Can a Family of 4 Live in a One Bedroom Apartment New York City
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Fitting a Family of Five Into a One-Sleeping room in Brooklyn
It was already challenging before the pandemic. And then the stay-at-dwelling house order made information technology more complicated.
The foyer of Libby Fearnley's one-bedroom apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, holds three scooters, iii children's bikes, a large bookshelf, a shoe-storage cabinet, a granny cart and a closet filled with linens, a sewing machine, art supplies, Christmas decorations, luggage, photos and a printer. The entry's robust storage capacity is a testament to the graciousness of prewar layouts.
Just if information technology were up to Ms. Fearnley, 41, a writer, she would reallocate some of that real estate to other parts of the 550-square-foot apartment, which she shares with her husband, Stephen, 54, a college professor, and their three sons: Bryce, 10, Ellis, nine, and Evren, 3. They also take a iii-legged cat, Wonder.
"If there is one thing I would add together, it would exist another bathroom," said Ms. Fearnley, who moved into the apartment in 2004 when she was unmarried.
Merely living well in New York oft means making peace, and the all-time life possible, in the space you have. Even — or, perhaps, especially — at times like this, when stay-at-home orders accept made so many of us acutely aware of the limitations of our apartments.
For Ms. Fearnley, keeping the apartment, which rents for less than $2,000 a month and is a block from Prospect Park, was always worth trade-offs like forgoing an actress bedroom. But fifty-fifty she admits that two adults and three children working and taking classes in the apartment, as opposed to just living in that location, has been a bit much.
"Living in such tight quarters, nosotros generally do spend a lot of time exterior the apartment," she said. "Merely now I'm trying to work from one side of the living room, my husband is trying to teach, giving lectures from the other side, and for the get-go month or and then we simply had one device for the 2 older boys to work on that we'd borrowed from their school."
The living room is too the couple's bedroom — the sofa converts into a bed — and serves every bit the dining room and piano-practice room, with the different areas demarcated by furniture and rugs.
Prototype
The bedroom belongs to the boys. Terminal August, when Evren was former enough to graduate from his crib to a bed, the Fearnleys replaced their standard bunk bed with a triple-high one and installed a double-desk-bound setup with mounted shelving on the opposite wall, which proved helpful when schools closed in March.
"Putting that upwards was a beast — the walls are plaster lathe so we had to employ toggle bolts," Ms. Fearnley said, adding that she has spent the 16 years she has lived in the apartment searching for a wall stud. "I never constitute i. I recollect it must be held upwards with dust."
In that location are picture show rail for photos and fine art, but hanging anything heavier is a structure challenge, albeit a necessary ane when you accept lofty ceilings and a need to maximize infinite. I of the bikes in the foyer, for instance, is suspended from the ceiling.
Less Than $ii,000 | Park Gradient, Brooklyn
Libby Fearnley, 41, and Stephen Fearnley, 54
Their children: Bryce, 10, Ellis, nine, and Evren, three
Occupation: Ms. Fearnley, previously a designer, is now a sustainable-fashion instructor and writer; Mr. Fearnley is a professor of organic chemical science at the CUNY Graduate Middle and York College in Jamaica, Queens.
Firm rules: In their pre-pandemic mornings, getting everyone out of the apartment on time required that those who were set stand by the door and read, so as not to make it the way of those still trying to get ready. The children go to bed at 8 p.grand. and are expected to remain quietly in their room, except for trips to the bathroom, until seven:30 a.m.
Keeping ataxia to a minimum: "It's sort of a something-comes-in-something-goes-out policy," Ms. Fearnley said. "If in that location's no more room on the bookshelf, choose some books. No more than room in the drawers? Something has to go."
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She found the apartment after stopping in at a real estate role in Brooklyn, where an agent gave her keys to the apartment and sent her on her own to check it out. She really liked information technology and the building, but it was over her $ane,300 budget.
She told the agent she would love to take it if the price dropped and was surprised when she got a call the side by side day: The landlord was willing to hire it to her for what the parting tenant had paid — several hundred dollars less than it was listed for — as long as renovations didn't accept to be done. The apartment had an older kitchen, but was in adept shape.
"I didn't fifty-fifty know it was a block from Prospect Park," she said. "When I outset moved here, information technology felt like I was on vacation: I could see the trees and the heaven."
When Mr. Fearnley joined her a few years after, she cleared out a closet for him as a Valentine's 24-hour interval gift, so information technology would feel like his space, too.
And and so, of course, the space "evolved with each child," she said. "We make sacrifices, simply it'south not anything that matters."
Nearly of the discomfort she has had to bargain with, she added, is other people's: "They're like, 'Your poor kids. You can't raise iii boys in there.'"
They did briefly consider the suburbs, but her married man, an organic chemistry professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and York College, in Jamaica, Queens, prefers an easier commute. More than important, they realized they didn't desire to move.
They don't even want to leave the 36-unit building, although Ms. Fearnley has, to no avail, tried to get a larger apartment in that location. "My neighbors have become family unit," she said. "We await subsequently each other'south pets, infringe milk, spotter kids if someone has to get to the hospital in the middle of the dark."
They love their building'south location. Not only is it shut to Prospect Park and the Park Slope Food Coop, but it is besides nearly the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the beach and Manhattan.
And the affordable hire allows the family to travel, spending a calendar month every summer visiting Mr. Fearnley's family in England. That trip won't be happening this year, simply they did stay at her parents' empty house in Pennsylvania — the coronavirus had temporarily stranded them in Florida — for almost of April.
Having a washer and dryer there at their disposal — their ain building doesn't have laundry facilities — was very nice, Ms. Fearnley admitted, as was existence able to fix semi-permanent work spaces, but they were all happy to return to the city.
"In that location'southward actually a lot of traffic in front of their house," Ms. Fearnley said of her parents' habitation. Coming back, they were delighted to find that part of Prospect Park West had been airtight to cars.
"I've been able to send the kids out on their bikes," she said. "Prospect Park has been our haven."
But similar so many New Yorkers, she finds herself yearning for private outdoor space.
"I've been desperate to get out onto the fire escape," Ms. Fearnley said. "But there's an old-school grate on the window."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/realestate/fitting-a-family-of-five-into-a-one-bedroom-in-brooklyn.html
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