SERENITY NOW!
How NYC renters are turning their homes into winter sane asylums
ANEW wave of outsidethe-box interior design is reshaping the homes of NYC’s restless renters, as they attempt to stay sane through yet another COVID-19 winter. Nadia Charif, 30, a health and wellness advisor at Coffeeble who lives with her partner and her Cavapoo in a 600-square-foot apartment in Bushwick made a meditation fort to escape the noise of her small living quarters.
The meditation fort is made out of white sheets, bamboo blinds (made from a removed window shade) and three tension rods, all of which was bought at Target for less than $50.
It has a “calming sunset lamp that casts the perfect ambient glow after sunset,” she said.
She uses it for “peace of mind away from my messy partner and growing love for meditating and yoga since the pandemic.”
Mental health pros say repurposing space for peace of mind is a wise move.
“Your environment makes a big difference to your mental health,” said psychotherapist and editorin-chief of Verywell Mind Amy Morin. “Putting in a little extra effort to create an environment that helps you think, feel, and do your best is time well spent.”
Chelsea Leigh Trescott, a 34year-old breakup coach, podcaster and writer got the memo. When her plans to go clubbing were cramped by Omicron, she brought the club to her East Village apartment, where she lives and works with her 13-year-old cat Sig and 11-year-old dog, Zarz.
She transformed her 500square-foot basement apartment into “Club Chelsea” by lining the baseboards and staircase with LED strip lights that change speed and colors to the music, galaxy and star projectors that double as Bluetooth music speakers and sunset projectors.
She scoured shops online and traveled all around New York and New Jersey in search of “some epic pieces” for her home, including a 3D-mirrored sculpture of the 1980s New York City skyline made from “high-energy cobalt blue,” a sculpture by Soho street artist “Alex the Fab” aptly named “La Maison de la Lumière” (“The House of Light”), two framed Patrick Nagel prints from a guy on Letgo, a marketplace app; and a “moody portrait” of the 60s icon Twiggy — all of which cost between $70 and $300 per piece.
“I decided to view the pandemic as a dare to my soul,” she said. “Rather than being fearful, how can I have fun in the midst of fear? How can I be the light?”
Meanwhile, when Taran Conwell, a Chicago-based 36-year-old podcaster and stay-at-home mom needed some respite from her three small children — ages 1, 4 and 6 — and her husband, a senior IT engineer, she created a “cloffice,” or an office and lounge in a tiny closet in her house.
Conwell donated 90% of what was formerly a space overflowing with abandoned craft projects and supplies, acting as a general dumping ground for tchotchkes. She then added a small table to serve as a desk, with a pink swivel chair, shelves on the upper walls, a bulletin board and a plush throw rug, fleece beanbag
chair with pillows and a hanging plant on the other side.
“My cloffice saved me from this pandemic,” Conwell said. “It’s where I retreat when I’m overwhelmed by motherhood, where I create and have my best ideas and where I spent over a year healing through meditation and journaling.”
Sharon Falcher of Interior Design By S&S says that Conwell is on trend.
“Closets are the new sacred spare rooms during the pandemic,” she said.
She recommends moving coats to a “stylish rack” and installing shelves in your closet, which can store books or other belongings and help create an atmosphere.
“The beauty about this one is that it’s a designated area and the door can be shut so work does not feel so involved in personal space,” Falcher said.
Foldable partitions or curtains can help create separate spaces where doors don’t exist, she added. A hanging chair in a spare corner can add ambiance and peace as well.
“Small apartments can be like playing ‘Tetris’ on an average day but even more tricky with COVID, because you have to create separation between work life from home and personal life and a little privacy between the couples or families that live there as well,” she said.
Rebecca Gitana Torres, a Long Island City-based interior designer, transformation guide and creator of the television special, “Healing Through the Home,” suggests playing with spaces and letting go of conventional assumptions about what purpose a particular room should serve.
“When we are creative and don’t follow traditional floor plans, we can actually find tons of space just waiting to be lived in,” she said.
Torres, for instance, turned her living room into her bedroom during the pandemic, which enabled her to create a “hotel suite” vibe and a working studio bedroom became a working studio where she could “go to work.”
“This created a more serene home where I could separate my worlds,” she said.
Hacks like turning even small rooms into divided spaces using furniture arrangements, area rugs, curtains and accent lighting can help create “zones for different activities” and create more mental space and well-being.
Indoor gardens are another way to lift moods, increase productivity and connect us with nature, according to Torres.
“My small one-bedroom apartment often felt like my very own expansive and luxurious compound,” Torres said of her creative reuse of rooms. “It took lots of gratitude and these super-approachable transformational hacks to maintain my sanity and embrace the experience.”