My apartment in New York City – a decor photo tour

It’s been 6 months since we moved to a new apartment here in New York City – and two weeks after the move, the world has changed completely. We could not have chosen a better place for the circumstances that life has taken. This apartment has lots of light and space for Thiago and me to work from home. Today, I bring you a photo tour to show you everything and share my decorating tips. We are still waiting for a chair for the living room. But, as I had already waited too long for the sofa, I decided to publish it, after all, when we talk about decoration, it is a kind of “eternal” process, right? We are always changing something!

It’s funny because, until this year, I was not a person who cared much for decoration. But this year made me look at many things inside me and, spending more time inside the house, I also paid more attention to the place where I live. I’m very proud of the result, and I will arrange the post according to each room and explain more about it, ok?

You should also check: Everything you need to know about renting an apartment and moving in New York City

The apartment

This apartment is 1,000 ft² or 92m² – it is the most massive apartment we have ever lived here, and I consider it really large if we consider the average size in the city. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, and a kitchen combined. We also have a wash and dryer inside the apartment – a sign that you made in this city, hahaha. Our building is relatively new and has an elevator. It is located in East Harlem.

One of the highlights of this apartment is the windows, which go from floor to ceiling, providing lots of light. We are on the eighth and last floor, and we really have a different and privileged experience with so much light. It makes a lot of difference in the quality of life and daily routine.

Kitchen / Living room

It is the largest area of the apartment – it is an open kitchen with an island. It is not a rule, but most apartments have a combined and/or connected kitchen and living room. I don’t like it when the kitchen is separated from the living room. I find it much more enjoyable when these two rooms are integrated because that’s where Thiago and I spend most of the time when we’re not working or sleeping. It’s nice to cook while we can watch the TV. Also, I am a person who loves to have friends over, and everyone is usually around the island – it’s even funny haha.

Kitchen

The kitchen is not the first room in the house – we have a foyer, a bathroom, and the second bedroom, but I prefer to start the tour in importance. As I explained, it is an open kitchen with an island and connected to the living room. The island features a counter – which is great when we host people because we can cook on one side, and friends sit on the stools. From these photos, I will highlight some things we love:

• Magnetic containers for spices – I love this because it saves space in the kitchen! I bought it on Amazon and it comes with 16 containers and 200 labels. It is very practical because everything is at hand without taking up another space in the environment. Also, if you look at the right side of the photo, I like to hang pictures on the fridge too.
• Google Home – speaking of photos, Google Home is one of our favorite gadgets. Not only to check the weather, subway routes, listen to music, watch videos and ask silly questions (or not) while we are cooking, but also because we connect to our account on Google Photos and it is always reminding us of moments!
• SimpleHuman trash cans – I never thought in my life that I would recommend trash can brand, but here we are! Jokes aside, simplehuman has many products, from trash cans to toilet paper holder. But all products have quality and details that make all the difference in the routine. Fort the trash cans, the liner rim holds and hides the custom fit liners for a neater look. Also, the fingerprint-proof finish resists smudges to keep stainless steel shiny. When we bought our first one for recyclable garbage, we noticed the difference right away. Although it is smaller than our previous one, it holds much more inside.
• Stools – these are light, modern and you can adjust the height.

Kitchen appliances

I like the kitchen with a lot of counter space – not only for preparing meals but also for putting the appliances we use most. For me, most of the devices need to on the counter, easily accessible, so we don’t get lazy to take them out to use. Also, we created a coffee station. This cabinet is not looking the best – I used it in the bathroom in the previous apartment – but it helped here, lol.

