Tips for Making a Crappy Apartment Liveable
The odds are, if you live in Bushwick, your apartment is somewhat dumpy. Mine certainly is. Until recently, it had inadequate storage, a third-world bathroom, and was seriously unorganized. About $300 worth of improvements have made a world of difference. Here’s what we got:
1) Have a crusty old shower head that trickles or sprays unevenly that you have to get in weird positions to get under? Spend $60 and get one that will increase your water pressure and make bathing cleaner, more orderly, and more pleasant. Ours also has settings including one that will blast the crud off your tile and another that feels like watery feathers. Good for the, uh, undercarriage. Keep the old shower head in a drawer so you can take your good one with you when you move.
2) Our bathroom had old towel racks, one that was too close to the toilet for comfort, another that broke off the door. We piled all our robes and towels on one puny hook, and towels kept falling onto the floor. Which is gross. So we spent $15 on a 12-hook over-the-door contraption, and now we have room for everything, including our night kurtas.
3) Cue Imelda Marcos jokes. If you have as many shoes as we have, it can get cluttered really fast, especially since it’s so easy to kick them off at the side of the bed and leave them. Instead of the plastic boxes we bought last year in a failed attempt at organizing them, we got metal stacking shelves that go right on the floor of the closet. Each shelf fits several pairs. We can now find the shoes we want and more importantly, they are off the damn floor.
4) Spend a little more money on a decently designed dish rack. We got one for $40 that not only has room for a ton of cups and dishes and bowls and utensils, it drains the excess water right back into the sink. No more sopping, yellowed old towels.
5) Get your pots and pans up out of your meager cabinet space and onto the walls. This whole unit is like $30 at Ikea. We have room for some spices too (the main spice cabinet can’t hold them all), and some platters and stuff up top.
6) If you prefer filtered water and are sick of lugging and storing it in bottles, get a Brita (or Pur) filter faucet. It does double duty, even helping increase our terrible kitchen water pressure. And it doesn’t take up room in your fridge, like a pitcher.
Doing these few things has made life in a sub-par Bushwick apartment far more pleasant.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
One thing we found really helped in a tiny kitchen is a hanging drying rack. They usually come with a bar that mounts under a cabinet and then the rack hangs off that. We always re-enforced ours with ball chain to keep it from sagging, but once you do that it’s really sturdy.
April 9th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
If you’re like me and you like to keep at least one jar of every spice known to man on hand at all times, install a bunch of Hide-A-Spice spice racks under your cabinets and marvel at the space-savings and convenience. Hell, install ‘em anyway even if you don’t cook. They’re great for stashing pills, Matchbox cars and all kinds o’ goodies.
Sturdy, deep wire shelving units help you make the most of vertical space. Here’s a close up shot of one of mine in action.
I use a smaller version of same for my cookbooks.
April 10th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Just thought of another one: a flip-down ironing board that hangs from a closet or bedroom door, with a caddy for your iron, spray starch, or whatever. I’ve had one for twelve years and I love it, it’s so much better than wrangling a regular ironing board out of the closet and setting it up.
Also, no apartment should be without the following: a good electric heater for when the boiler shits the bed at midnight in January (I like the oil-filled radiator type); a radio, flashlights and fresh batteries; landline telephone service and at least one hard-wired phone; candles, a manual can opener and some self-contained means to heat food (e.g., one of those little butane-powered single-burner stoves); a good set of general-purpose tools. Go ahead and laugh, but there will come a time when you’ll wish you had one or all of these things, trust me. It seems like a lot of stuff, but with careful packing it can be stashed away in the bottom of a closet
April 10th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Shelves! My boyfriend and I installed shelves everywhere. I personally love an eclectic cluttered look, and with plants, pots and some knick knacks on the shelves it makes it look really cozy and creates much more space.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:17 am
I had a PUR water filter but it clogged up very easily. I was told by PUR that NYC has fairly high sediment or something and PUR faucet attached filters wouldn’t work properly. You might have to upgrade to one of the bigger guys that sits on the counter and has a diverter from the faucet.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:13 am
where did you get your 12-hook over-the-door contraption? i’ve been looking for one just like it.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I think it was the Container Store.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I have what’s uniquely described by realestate yabbos as a “california kitchen.” Basically, an open kitchen that faces the rest of the apartment. So I got a pretty hefty kitchen island. More of a utility table, the kind you might see in the kitchen of an actual restaurant. Not cheap by any means but definitely worth it (about $500). There’s a shelf underneath where I keep a wine rack. And I drilled holes through the legs at one end of the table and installed a rod through ‘em, so I could hang my kitchen towels on it. I also screwed in hooks above the sink/oven/fridge (the kitchen sinks back into a mini alcove) and have some of my sturdier pots hanging from there.
It makes a difference in terms of how you approach your kitchen. It encourges someone like myself to keep things neat and organized (usually I’m a lazy mofo).
April 11th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Will, I never had much luck with the PUR faucet filter, either. I’ve had much better results with Brita’s version. I live upstate but my water comes from the same source as yours.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
A couple more under-the-cabinet goodies:
Glass Rack
Toaster Oven
April 11th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
There was only 1 cabinet in my old apt so I got a bakers rack. The butcher’s block top makes a good counter space (for coffee maker, blender, etc), 2 shelves underneath for pans, and a small shelf above. I got mine on sale at Target for about $70.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Emmy, where do you get these shelves? Home Depot? Do they cut to size? How do you install them? What tools do you need? Thanks!
April 14th, 2008 at 9:25 am
where did you get that dish rack? i am looking for one, the 2 i have had previously didn’t really fit my needs. thanks!
April 14th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
get yourself a utensil rack instead of stuffing everything into a moldy drawer
some 99-cent discount type stores carry plastic versions. just buy one of those and some strong magnets from a hardware shop. glue the magnets to the back, and hang from the side of your refrigerator. grand total: $3-$5.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
If you have one of those old narrow wardrobes that won’t fit your hangers unless you turn them at an angle, you can get smaller hangers (children’s size) that will actually fit. This only works if you’re small and your clothes won’t fall off the hangers, like mine. I also had a free standing clothing rack because there’s no way in hell all your clothes will fit in one of those things anyway
April 14th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Dish rack was from Bed Bath and Beyond.