As I spend more and more time with my own clients helping them create their dream spaces, I’m developing a stronger and stronger desire to have my own perfect space.

Over the years since my first “big girl” apartment in college I have had many different apartments and many different roommates. I think from the time I had my first apartment until moving into my current place (which I can’t believe has been 15 years?!!) I moved at least once a year. My boxes would barely be unpacked before I was looking for a new place.

For the longest time I had roommates, plenty of whom were completely crazy, which is funny because I would always tell people that I had pretty good luck finding good roommates on craigslist, and then whatever friend I’m with immediately points out the reality that, haven’t I had like pretty much all super crazy roommates? Awkward silence… oh, yeah… actually… and then we laugh about all the crazy and how many awesome and hilarious stories that I have from them. So in a way, thanks craigslist!

(hmmm… I see a post about the energy of living with crazy in the near future)

Anyway, during ‘The Great Recession’ I was unemployed, creatively employed, and employed but living in an expensive city I couldn’t afford, for a total of about three years. So until fairly recently the roommates and cheap rent were non-negotiables.

In 2012 I finally found a permanent job back in Chicago (where I never wanted to leave to begin with) and gleefully moved back… but still into an apartment with two roommates. And about six months after that, I decided that no matter what – my days of having roommates needed to end. I think I might just inherently be a cheap renter, or I might just be really good at finding good deals on cute places… who knows, but one thing I knew for sure was that I couldn’t share my space with people who I hadn’t personally invited over anymore.

Since I was just starting to recover from the past few years of pure survival, I was on a pretty tight budget and I knew that I would have to get cozy with the idea of a small space if I wanted to have any hope of being by myself, and being in a neighborhood I actually liked.

And after a lot searching I found this awesome vintage coach house, I have the penthouse! (The guy who lives across the alley is an artist and gave people permission to paint his buildings with street art. They seem to think he owns the whole block, but I like it (most of the time), and feel like I have a personal artist – or seven – constantly giving me new art to enjoy. I haven’t treaded into making personal requests yet though…)

So now I have my very own – very tiny – space, it might be small, but it’s packed with lots of personality and it is BLISS. While I try to dig up pictures of my space from when I first moved in, including the underwhelming paint job, here is the floor plan. I might be biased, but (in my professional opinion) it’s a great layout for small space living and feels much larger than the modest 425sf it actually is!