What It’s Like To Live In NYC In A One Bedroom Apartment With A Baby
The tiniest roommate in the world somehow gets a big chunk of the space
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
My husband and I moved into a very average sized one-bedroom apartment way before the baby came, and now that he’s here, we have no intentions of moving. We got a pretty good deal on our 600 square foot pad, which enables us to do amazing things, like, have insurance and buy that occasional luxurious cup of coffee at places that charge 500% more than it actually costs to make a cup of coffee. So relocating is not an option. No, we have to make due.
In an attempt to utilize each square inch we have to the max, I’ve transformed any and every nook in the apartment into useable space.
Our apartment begins in the building’s hallway, where a mat waits for our wet shoes and packages. My son races his wheeled walker toy up and down the halls, screaming with delight, which I am sure my neighbors hate, but it helps us all sleep better, including them.
The foyer is actually considered a room in our lease, because the lawyers who wrote it are real jokers. Unsure what a foyer is? It’s an entry space large enough for one person to stand in while trying to remember the thing they needed to grab before leaving. If you’re in summer shape, there’s also enough room for a small piece of luggage or a bag of old shirts, but never both. Our small shoe rack in the corner, teeming with sneakers and surely TB, keeps our son entertained for a solid 11 minutes at a time. In the two foot wide walkway ahead of the foyer, I placed a United States map at baby height and a large white board at my height, as well as some cozy carpet squares. Sometimes, we sit there and roll balls into the bathroom door or look at the map and be thankful we don’t live in Ohio. Now and then I write stuff on the board; it’s hanging there, so, I might as well.
Across from the map is a large closet where all our towels and bathroom supplies go, because the idea of putting them into the actual bathroom, which we’ll call, foyer number 2, is a good laugh. In the bathroom, we have a full-sized tub, an industrial toilet — one that flushes even the most heavy duty leavings with ease, but that loudly growls to let you know it’s not exactly happy about it — and the smallest sink in the world. It’s the size of a shoe box; size 4 toddlers. An angular metal shelf is in the bathtub’s corner. We each get a triangle for shower supplies. My husband’s is neatly lined with Kiehl’s products. Mine is full of hotel soaps and ancient razors that I plan to get 3–6 more months of shaves out of, if I play my cards right and keep my tetanus shot up to date. Our son’s is overflowing with small frogs and turtles, Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and foam letters. The amount of toys that are crammed into that shelf defies gravity, and I sometimes consider trying for the Guinness Book of World Records.
The baby has just started using the actual bath, and I’m relishing the extra two square feet of space beside the cat litter box I’ll reclaim once I summon up the courage to bid his baby tub farewell. Don’t think I haven’t already considered what I could put there — a small shelf holding an incense burner and some crystals, a slim wicker basket full of travel-sized lotions and mini loofahs, a magazine rack with 3 New Yorkers, 4 potted cacti; the list of tiny things I could place there is much longer than what would actually fit.
Our living room owns most of the apartment’s square footage. Those old-school parquet squares criss cross the floor and one third of the wood is covered with a jig-saw of foam pads, so our baby might go to Yale someday. We have a large flat screen TV, because I have a husband. On either side of it are tall, slim bookshelves. They used to be full of books. Now the shelves up to our son’s height are empty, baby-proofed spaces that I look upon with disgust; seeing wasted space in our home is the equivalent of my dad in 1981 seeing wasted food. In an attempt to reclaim it, I filled one shelf with my baby’s board books and use one shelf to hold his afternoon snack and a sippy cup. I won’t do the math on how much it costs to use that square foot as a snack holder, but I imagine it’s at least the same as a cup of fancy coffee a day.
The living room is large enough to hold the TV and bookshelves, a couch the length of the wall and every toy ever created. The space is organized well enough that I don’t want to cry every time I walk in because it used to be a hip, adult entertaining space and is now a child’s play den. It’s amazingly both.
Our kitchen is where the cat hides in fear of the little one. Our son is fascinated by her, to her utter dismay. She is extra vigilant in defending her small bowl of meatstuff, because if no one’s looking, he will quickly swipe his mitt down into her food and try to taste it. We have a dorm-sized refrigerator, as if we’re sharing a room at NYU vs. a married couple with a baby. Our Ikea kitchen table has two large leafs that when folded out transform it into something as seen in The Last Supper, but it never gets that kind of action. We have one leaf folded always, so it’s a perfect fit for the kitchen while also providing a great surface for the cat to dance around on right after she’s used the litter box. It has drawers, which I just realized are empty and will begin plotting how to fill them as soon as I’m done with this story.
In our bedroom, we have just enough floor for a queen sized bed, and then there’s a toddler bed crammed beside it. Two large closets pose nearby, end to end. I sometimes fantasize gutting them to design the smallest bedroom that ever existed for my son once he gets old enough to want fancy things like, “his own room”. If he complains about the size, I’ll say something like, ‘Then you better get a job’, and laugh with an annoying mom guffaw.
In the one-foot-wide path at the base of our bed, I placed a runner carpet and put planet decals on the wall to add the impression of — wait for it — space. Sometimes my son and I huddle there and play with blocks. I added a small stool beside the bed near his crib, and stuck books underneath it; his library.
Here’s an impressive factoid: most all the spaces under our furniture are empty. No tupperware containers or stacks of neatly organized shoes live under our beds or our couches. Bad feng shui beats out the need for storing stuff. My husband and I have even made something of a game out of giving things away. It’s as if we compete to see who can let go of more of our personal belongings. One day, he’s carting a stack of his books to the recycle room. The next day, I’m bagging up old sweaters for Goodwill. The day after, he’s ordering magnetic blocks on Amazon for our son. Later on, I’m picking up a bag of cars a neighbor wanted to give us.
When my husband and I get intimate, it’s on the fold out couch, while my son is asleep in the bedroom, after Seinfeld, in the hours between “I’m really tired” and “I can’t keep my eyes open anymore”. Sorry, guests. I hesitate to wonder what we will do when our little boy gets old enough to know what we’re up to. Will we have to rent a hotel room for alone time?
Those are just a few selections of the many chapters from a book called “making due”, and you learn all the passages quite well, when sharing a one bedroom apartment with a baby.
Jessica Delfino is a writer, comedian and mom who lives with one husband, one baby and one cat. Find her on Twitter.
