Speaking of getting organized, this couple has getting organized nailed down
I am seriously in awe. A three hundred square foot apartment, and look what they manage to do with it:
Yeah, it’s really really small, and those of you who don’t live in mega-expensive cities such as New York may be horrified. But forget about that part for a moment and see how creative they’ve been in merging form and function and making the most of every inch, without the place looking cramped. It’s the dining table and the couch that especially impress me, but I think the whole thing is creative, harmonious, and well-planned.
I am so glad I got out of NYC before it when this batguano crazy.
Like my friend always says: “New York– Hell with good restaurants.”
Please excuse me. I see what you’re saying about organization but this couple tells me I must fisk their profound mental illness.
This “couple” is a walking cliche.
Hummm….. let’s see. Watching that video one notes a number of things.
1) Very low-t beta pajama boy male with an apple tat on his forearm.
2) Lots of crap in their book fireplace including the Bernie Sanders book. Yum yum.
3) Other crappy and meaningless “contemporary” novels.
4) All the Harry Potter books…. maps well to his adolescent neuter vibe.
5) Demented urban Ikea “furnishings.” and forcefully bland pablum art.
6) She’s kicking back in here softly furnished NYC cell reading “Paris Cafes”
7) Oh Lord, he’s got a man bun just like her bun. Asexuality defined.
8) Love board games with an emphasis on Game of Thrones.
9) This is the apartment of a couple whose souls have died. That’s why its for “designer designed”
10) “When we introduce plants and art, that’s when we do our pops of color. It fits out modern clean style but it also reminds us of home.” Sigh.
11) They haul in four frame chunks of moss to introduce “Nature into our apartment.” Sad little puppy.
12) Oh yes they are so well-traveled and so eager to share: “These are two [black and white] photos I took in Iceland.” Good choice for living in this white iceblock.
13) And then they crawl, CRAWL, out onto the fire escape to show us the wonderful life of sitting on filthy wrought iron and sipping from a cup from Ikea.
14) To quote Mr. T: “I pity the fools.”
Sorry, but in a social meltdown these people will be among t he first to go to the wall.
vanderleun:
I knew you’d feel the need to diss them.
But I really like their place. I couldn’t care less about his man-bun and don’t make assumptions about their sex lives based on it, either. What I like is the ship-shape spareness of things like that couch and that table. They’ve made the very most of what they’ve got, and they’re saving money while living in NY and taking advantage of all those great restaurants and the vitality that still exists there, and I bet they’re saving enough money for nicer digs someday.
Living in Hong Kong, one of my guilty pleasures in life is overseas travel which involves staying in AirBNB apartments or hotels where the living room + balcony is larger than my entire Hong Kong flat.
500-something square feet is my idea of a bare minimum. How these two ought-to-be-sterilised-but-probably-wouldn’t-make-much-difference (Sorry Neo, but with Grumpy Gerard VdL on this) hipster ciphers manage to live in that matchbox without suffocating in an estrogen (the both of them) miasma, I do not know.
IMO, both neo and vanderleun are right.
It creatively combines ship-shape spareness with sterility.
I especially like his pink hat. He’s comfortable in his beta-maleness.
When I lived uptown, downtown, all around the city from UPS to Brooklyn Heights I saw endless variations of this “we’re living on a submarine” apartment. First thing is, as you know, one little thing out of place and the whole effect is shot. That’s why they spiff it up for the video.
But that ain’t how they live unless they are greater slaves to anal behavior than a meth-crazed high functioning ICD baboon.
The problem with this whole approach — which is a lot like the current craze for teeny, tiny houses and cabins — is that sooner or later you wake up in squalor.
I enjoyed watching the video to see how efficiently the couple used their space. However, I wondered throughout how they get any privacy at all. During a NYC winter, how do they avoid murdering each other from the stress of claustrophobia? If they argue about excessive blanket placement, how do they get the space to calm down?
vanderleun is right. These are two nearly disposable human beings.
I’m sure their bikes are somewhere else in the building.Because biking in cold precipitation is good, for climte change, doncha know.
They don’t want much and in life will not have much — of warmth, children, security. This is the self-immolation of the species. Just what Bernie wants for their future!
A pink cap and a tatt on this cryptorchid male! Incongruity! He wouldn’t get far down here. Next he can wear a pink feminist vagina hat and really make a statement, yelling “F… Trump” in a high pitched squeaky little voice.
Maybe they are really a lesbian couple.
When I was stationed in Germany in 1967 my wife and I started out in a furnished 400 square foot efficiency with a nice bath and reasonable kitchen and a funny two way door window that opened with a metal fence in a high rise building. It worked for a bit but we moved into a two room apartment double the space with separate kitchen in about four months because we felt too crowded.
