These 10 Tiny Apartments in New York City Embrace Compact Living
In these examples, homeowners and renters alike have found clever solutions to less-than-ideal square footage, carving out comfortable, hardworking digs in the most unlikely spaces.
Living small is par for the course in New York City, but accommodating a family of four in under 700-square-feet rarely looks as effortless as in this storage-smart renovation. Scott Oliver and Margarita McGrath of Noroof Architects created many clever built-ins and transformable furniture in this apartment.
In Manhattan, where space is the ultimate luxury, a clever design workaround makes a dining table disappear after supper. Like a Murphy bed, the dining table tucks into the wall when not in use.
Visiting a Manhattan apartment designed by Tim Seggerman is like sitting inside one of Nakashima’s cabinets, a metaphor realized most fully in an ingenious "library"—really just a glorified cubby with a banded maple ceiling, conjured from a free space that's adjacent to the loft bed.
"I think of the bed as intimate space," Hughston says, "and putting the bed away—having it out of sight when not in use—is satisfying." The custom-designed Murphy bed, concealed by day behind the gold curtain is well built; it's ergonomically easy to lower and has a firm sleeping surface.
For a nine-year-old who loves pirates and science fiction, Jonah Finger thinks of his family’s apartment as make-believe come true. He has secret compartments under the floor to fill with toys and his own Murphy bed hiding in the wall behind his dad’s desk.
James Davison and his wife, Fanny Abbes, left lucrative careers in finance to start a company, the New Project Group, that rents out designed, furnished apartments in New York City. A parallelogram-shaped window pane, rescued from an architectural salvage yard, was outfitted with steel edges and casters, and repurposed as a coffee table.
A growing family in Brooklyn downsized their living space while expanding their collective quality of life. A seamless sliding door by CS For Doors—accented by Mockett hardware—separates the master bedroom from the living room and doubles as a backdrop for a projector.
Of the seven steps in Michael Pozner’s not-quite-500-square-foot aerie in Greenwich Village, five contain drawers. His small set of table and chairs is from CB2.
Raising the bed above floor level, architect Kyu Sung Woo converted this tiny studio into an open and comfortable home for Wonbo Woo.
This concept apartment presented by LifeEdited in SoHo shows how much one can fit in 420 square feet. Murphy beds make it possible to sleep four. When they're not in use, a large dining table can be pulled out. Heavy red curtains pull out of the walls to enclose each room for maximum privacy and sound control.
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