• Air Fryer – Besides making us avoid frying food, it is efficient! We’ve done so much in it! Not to mention that sometimes I prefer to heat food in it than in the microwave.
• Soda Stream – I love sparkling water, and it’s a fact: if we have sparkling water at home, I will drink more water! Some friends in love with sparkling water bought Soda Stream, a machine for making sparkling water at home. After a visit, I decided to buy one for us too. It’s wonderful because, in addition to saving money, we reduce the waste of plastic and glass generated with the purchase of sparkling water. It is practically a wasteless alternative because you always use the same bottles, and the gas cylinder is returnable. There are several cylinder exchange locations in NY and all over the country. Besides that, you can also make the exchange online. Click here and get 20% off your purchase! Mine is the One Touch, but Fizzi Classic is the cheapest version.
• Food processor – it was one of the most recent purchases and how wonderful it is to have a really powerful device not only for processing but also for grating and slicing!
• Blender – We use it a lot to make smoothies. The good thing is that the glass itself already serves as a container for you to drink.
• Coffee grinder – we decided to get this because we love coffee and details like grinding the beans right before preparing the coffee make all the difference in the flavor
• Coffee illustration -as coffee lovers, I thought it was cool to add this to the coffee station!

• Dining set – This set is from the previous apartment, and before it, we had a black table and chairs. I can’t even explain the difference it made to get a round table with a glass top and lighter chairs. The environment changed instantly. Not to mention that this table is the ideal size for us – neither too small nor too big. It was super easy to assemble also!
  
• Essential oil diffuser – I love a house with a good smell and, as you can see from the photos, I love candles and I also have an essential oil diffuser. This one comes with an oil set, but the oils I use today are those from Public Goods, much better, in my opinion.
• Arched Floor Lamp – It is very common that apartments here do not have a light on the ceiling – I think it’s bizarre, to be honest. As the apartment is rented, there is no point in investing in light installation, so we opted for a floor lamp.
• Plants – most of the plants in my house came from two websites – yes, that’s right! One is Bloomscape. Their website is excellent to browse, and they offer a lovely variety of plant types and sizes. The coolest thing is that you always have the essential information you need to know before buying. Oh, and the plants already come in the pots – you can even choose the color. Click here and get $ 15 off your first purchase over $50! The other website is Plants.com – also with a super variety and perfect delivery.

Check it out: 10 cookbooks from New York City’s restaurants

Arranged home office

I could even take the computer out for those photos, but I thought: what’s the point? Let’s show real life since this pandemic made us adapt the house to the new reality, and here it was no different! Thiago works at the home office, and I set mine in the living room, on the console table. Yeah, the computer doesn’t match those frames, but remember: it was adapted for this moment!

• Console table – I love this table and its color! And it ended up being super versatile to turn my office desk, haha.
• Office chair – we both have the same office chair. Besides being beautiful and modern, it is super comfortable!
• Flowers – yes, I know, these flowers look like fake ones, but they are real! They are grown in Ecuador, and receive treatment (non-toxic) lasting longer (up to a year). The scent is accentuated (they don’t add any fragrance and the smell is incredible).
• Printable art – I bought these abstract arts on Etsy and had them printed on VistaPrint.

Living room

If you look at the photos, you will see a small wall between the living room and the kitchen, where the sofa is leaning. The room became harmonious after the new sofa arrived a few days ago. Our previous sofa was huge and was leaning against the window wall. And we will also have a chair where you see the floor lamp.

• Sofa / Haven Loft – is from West Elm. It was made to order (it took a long time!). It was not cheap, but we spent a lot of time on the couch and decided to invest in quality. We also chose it in gray because it is a more neutral color, and there we can vary it with the decoration.
• Ottoman – not from the same brand as the sofa, but I think it is a perfect size and matches the sofa!
• Pillows – they are from Dormify, which has lots of beautiful things to decorate rooms and living rooms! The blue one is from Urban Outfitters. Our chair will be light pink, so I already bought the pillows thinking about it!
• Rug – It’s from Home Depot, and I like that it’s colorful and cheerful, but not overly, you know?
• Lamp – just like in the kitchen, this area also has no ceiling lights, and we opted for another floor lamp. Remember that we bought the Vintage style bulb and I think it made all the difference!
• New York map – I also bought this map art on Etsy and had it printed by VistaPrint. I really like using city references in the decoration, but they are not super obvious, you know? I love this map!
• Books – on the TV rack, we leave several books from New York – several of them are on my Amazon page.
• Pictures wall – I love photos in the decoration, and on this wall adjoining the room, we put several pictures and quotes!
• Vacuum robot /mop robot – I leave our “helpers” in the corner of the room. We have Roomba, the robot vacuum, for at least three years, and it was one of the best investments we have made! When we moved to this apartment, we also decided to buy Braava, the mopping robot. We decided to have two to be more agile. I have to write a post to talk about them, but I can say that we love it!