I did notice these folks in that NYC place are a bit unusual but as long as people leave me alone I don’t care what they do or who they do it with. I also admire their organizational ability and they are making their lives work with their style choices.
Always interesting to see how other people live. I do have other questions, like how much is their monthly rent, how much is their income, and how much did they spend on furniture?
They may be enjoying the city-life now, but at some point they will want to have children.
Some have used the expression “ship-shape.” For a real study in organization, you have to look at the interior of a boat, with its unique requirements, and custom furnishings, and nautical gear that is not needed on land. Some people even live year-round on the water, in vessels far smaller than this apartment.
Frog: Don’t think they have bikes. Didn’t you notice the dual hangers for their skateboards?
Yes, the hipster vibe is strong in this one. However, I’m not quite as down-in-the-mouth about it in this case as some of you are – I really do like that ‘living art’ on the wall. A number of other touches appeal to me: the flip-up bed into the wall, for example; the way they just managed to size the fold-out sofa bed so that it and the real bed just avoid crunching into each other. This also reminds me a bit of the little apartment I lived in for a couple of years before my current one, totalling about 350 sq ft. 4 rooms, much less nice and clean than this place shown here.
If I were living there, my life would be as a chanter, photographer, chess coach. Maybe work part-time as a technical writer or something. What would I do with such a space? I’d have icons on the wall, do away with the TV, board games… ehh, chess suffices – I still have a substantial chess library, so I’d have to figure out how to store that; a lot of my existing books would have to go, just to get it down to the essential library selection. Interesting thought experiment.
It’s like living in a Swiss Army knife. It’s creative. But it also slightly reminds me of the room that Bruce Willis sleeps in in The Fifth Element.
I think they’ve done a great job with the place. Pretty sure I could live there, only just by myself. But they’re very young and very much in love with each other, so that really helps. I viewed the video on YouTube and there it says they just moved to Manhattan from Oklahoma, so it’s an adventure for them, as well. They also supplied links to where a lot of the furnishings can be purchased — very nice of them.
There’s another video in which they tell us who they are. Both grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, and moved to Oklahoma when they got married nine years ago (they’re still in their 20s); he’s an entrepreneur (clothing business) and does video production and is also involved in church work (he mentions the move to NYC was part of God’s plan for them); and she’s a writer who’s dreamed of moving to NYC for a long time.
Anyway, they really don’t fit the stereotype some of you have in your heads about them.
Sorry, that should be they moved from Enid to Tulsa.
Sorry, Ann, but I respond to what I see. He’s an ‘entrepreneur’, does video production (of themselves?) and she’s a writer (of what?). I gag. How trite. How full of service to humanity. How really vain they are, doing vids of themselves in their wee den and reaping praise for it. How unlikely they will ever amount to anything.
See mimetic contagion.
Frog:
They also serve who only stand and make videos about their wee dens.
I humbly suggest it may be time to lighten up. YouTube videos are often just for fun and don’t have much socially redeeming importance. However, this particular video has the function of providing a service to humanity. Not on a huge scale, but on a small one (pun intended). To be specific, there are a lot of people (especially young people) in cities like New York and San Francisco and elsewhere who live in very very small establishments and are flummoxed by how to make their space livable and functional and pleasant despite its smallness.
Lots of people are interested in the ideas of other people who tackled the same problem and found ways to conquer it. That’s nothing to sneer at or look down on, although it falls short of finding a cure for cancer or bringing peace on earth. There’s nothing “trite” about it, except as far as most of our human endeavors are somewhat trite.
As for “she’s a writer (of what?). I gag,” that’s a pretty funny thing to put on the blog of a writer, when you yourself are writing. Why come here, read what I write, or write yourself, if you are so contemptuous of writers?
Urban living is only good for these things in my eyes: ballet, the orchestra, musicals and plays, opera, bookstores, movies, music festivals and ethnic food. Maybe fashion week. Maybe there’s a couple of of decent universities located within the city’s proper. Those are it. Sure there’s public transportation and the closeness to things, but bloody hell “urban living” is over hyped.
Taxes, homeless people who stink up public transportation and libraries, progressive snobs, modern dating, childless couple in their 30s-40s, wide-eyed college freshmen who are excited for “city living”, questionable city transportation companies, and a corrupt government that makes China blush are things that make me think that I’m in some backwards town located in near some gigantic body of water.
Dang, I knew I should’ve taken the blue pill.
“If they argue about excessive blanket placement, how do they get the space to calm down?”
They leave the apartment.
I lived in New York City for a year and found that a lot of people there don’t expect to have enough space at home. At least these people have a working kitchen–notice how proud they are of their full-sized stove with an actual oven. Many apartments don’t have that. Many New Yorkers don’t expect it. They go out to eat, they go out for a walk, they go out to the library, etc. They feel like the park and the museum and the streets and the coffee shops are part of where they live, they don’t depend on their apartments to provide a feeling of home. It’s just understood that only rich people have that.
