Object Lesson: Stainless Bath Accessories

I can’t tell you how crazy I am for these suction cup bathroom organizers from The Container Store. The metal tubes are sized to fit a toothbrush and a toothpaste tube and stick to the wall tiles in your bath. What I like about them is that they keep your brush and paste near at hand while keeping them out of the way. No one want s to leave her brush just lying on the sink edge or the bathroom shelf. At the same time, these wall-mounted, storage units don’t hog counter space like normal toothbrush holders, and given the Lilliputian scale of most New York bathrooms, this is a major plus. Another reason I love this sleek duo is that they’re perfect for a single girl (or guy). There’s something infinitely depressing about the family-size toothbrush holder with room for four brushes. Truth be told, the slimmer two-brush holders might be even more depressing. With this design you can always buy a second brush holder, if your honey wants to keep his Oral B at your place. Last but not least, unlike the suction cup bathroom organizers I remember from college, these puppies actually stay stuck to the wall.

Floorplan

Here it is: the floor plan. It may not seem like much space, but trust me, this place seems down right palatial compared to my mini-apartment in the West Village. (However, that said, when I was in the upstairs version of my apartment last night, I realized that I have been mildly delusional about how much larger my living room will be when I take out that dopey closet.) That’s right, the closet in the living room is the first thing to go. I have no idea what someone was thinking when they put it in, in the first place.

Space Saver: Ceiling Shelf

I heart this clever use of space from Apartment Therapy! I'd love to do something similar in my aparment someday. My collection of colorful Pyrex bowl would look particularly dashing in a shelf like this. I wonder how they managed to make the shelves float without any support from beneath? Maybe those vertical dividers are also supports? In any case, it looks like the work of a proper carpenter not your average handy-Jane, like myself. Love, love, love the idea, especially for tiny New York City aparments where there are simply not enough places to stash all your stuff.

The Kitchen: Before

So, here it is in all of its glory: my galley kitchen. (And yes, that is some high-tech taping of two photos together to show the whole room.) As you can see, it’s not exactly a huge space and there are some awful cabinets to reckon with. However, it’s a lot bigger than the kitchen space I have now, and secretly, I love galley kitchens. I spent some time working in a massive catering kitchen, and each cook set up his or her workstation in a space no larger than the six by eight feet I’ll sooncall my own. It’s sometimes just more efficient to be able to reach everything you need without moving too far.

The long-term plan for this space is to completely rip out all the cabinets and start fresh. When this happens I will likely go the Ikea route. (Ikea’s kitchen cabinet prices can’t be beat; and frankly, I think they’re as good-looking and sturdy as any other off-the-shelf cabinetry.) When I do that, I’ll build the cabinets into an L-shape to maximize my available space.

The short-term plan is to get this place looking a little nicer and make the most of what’s already there. I plan to rip out that cabinet above the stove. Clearly that hood isn’t doing any real work, and the cabinet there seems awkward to me. (Yes, I know I am a New Yorker getting rid of storage space.) Then I’m going to take off all the cabinet doors and all that god-awful hardware, which by the way, is affixed in the strangest of places. A little sanding, a coat of good primer and some high gloss white paint (I tend to like Martha Stewart’s Ironstone White), and this space should be a-okay. For hardware, I’ll opt for a something silver-colored to coordinate with the sink. I’m also going to attempt to paint that off-white laminate counter. A little research has uncovered a few sets of directions for painting laminate counters, so I’m going to give it a shot. To make the most of the space, I may end up mounting pot racks on the wall that the stove is on. (I have a lot of pots and pans, actually a shocking quantity of cookware, considering my age and how little space I have.) I’ll also probably get a small baker’s rack with a butcher-block top on wheels to push into that space between the stove and the counter. The fridge and the stove both seem to be fine, and are totally neutral, which is a blessing for this kind of quick fix.

The New Little House

Here are a few pictures of the new apartment out in Brooklyn, which I am still in the process of buying. (God willing, I will have closed on this one before Thanksgiving.) Though I'm not going to count on that. It often seems this will never be over. The whole process has been so stressful and time-consuming. I'm going to be so happy when I can finally stop thinking about it.

The apartment is a one bedroom on the ground floor of a pre-war brick building. I'm trying to get out to the apartment to take some more exact measurements this weekend and I'll snap some better photos then. These really don't give you a good idea of what the place looks like, but it's at least a hint. Please ignore the terrible furnishings they have "staged" it with. I'll also be posting a list of planned improvements shortly. I've planned it as a two stage makeover, with the first round being a sort of Band-Aid until I can afford to do more serious renovation. (You'll see why the Band-Aid is needed when I get pictures of the bathroom and kitchen posted.) I also believe you've to to live in a space and use it before you make any decisions about how to remodel. I can't wait to get in there and get down to work.

Murphy's Law

The thing that made this very small apartment livable was my Murphy bed. Without it I would have had a living space that was dominated by my bed. It was my mother’s idea initially, and truth be told, I thought she was nuts. But a little research and a nice gay man I met at a party, who had a Murphy bed of his own and swore that it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to his apartment, changed my mind. I looked in the city, but the Murphy bed showroom here was overwhelmed with bad reports at the Better Business Bureau. My Murphy-loving pal had ordered his directly from a website based in Florida (I think), and had it delivered to his home.

Lacking a doorman and the nerve to attempt self-assembly, I drove out to The Original Murphy Bed headquarters one day to order my new bed. I don’t remember the sales pitch or the level of Murphy I opted for exactly, but I am pretty sure I took the middle road, neither the cheapest nor the most extravagant Murphy with the simplest cabinetry. (I use the mattress I already owned.) A few weeks later it arrived in a van with a man, who assembled the whole kit and caboodle in less that two hours. (For the record, a reasonably handy person could assemble one her/himself.)

I love my Murphy bed. I have no idea why there isn’t a Murphy bed in every apartment in Manhattan. Hell, NYU should invest heavily in the Murphy Bed Company and have them installed in every dorm room in the city. As Arianne Cohen pointed out in a recent article in New York magazine, “With Manhattan’s real-estate market peaking at an all-time-high average of $1,083 per square foot, the necessary 28.125 square feet of space for a full-size bed now holds a net worth of $30,459 ($31,022 in Soho; $31,612 on the Upper West Side).” $30,459! I promise, Murphy bed dozing is nothing like sleeping on a cot, as some people assume it must be. And having lived in an apartment with a loft bed for a year, it is an infinitely more appealing solution. Admittedly there’s nothing suave about suggesting to fold the bed out of the wall during a make-out session with your latest crush, but that is the price you have to pay when trying to make the most of a small space.