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This week on Sweet Digs, we tour the NYC apartment that Hong shares with her partner, cat, and dog. Her home is full of thoughtful touches and makes the most of the small space. Watch this episode of Sweet Digs to explore Hong’s light and bright place!

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High rent, small spaces, nosy neighbors — we put up with A LOT of things to live where we love. In Sweet Digs, Refinery29 gets a peek inside the homes of the coolest people we know, from tiny studios to sprawling houses, and ask the real questions like, "Wait, how much is your rent?"

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Transcript
00:00Hi, my name is Hong. Welcome to My Sweet Digs. I live here with my partner, our dog, and our
00:04cat,
00:05who is a princess. Before you come in, make sure you hit the subscribe button below.
00:10Okay, let's go. I paid $3,775 for a one-bedroom apartment at the very edge of the West Village.
00:17It may seem a little excessive, and at times it does feel a little excessive, but we also live
00:23in a very special building. We live in one of the best neighborhoods in New York City.
00:27We have like a really beautiful courtyard outside, so yes, I definitely think it's worth it.
00:33I love this neighborhood because we've been in here for so long. It's actually going to be five
00:37years soon, and we've just gotten to really know the people. I really love the vibrance of the
00:42community, and another perk is that we also know where all the store cats are. This is our kitchen
00:48where we cook and just stand around. So one of the things I love about my kitchen is that it's
00:54very
00:54open, so it makes the space feel a lot bigger. But unfortunately, the space is actually quite
00:59small. My favorite part about my kitchen is this gift for my friend. It's a cross-stitch that says,
01:04my cat was right about you. I think this is about as me as you can get. I love cross
01:10-stitching. It's a
01:10hobby that just completely defines me. We actually don't have a designated dining area, which is quite
01:16unfortunate, but we just have to stand at the kitchen counter and make do with what we got.
01:22Another reason why we do that is because we just don't want our dog to get into our meals. Another
01:28thing I love about my kitchen are the cat butt magnets that Asher got for me for my birthday last
01:34year. He's so precious about like keeping the cat butts together because he wants them to all play
01:39together. Sometimes behind his back, I like to sneak one off just to like freak him out because I could
01:44be a real butt about it. This is our living space where I spend the majority of my time. It
01:55was really
01:56important for us to have a very functional space. So we needed to have a space for our books as
02:03well as
02:03just a workspace for when we need to work from home and as well as like a really comfortable cozy
02:08living
02:09space. So we took the couch and we just basically split the living room in half and we put the
02:15desk
02:15behind it. We fell in love with this apartment simply because the lighting was really great. As
02:20soon as we walked in, the apartment was flooded with light, which was such a huge relief from our last
02:27place. Our old apartment didn't have any windows at all except for in the bedroom and this one I feel
02:33like it's a total upgrade just because it has so much lighting. It's way bigger. So we actually
02:38have two fireplaces in this apartment which I feel like is very unique for New York. One in the living
02:43room and one in the bedroom. They both do not work which probably explains why we don't get Christmas
02:48presents. Because Santa. One of my favorite pieces in the living room is our dinosaur lamp. We got him
02:55from Target and his name is Broccoli because he's green like broccoli. He also likes to dress up for the
03:01holidays. One of the items that's displayed very proudly in our living room are the presidential
03:06campaign pins. These belong to my partner and he's been collecting them for over, I think he's been
03:12collecting them his entire life. He actually knows like the history and the story behind each pin.
03:18But for me personally, I think it's just a piece that really really represents who he is. So that's what
03:25makes it more valuable for me. Another thing that I like to hang in my apartment is my own photography.
03:29I love capturing the city especially during like moody days when it's raining and it's a little dark
03:36and sometimes they're just special photos to me that I love hanging. The biggest splurge in our
03:41apartment is our article couch. Our last couch was so bad that our dog didn't even want to jump on
03:48the
03:48couch. We definitely wanted something more comfortable, definitely bigger and I'm so happy I got it.
03:57This is our bedroom where I like to say the magic happens because I like to cross stitch in here.
04:03So for the bedroom, we wanted to keep the decor really calming and simple mainly because it just
04:09helps us go to sleep a lot easier and we just don't have too many distractions. We're really lucky to
04:14have
04:15like an actual walk-in closet. We utilize the vertical space by adding more shelving in there.
04:20We were able to fit a whole dresser in there which is really awesome because then we don't have to
04:25put it out here. And our cat, she loves our closet so she likes to sleep in all of our
04:30sweaters which
04:32also means that most of my sweaters have holes in them. My partner and I always refer to our home
04:36as our cat's home because she definitely kind of dictates what we do around here in regards to like
04:43like the decorating. We have like her cat tree, we have like her litter box in here and we also
04:48have a
04:48lot of toys for her. The really great thing about Princessa is that she is actually like a princess.
04:53She's very precious about a lot of things like you have cats that like knock things over, she's the cat
04:59that like pushes them back. And then this is our bathroom. Our old bathroom was literally the size
05:05of a closet where we had the sink over the toilet and we also didn't have a bathtub. So anything
05:12with
05:12a bathtub is definitely an upgrade for us. I would say that my style is very comfortable, warm, and very
05:18functional. One of the things that I also wanted to include in there was just personal touches
05:23that tells a very honest and true story about who we are as a family. My partner and I actually
05:30met in
05:31college and to be honest he really didn't like me at first because the first thing I said to him
05:37was
05:37I was making fun of the book that he was reading. One of the last things that he actually said
05:41to me before
05:42he graduated was that how he's never going to see me again. And ten years later here we are happily
05:48engaged.
05:49Except just kidding because we're not happy.
05:55I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. It's our sense of humor. You can put that in there if you want.
06:00When our lease ended at our last place we actually got our landlord to put us on a month-to
06:07-month lease.
06:07So we had a lot of flexibility in regards to when we have to move out. So I basically stocked
06:14StreetEasy for about eight months before this place came on the market.
06:17This building has like a courtyard and it also has like a koi pond and it's in a gated area.
06:23So it feels like an urban oasis. The thing that made it really feel like home is when we started
06:28adding our personal touches in there. So like all of the pictures that we have and all of the photographs
06:33that we have. And then just everything that like reminds us of like our cat and our dog.
06:37It's an ever-evolving concept to us. So we're always adding in things that we acquire through
06:43traveling or through our vacations. And then just also like additional, you know, even our bookshelves
06:48for example, it's always evolving. So we actually just renewed our lease. So we're going to stay put
06:53for a little bit, but I'm going to be terribly sad the day that we actually have to leave this
06:57neighborhood.
07:02Thanks for watching my sweet digs to subscribe, click here and to watch more videos, click here.
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