Kicking off the Hungry Hipsters blog with a little apartment tour now that I’m back in the city where things first began! Shortly after graduating college I moved to NYC, I went from working in trend forecasting to falling into the world of social media. The early days of @HungryHipsters were entirely based on eating my way through the city. I spent so much time scouring locations for the most picturesque desserts, crave-worthy bagels & New York’s best cup of coffee. Keep this nostalgia in mind as we dive into my decorating choices almost a decade later!
SHOP MY APARTMENT
Every inch of space matters when you’re decorating a small studio apartment. From storage solutions hidden under the bed to a couch doubling as booth seating. I’m so grateful my friend, interior decorator & stylist, Julian Porcino, who helped give us all the tips & tricks to make our space feel inspiring, clutter-free & functional. When it came time to decide if we should paint or wallpaper, I decided I wanted to leave everything white & airy in hopes to not make the apartment feel even smaller. Julian came up with the idea of creating a gallery wall, but using a Framed Samsung TV in the middle so when it’s not in use, it looks like just another art piece hanging on display. For reference, I believe our TV is the smallest size (maybe 32″), but they come quite large! This was one of my favorite aspects of our place, there’s room to continue to grow the gallery as we collect more art & prints too! My husband, Christian, hid the TV cord behind the wall using this TV Cord Management product, he does this with our TV’s in every place we live & it’s always been the one thing people point out when they come over for the first time!
A lot of the trinkets we have sprinkled around are from local shops in the city. The cast iron pigeon (which is sadly sold out) was from the store, Friends NYC in Brooklyn. The Smiths poster we purchased from a shop in Greenwich Village & got it framed there too. For furniture, we had quite a bit from our move that worked in this space, but shopped high-low for the rest from brands like Urban Outfitters Home, Lulu & Georgia, Brooklinen and AllModern. Some other things we did upon moving in was ordering custom-fitted black out shades for our windows (used a local company) and went straight to Manhattan’s Flower District to secure some plants. The stacked magazines & books was an idea I pulled from Pinterest; we actually got quite a bit of magazines from a store near us that was tossing out a TON of expired products around the holidays so we got them for free. Facebook Marketplace would be a good alternative for this too.
MY FAVORITE STORAGE SOLUTIONS
Soft amber lighting after the sun sets is a must for me. Besides our bathroom, I changed every single light fixture in our home to a warm, dimmable (and ideally controlled by iPhone) bulb. Philips’ Smart WiFi Range is a great example of this, they have a wide selection of bulb types to fit your specific needs, though you can definitely find alternatives at your local hardware store. Using bright lights after dinner is just like staring at your phone right before bed- it entirely disturbs your circadian rhythm! I’m still trying to kick the habit of falling asleep with the TV on, but having the overhead lights automatically dim at sundown is a tiny step in the right direction. While we’re on lighting, if you’re in a rental, I need to tell you about the company Color Cord! They have customizable plug-in light fixtures based on your outlet type, color preferences, hardware, etc! We have the Color Cord Slope Plug-In Pendant in the Ochre colorway.
It’s been 9 months since I’ve been back in the city. We may be going a little stir crazy, especially with our half-sized refrigerator, but genuinely very happy to be home. We left so many of our close friends in Los Angeles, but the East Coast is ultimately where we want to be longterm.
