Kong and in Canada, actually the landlord pays the broker's fees and you
03:27don't. So it was quite a shock to see an extra 15% price tag on top of your rent.
03:32Back down to the third
03:33floor landing. We call this area the runway. Watch your head. This is an iron beam. It hurts a lot
03:39if you
03:39hit it. And this is our bedroom. Andrew and I met in Hong Kong on Tinder. We both swiped right.
03:44I was his first
03:45Tinder date. It was one and done. I wouldn't say it was love at first sight, but I definitely knew
03:50we were going to be together. On our very first date, I walked up the stairs. I saw Andrew looking
03:54down at his phone and in my mind I said, it's done. The most sentimental thing in my apartment
03:59is a book Andrew wrote for me called What I Love About Angela by Andrew. It has 50 things that
04:04he
04:04loves about me and I love it because I'm kind of a words person and here it all is written
04:08down.
04:09Like 23. I believe the world needs your unique perspective of life. The space was really
04:15challenging to decorate because on its own it's very unique. We have exposed brick, industrial beams,
04:21a pink carpet on two floors, ladders, and steep stairs all made out of dark wood. Besides that,
04:27Andrew and I have completely different design aesthetics and the only thing we could agree on
04:31was beach house chic. It doesn't exactly translate in this space, but we're hoping when we move to our next
04:36place and it's all on one level, everything will come together. My favorite places to get decor
04:40inspiration are RH Modern, although I don't live in a mansion so it's hard to put any other stuff
04:45into my place. ABC Carpet and Home, I think everything is beautiful, albeit a little bit overpriced. And if
04:51I'm on a budget, H&M is perfect for reasonably priced items. My best home find is definitely my three
04:56piece reclaimed barn wood set from West Elm. I got them from three different vendors, my bed frame,
05:01my dresser, and my dining table. And all from Craigslist! The next thing I would look for in a
05:06apartment is definitely natural light. There's only one window on the third floor, so it means the
05:11first and second floor don't really get light. The fourth floor gets a little bit of light. And since
05:16we have blackout curtains, it's kind of like living in an eternal darkness. I cover a lot of sample
05:21sales in New York City, and I often get asked, where do you put all your shopping? Well, I have
05:26five and
05:27a half closets. This is one of them. And here we have another closet, and this is closet number three.
05:31This is closet four. That's closet five. And this is closet five and a half. I know a lot of
05:37people
05:37are curious about what's inside people'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 said to
06:00me the other day, we need to clean. And I said to him, don't you dare use the C word
06:05with 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 to 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.