Compared to a lot of the young people I knew in NYC, these two are real homebodies.
And, yes, they have done a very nice job organizing their apartment!
Am I the only person who thinks this is a good-sized apartment–for Manhattan? Somewhere in the YouTube comments there is a mention of $2000 rent—affordable for 2 people. I was astonished that they have a normal-sized kitchen and a normal, attractive bathroom. High ceilings, brick wall/fireplace detail, and 2 huge windows plus a fire-escape/balcony. Since it’s the city, you spend a lot of your time outside the apartment anyway. I could totally live there for a few years—not with kids though. I’d also have a lot more shelves/cabinets/ stuff hung on walls and a small but supportive uphostered armchair for reading. And the comfy throws would stay on the darned furniture!
RigelDog:
The challenge for me wouldn’t be living in the apartment itself, but getting all of what I consider my essential stuff in there. And with another person? Well, I’ve lived in smaller, but I was very young at the time, and it was only for a few months. But there was also a cat, and I don’t like cats.
When my brother and his wife were first starting out, his first apartment (for 2 people) was that small. The difference is that it had a separate small bedroom—in fact, all the rooms were separate—tiny kitchen, tiny bedroom, tiny living room. It was a great apartment, in the heart of the West Village when that wasn’t an exorbitant place to live (I think the rent on it was a couple of hundred dollars). I used to sleep on the couch a lot and it was a wonderful wonderful place to be.
Like Vanderleun, I seriously doubt that apartment looks that way if you do a random visit- I am about 100% certain it looks that way just for the video production, and on every other day they live there, it is cluttered and cramped- it is just the way most humans (95% of us) are.
Good comment. Actually, all of them are pretty good.
I also found the arranging they did interesting; while at the same time, finding their soft eye-rolling manner and quizzical way of talking … pretty damned annoying.
But, if you added a small den with lots of windows and a large bedroom with walk-in closets to the space and maybe an additional spare room, it would not be so bad.
I have myself, while wandering through an Ikea looking for a leather sleeper couch for the den, been taken-in by the cool little model apartments they had decked out there with signs on them saying things like “How to live comfortably in 586 square feet”. They were neat looking, and reminded me of those above-the-street apartments you used to see in 1930’s or 40’s era gangster movies; but updated
Something along those lines might make a nice little 3rd home away from home, in the big city, [to go with the main residence and say a cottage or cabin, or vacation condo] since townhouses are not exactly being given away nowadays.
“Fun” looking as Neo says. But nowhere to keep the chainsaws and dirt-bikes, unfortunately.
An adult with extended interests or responsibilities beyond him or herself, could not really live like that.
As my significant-other-to-be said as she looked through the hunting gear filled closets of my rather modest 5 bedroom, [no real great or rec room] countryish located house: “Where am I supposed to live?”
When I was 9 through age 11, I lived with my single mom in a brand-new Pittsburgh high-rise building Washington Plaza, at the edge of the Hill, if you know the area). We had a studio on the lowest floor and it was very close in size to the one in this article. The hallway leading to the bathroom was wide enough to make the one wall into closets. That little area was “my” spot; it’s where I set up and played with Barbies etc. Mom also had a friend make a piece of furniture to, theoretically, turn our double-bed into a couch with storage—didn’t work all that well; we just pulled the bed out all the time.
I admire the ingenious furniture and efficient use of space. However, I could never live there. I need at least ten (better twenty or thirty) times the bookshelf space.
I am also left wondering “What do they pay for that?”
the clip looks like an outtake from a new york episode of ‘portlandia’.
As a former New Yorker I join those who posters who have been more fair, and pointed out the finer points – such as the rarity of full sized kitchen etc.
To all the crotchety old posters: This is not all that different from the romantically misremembered Manhattan served up by boomers: Marlon Brando couch surfing in the village, concerts by future-famous artists at CBGB, young beatniks flocking to The Village and living in similar digs. Or the (dubious!) romance of living a little further over in Soho or by the docks before they were gentrified.
Dotted lines connect this half-imaginary Manhattan to half-imaginary, youthful bohemian San Francisco, Paris, London…
Maybe you’re just angry you’re not young anymore and need a box-spring….
Neo, I think you are on to something here even if you may not realize it. The dweeb couple in the video also raised my, and many of your commenters’) hackles even though they clearly do not bother you. This is just an example of the urban vs. smaller city+rural divide that so profoundly affects our politics. You are clearly a big city gal so you seem immune or a lot less sensitive to it than most of your readers.
