Felice Cohen lived in 90-square-foot apartment until a viral video of the tiny living space got her kicked out for not being on the lease. Before she left, she gave a tour of one of the smallest apartments we’ve ever seen.
The apartment where Cohen lived is on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where the cost of living is astronomical. She paid $700 per month for the small room she lived in. During that time she was able to save up enough money to move on to a larger space after the owner booted her from the apartment.
The first thing you need to have in a tiny apartment is an economical bed. Some people go for a Murphy bed, but Cohen went a different direction. She put her bed in a small loft near the ceiling. That allowed her to use all of the space underneath the bed for other purposes.
This clever use of vertical area is essential to living in a tiny space. There should be not even a wasted square inch in a tiny home or apartment.
Speaking of conserving every last inch of space, here is the bathroom. You’ll notice several things upon entering it. For one, the toilet is angled so that the door can close. Even with the angled toilet, there is not much leg room when you’re sitting on it.
The shower is slightly smaller than average but completely usable. Of course a vertical shower caddy kept all of the shower products from taking up extra space. The bathroom of this tiny apartment is extremely cramped but navigable for one person. Adding another resident to the room would, of course, cause a lot of issues.
The kitchen, if you want to call it that, was another exercise in minimalism. A toaster oven stacked on a mini-fridge made up the bulk of the cooking area. There was also a hot plate that added versatility to the cooking options.
Cohen stored her food on vertical racks (and inside the toaster oven when it wasn’t in use), but she also kept less food on hand than the average person. She had to shop a little more often, but that’s just one of things you have to get used to when you live in a 90-square-foot apartment.
Here is Cohen proudly showing her tiny space with the bathroom in the background. We should note that Cohen is a professional organizer so she has a leg up in managing to live in this very small room.
As we mentioned earlier, when the owner of the apartment saw the video and photos of Cohen in the room, he noticed she wasn’t on the lease (the room was sublet from another tenant). She quickly had to find a new apartment and move her belongings from the cramped space.
Oddly enough, she got rid of many of her possessions during the move, even though her new apartment is about five times larger than the old one.
Cohen shared her secret to having as few belongings as possible. “If I don’t love it, I don’t want it,” she told the Daily Mail. That’s a maxim that could help us all reduce clutter.