ILANA / IC
Today marks day 54 of living in New York and the transition has felt…normal? So without any dramatic stories of a roommate from hell1 or all-nighters at my new job, (editors note: Ilana has since worked many very late nights) here are 15 things I cannot shut up about since moving to Brooklyn:
1. Bidets/Toilets2
2. Bed skirts
3. Blush
4. Bookmarks
5. Boys
6. Desks
7. Gilmore Girls
8. Grape Nuts
9. Mohair blankets
10. My back and Ginny’s back
11. Normal New York - In my first 10 days in New York I went to an estate sale on Mercer St. hosted by Normal New York . Since, I haven't stopped thinking about Normal’s origin story and how distinctly NY it feels in a really, well, normal way. The lore is that in 2020 Lale Boz hosted her first-ever estate sale in her Brooklyn apartment before beginning a new COVID-induced chapter on the west coast. She sold her estate (er apartment) in 4 days, selling over 2,400 tickets to New Yorkers, who I’d imagine were salivating at the opportunity to see inside a “cool person’s” apartment. The urge to sell it all! and start fresh! are desires I find myself curious to indulge in this new chapter, but then Normal New York announces a new estate sale and I can’t resist.
12. Reading
13. Resy
14. Spray deodorant
15. Taste - I can’t stop thinking about the many iterations of Harry Nuriev’s Tapestry Series. At work I had the pleasure of chatting with Nuriev and really appreciated his thoughts on “taste” and “style,” especially when situated in the context of buzzy new book, Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyla Chayka. One moment of Nuriev’s talk that I won’t shut up about is how he attributed, in part, his distinct POV and success to listening:
“If you master the skill of listening you’ll be extremely successful. When you learn how to listen you’ll have to learn how to translate that into your own world, which is tricky because sometimes you won’t like it.”
Nuriev is a translator. A position that I can’t stop thinking about as I test new creative outputs and learn how to listen in, and to, New York.
SYLVIE / SF
Turns out if you want to move, but you can’t afford to move, all you have to do is get a new couch.
Don’t ask me how, but for the last two years I’ve been living in my apartment lease free. The first one expired and we just… never signed another? We’ve been waiting for squatting rights to kick-in, but they finally caught onto us and after much deliberation (and realizations that we can’t really afford that extra ½ bathroom in another apartment), we’re signing onto a fourth year in our home. I was looking forward by the fresh start of a new apartment, but you know what I’ve realized, you can change your whole life with furniture.
Our couch was wonderful. It was in the first New York apartment I moved into after college, it’s been a bed for many guests throughout the years, and moved across multiple Brooklyn apartments, and even did a stint in the Hamptons (chic!), but after 6 years it was time for us to take our leave from our West Elm baby. A bittersweet goodbye. (Side note— We used Kaiyo, which was so easy and I wish this was spons-con but it’s just a good old-fashioned plug).
Buying a sofa is always hard. But a couch in this lord’s year of 2024 is particularly weird because, like everything else, it’s easily done online sight-unseen. It’s like deciding that you’re going to eat blueberry banana oatmeal for breakfast everyday for the foreseeable future but you’ve never tried blueberry-banana oatmeal. You know it can’t possibly be that bad— you like blueberries and bananas and oats— but if it’s not that good it’s going to get really old really quick. And since our homes are a reflection of ourselves, and because we’re all getting the same targeted ads and following the same influencers, your couch has somehow become interchangeable with your own identity, or so it seems.
You might ask: How can you buy a couch without ever sitting on it? My dad asked me this too. To which I say, it’s the greatest exercise in trusting your gut (and online forums) you could ever imagine. It’s also an excellent reminder to not give into Instagram temptation.
Here is what we were working with:
Sixpenny: All the coolest girls seem to have Sixpenny couches (usually in their hardwood floored Hudson Valley homes). I hear they’re really comfortable too. They’re dreamish and drapey linen designs which feel perhaps too cottage-core for our home. Plus the price tag doesn’t make it easy to justify. Is it worth buying a couch you’ll have to redo your whole apartment around?
Interior Define: This brand is doing the most with their targeted ads. I liked that there were so many colors to choose from and they have a showroom in Soho so we could’ve sat on one, but the variety of colors actually scared me for two reasons: decision paralysis (do I actually want a royal blue velvet couch?) and quality-control (how do I know “fawn” will really look like a baby deer and not like a baby deers waste…).
Floyd: Floyd just came out with a nice new couch. It looks a lot like some of the others, and leans Cloud-adjacent. We used to have a Floyd bed (we got rid of it with the couch, once again to Kaiyo (!), because I hated it and have permanent bruises on my shins from the baseboard). Matt loved this one, but as the saying goes: When a furniture brand shows you who they are, you should listen.
Sunday’s Company: We’re in the era of dupes, and if you Google “Cloud Couch Dupe” Sundays might come up. They’re from Canada, which makes me feel like they might be constructed with more dignity than Interior Define (which outsources to China), but they really lean into that Cali-vibe with the light couch colors and lounge style.The modular design tempted me because if/when we should ever actually move, the couch could move and grow with us. Plus, a good friend of mine can’t shut up about her Sunday’s couch. But almost no one else has heard of the company, which, I hate to admit, kind of bothered me.
So which one do you think I got?
After consulting all my FWGT© (friends with good taste) and ordering some fabric samples, we landed on one that swallows you whole and spits you back out with static slicked hair after you’ve fallen asleep during a movie (this one was so bad-good). It’s the opposite of what we had before, it’s white and wide and unrecognizable and it’s as thrilling as a new apartment. It’s the Sunday’s movie-night sofa, and it’s probably too big for the space and not nearly as chic as the Sixpenny, but I’ve decided not to care.
So, I guess what I’m saying is sometimes you can just trust your guts and your friends and get a couch that's more comfy than cool. I’m going to try not to let my couch define me.
Something YUMMY - Houjicha Chocolate that’s perfectly sweet and earthy.
Something FUN - Didn’t have this on our 2024 Bingo Card
Something MANIC - The fact that Frog Club (a new restaurant in the West Village) puts stickers over your phone cameras. Everyone’s talking about it. Who do they think they are, Berghain?!
Something SMART - Consider the toilet, please!
Something JUICY - Algae cooking oil is the hottest new thing in cooking right now, with a high smoke point and neutral taste. Who can keep track of smoke points at this point?
It’s quite the opposite, and look at our cat!
See “Something SMART”