Why do leftists congregate in big cities? Regardless of the reason, they do and this is part of the reason behind the Right’s advantage in elections. NBC news of all places gets it–the Democrats blame Republican gerrymandering but the self-selection of Leftists to congregate leads to their disadvantage:
“Jowie Chen, a professor at the University of Michigan, has run hundreds of computer simulations to compare real election results to hypothetical ones in non-gerrymandered districts. The results show Democrats’ unintentional self-gerrymandering is arguably a bigger handicap than the GOP’s intentional gerrymandering.
In 2014, for instance, Republicans won 247 House seats with the help of Republican-leaning districts gerrymandered after the 2010 census. According to Chen’s simulations, however, the GOP still would have won 245 seat if the election were run again in non-gerrymandered districts.
Gerrymandering can have a big impact on individual states, like in politically divided North Carolina, where snaking districts help Republicans control 10 of the state’s 13 congressional seats. But Democrats also play this game in states they control, offsetting Republican gerrymandering, according to Chen.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/democrats-left-in-the-lurch
The current meme by the Democrats is the limits on state and local tax deductions in the new tax bill will lead to a large migration by Leftists from cities to the hinterlands thus eliminating the Republicans’ advantage. But seeing how this couple puts up with living in their shoebox convinces me that they will not move back to Oklahoma not matter what they pay in taxes.
When the Republic dies, one gets America circa 2016.
Also when the Republic dies, Americans as here believe they suddenly obtained the power to judge humanity. That never happened, and never will, for mortals are too flawed to judge their fellow mortals.
Have fun with the facsimile of a legal system though. It’s like slapping tape on a leaking boat or submarine. It may work, temporarily. Using buckets, may work temporarily, but it is merely a fight against the encroaching darkness.
As the Left wins, the people who fight them the most, will use and absorb more terms like “beta male” and other things that they react to because the Left brought them into the spiritual trap and like a rat, they stuck their head into the guillotine.
At the same time, the “defenders” will believe they are fighting for humanity. That must mean it justifies their lack of authority with human power and human righteousness. That isn’t going to last long either.
This is just an example of the urban vs. smaller city+rural divide that so profoundly affects our politics.
All of you humans are annoying and decrepit in one way or another. I see little fundamental differences, and urban vs small city is just another Leftist trope they forcefully injected into the minds of tv watching and public indoctrination educated Americans.
but this couple tells me I must fisk their profound mental illness.
The strange thing is that I see so many flaws in humanity, that cultural or political differences begin to make less and less of a difference to me, whereas to “normal” Americans, it is getting bigger and bigger with the “profound mental illness” Diagnosis Psychologist Leftist bull herding and breeding.
Unless a god or the Divine Counsel tells me directly, with proof of authority or a sign, that these two doing a youtube video are under condemnation of a divine law… it makes no difference to me what human law condemns them.
I have no prejudice on these matters, as I am not a respecter of the status of persons. Any person. Gentile or not, Goyim or not. Hollywood whore or not. Death is equal for them all, although taxes are not.
It makes no difference because everyone, righteous and unrighteous, is going to be resurrected for the Last Battle. We’ll hash out whatever disputes are there, for all eternity. Won’t that be grand.
Won’t be needing space or a chainsaw then.
These are two nearly disposable human beings.
All of you humans are disposable mortals. If I were to be prejudiced using that, it would apply to everyone that is mortal. But not for the immortals, they are exceptions.
But forget about that part for a moment and see how creative they’ve been in merging form and function and making the most of every inch, without the place looking cramped. It’s the dining table and the couch that especially impress me, but I think the whole thing is creative, harmonious, and well-planned.
The Japanese sense of space and making it harmonious was in a book, I think. These two youtubers might have read it.
Humans have this bad habit of responding negatively or positively to stimuli, like lab rats. Since I am not a lab rat nor do I aspire to be one, agreement or disagreement, positive or negative, is of less and less import.
While it is fun to make fun of people, the Divine Counsel has not given me an order or authorization or even request for such. Thus unless I feel there is a need for it, caution is advisable. Getting sued under Divine Law is no joke, and not something a human can get out of by using human law corruptions like Hillary and Hussein did.
Yes, there are certain “weirdness” and cultural differences of these two, but since it is not enough for me to kill them or authorize their deaths, it is due to no respect to their personal values.
No respect, also means in this context, no condemnation. Multi purpose furniture is great, and not having a lot of space or items to haul around come the Zombie Apocalypse is also great. When humans die and become whatever it is they become as spirits, not sure what having all this “3d time space stuff” even means at that point. These bodies aren’t even the “real you”. “You” don’t live in you brain or heart, you just rent it via long distance log in.
Every human’s body is just a temporary temple or house for the spirit or soul. Every apartment is the same for the body. It is merely temporary.
Hey! Thanks so much for sharing our video! This comment section is wild, haha! If people get that riled up about an apartment, no wonder the nation is so divided.
Cody:
Yes—pretty weird thread. Lots of intense feelings expressed about your space.
But I admire your organizational and design ability. Best of luck in NY!