modern living furniture mall

hi guys! i'm ally hickson, social media editor at refinery29, welcome to my sweet digs. two things before we get started, take off your shoes, because this is a no shoe apartment, and click below to subscribe. come on in. i live in a three bedroom, two bathroom apartment on the upper west side.

though technically this area is "lincoln square." i have two roommates, and our apartment is 4800 dollars a month. personally i think the rent is too damn high, but i really love this neighborhood, i love living a block from central park, i love being by lincoln center, one of my top five favorite movies is you've got mail, and it's kind of like an ode to the upper west side.

i feel like am meg ryan every day. this is my kitchen. i think it's a pretty large kitchen for new york city, to be honest. we have this amazing counter top here. it's probably where i eat most of my meals. okay kitchen confession, um, i don't cook that much. i am a satisfactory cook. like i won't starve. it's really my roommate jess who's the cook, she's the true grown up of this apartment.

my least favorite part of the apartment is definitely my bathroom, for a few reasons. i don't like sharing a bathroom. my least favorite thing of all is that we just have shower stalls, we don't have tubs in our bathrooms. i love taking baths, so i miss having a tub. also it makes a horrible noise. i hate that sound. this is our living room.

the couch is my favorite part of the apartment. the couch is also the most expensive thing in the apartment. it's like 800 dollars. at the time i wanted to cry and thought how could a piece of furniture be so expensive. it was worth it. i got it actually at ikea, and people love this couch. because it's so cozy. it's...it's special.

oh my god there's like a photo now of me like massaging my couch. i got this a bajillion years ago. why am i holding a flask? it used to be on the other side of the room as a tv stand, but we got a a much larger tv. we turned it into a bar. and obviously we enjoy alcohol in this apartment. help yourself.

this is my roommate ada's room. it's the smallest room in our apartment, but it has it's own private bathroom, so you're kind of winning. we took the closet doors off, so that way we could fit a larger bed in here. there are a few things in her room that are still things that, like, i brought in here. this wardrobe actually used to be my wardrobe, and she took it from me. that sounds so mean, "she took it from me," i mean she bought it from me. it was a gift.

in the bathroom the thing i'm most proud of in this room is i built one of those floating shelf thingies, and it's still hanging in there, and her stuff is on it, and it hasn't fallen over. so like, call me if you need me to build you something in your apartment. when i first moved in the apartment my rent was only $1400 a month, which is kinda nice, especially since i had my own bathroom. now i live in one of the bigger bedrooms. i pay more rent.

about $1590 now. welcome to my bedroom. it's a much larger space. i have my own huge closet now, and a weird nook that i don't even know what to do with. i pile things in the little nook in my room, but i don't really pile things, like i throw it there for like an hour, and then i have to hang everything up or i can't go to bed. the only things that i really have a lot of are shoes and books. anywhere there's room there's books and there's shoes.

and if i had to guess how many shoes i have in total? 30 to 40 pairs of shoes. it's a lot of shoes. my favorite pair of shoes right now are these velvet ankle boots. and then my other favorite, i just got, are these little, like, silver school-girly shoes. they're really cute, and they're actually super comfortable. i could not choose a favorite book. please don't make me. please. ta-nehisi coates. it's incredible. between the world and me.

toni morrison, the bluest eye, which is one of my all time favorites. but really great because she signed it. pretty cool. this is honestly my 8th grade copy of romeo & juliet. you can flip inside and find really important notes like, "romeo loves rosaline." insightful. my most sentimental piece of furniture is definitely my typewriter. my best friend from college bought me this typewriter when i went to journalism school.

it was really expensive and cost her, like, all of her savings at the time. like, actual friendship goals. i use it to write thank you notes, and i write letters to my grandmother on it sometimes. this is my roommate jess' room. she is really great at decor, keeping things neat and organized, and she has like a very set cute style. it's perfect. jess' room is not only super beautiful, it's also the largest room in the apartment. and it has a huge walk in closet that could probably fit like another family inside of it.

she pays the most in rent out of all of us. a friend and i were looking at apartments, we both really love the upper west side. and then she spotted this place on craig's list, and we both were like, it can't be real. and then we came here and it was the real deal. we fell in love, and now i'm here, like, five years later. which in new york is a long time. i would say like my shared space style is minimal.

i'm really big on keeping things organized. i don't know if you noticed already in our apartment but there's like not a single thing out of place. and that's not because you guys were coming to visit and we wanted to look cute, we legitimately don't leave crap out in our apartment. i would definitely move out, but it would take a lot to get me to move. i would probably want my own space. in my next dream apartment i want more closet space, because i have so many shoes. more bookshelves for all my books,

and goals to have a washer-dryer in my unit. maybe i'll be- oh! i'm so graceful!

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