Bedroom

The master bedroom is quite big! It is so big that we managed to put on our colossal wardrobe – notice, I don’t recommend buying a big wardrobe like that living in New York, as it takes a lot of work when you move lol. I have a great affection for this bedroom because let’s say it was here that I started paying more attention to our house. It started with the bed. For a long time, I visited my friends’ house and thought: what a cozy home. I didn’t see my house like that. Then, in this new apartment, I started to try to look differently and think about how I could make myself feel that way with my home. And it wasn’t even about buying something I didn’t have, but organizing and decorating in a way that made me happy! ⁣

Making the bed was one of those things. I saw some videos, some photos on Pinterest, and voilà: we started making the bed using everything we already had. I don’t even know how to explain how it makes me happy me when I enter the room and see the bed like this! I’m saying this because my home was never a Pinterest place, I always thought that decor photos were far from my reality, and I was not an expert in decoration. So, if I did it, so can you.

• Sheet sets – I always change between three sets of sheets. One is this from Macy’s (we have a white and a gray), and we also have one from Brooklinen, which is my favorite. They are 480 thread count cotton sateen sheets. This brand is from New York and has so many quality products! We even bought the bath towels, and they are the best I have ever used! Still talking about the bed, I used everything I already had at home to make it up – duvet, our pillows, and extra pillows. The only complementary thing was the lumbar pillows, which I think give a super cute touch. I also want to suggest this spray to remove wrinkles from the sheets. It is amazing!
• Rug – another thing that makes the bedroom cozy is this fluffy carpet in front of the bed.
• Wall shelves – After focusing on the efforts in bed, a friend suggested placing shelves on the wall and I loved the result. Super easy to assemble!
• Full-length mirror – although our wardrobe has a mirrored door, the partitions bothered me, and I dreamed of a full-length mirror.
• Stars map – to decorate the shelves, I used photos and other things. And I also chose this Stars map to bring a little more personality. I bought the personalized art through Etsy and had it printed on VistaPrint.
• Moon lamp – it is so cool! With 16 color RGB, and the 16 colors can flash or fade or strobe, dreamlike, and creative decorative light.

Home office

The second bedroom of the apartment is our office – it was meant to be my office, however, the pandemic came and Thiago is also working from home, so he ends up working in this space because of his meetings. It features a very large closet – where we store suitcases, books, and other things. In addition, it has very large windows as well. My table is in the corner and Thiago’s is the white one – and he even bought a standing desk. The decoration here is very simple: we installed two shelves – one on each wall – and put some objects on the window.

• White office desk – it used to be my desk, has glass sides, is beautiful and super spacious.
• Standing desk – it was installed on top of the white table and “goes up”.
• L-shaped office desk – it is my desk, where we put the printer. The link is to a similar one from the same brand.
• Wall shelves – the same as in our bedroom, but in another color.
• ABC’s of NYC Art Print – I told you I love NYC decor! This ABC’s is so cool that Thiago also got the t-shirt!
• Music box – it’s from Papyrus – which unfortunately closed all the stores! It was a gift from me to myself, haha.
• Snowball – it was a gift from a beloved follower!
• Echo Show (Alexa) – it’s like Google Home. I got this in some event and ended up putting it in the office.

I hope you enjoyed checking out our home sweet home and that some tips inspired you! The links presented in the post are affiliated – it costs nothing to buy for them and you support my work!

Laura Peruchi

Content creator and journalist in New York City. Here, I share lifestyle, beauty, NYC tips, thoughts, and the struggles about living in the most amazing city in the world! I’m not gonna pretend to be another person: I’m a Brazilian immigrant and I think this is my soul, it is part of who I am. I hope you enjoy my content! Follow me on Instagram!