About LHITC

So why am I moving? Why am I writing about it?

I’m moving because I am obsessed with real estate and fell in love with another, bigger apartment that I could actually afford. Scratch that. I was obsessed with real estate. I think the whole process of buying and selling apartments has kicked the habit for me for at least a few years to come.

I am writing about this whole process because I think I have something to share with you about creating a home and about making the most of what you have. I believe wholeheartedly in living well, even if your means are small. I have a great job writing about homemaking, decorating and entertaining. But I think most of the women who read the publication I work for would be horrified to know that a 26-year-old woman with no husband and no children, who lives in a small studio apartment is telling them how to live their lives. Frankly, sometimes I am horrified that I am. That said, I also think there is another group of women (and men) who would be thrilled to get advice about how to live their lives on their very real budgets of time, money and space. My father has also always said to me, “Take notes.” So, I suppose these are the notes he’s always wanted me to take.

This blog will be about all the things I love. More than anything, I’d like to share the things I’ve learned about making a home, especially since those lessons were often learned the hard way. I won’t write about things I couldn’t afford myself or about beautiful lamps that can only be custom-ordered from Sweden. This will be a space for everyday life, and for making it better.

The Little House on 10th Street

This tiny apartment has been my home for the last three years, and I will be moving soon. Clocking in at a mere 277 square feet, my home is truly little. But it has been a wonderful place to live and I will be heart broken to leave it behind. It is the first home I owned. It is the place I have lived the longest since I arrived in New York eight years ago. It is a space that is filled with my life.

Many of people couldn’t imagine living in my shoebox and wouldn’t care to dream of folding away the Murphy bed each morning, but I have always been happy here. My friends have always remarked that I, “made the most of the space,” shaking their heads at the bed in the wall and the half-size fridge, but no one has complained about the Murphy bed out loud — at least, not yet. This apartment was christened with a house warming of more than thirty people, each guest pressing elbows with the next: people spilling into the halls. I’ve had dinner parties of up to eight guests around my coffee table, and I even cooked a full lobster dinner for friends one February night. (Everything smelled like shellfish for a week afterwards despite multiple moppings.) Lobster wasn’t the end of culinary ambitions in a kitchen fit for munchkins, at one point during my unemployment, I ran a make-shift catering business out of my miniature kitchen, using the fire escape as extra fridge space.

Houseguests while not out of the question always did have to share my full-size bed (including my mother when she stayed). I had three people sleep the night only once, when I had my sister in my bed and our 6-foot tall friend Mandy curled up on my love seat sofa. My old roommate even lived here with me for a week while he sorted things out with his life.

I have had so many good days here and so many friends to enjoy them with. So much fit in to such a small space. But it was enough. It was an embarrassment of riches: This little house in the city that I could actually call my own.

About

The Little House in the City is a lifestyle blog written by Laura Fenton. Laura is a writer and stylist based in New York City. She started the blog in 2006 as a chronicle of her move from a 277 square foot studio in Manhattan to a one-bedroom apartment in brownstone Brooklyn. Today the site is a journal of everyday experiences and inspiration. The Little House in the City is updated regularly posts about home improvement, decorating, cooking, entertaining, crafting and other projects. The site hopes to offer lessons in living well while spending less.

In addition to penning The Little House in the City, Laura is a freelance writer and editor. She also works as a producer and prop stylist. She currently resides in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.