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On this episode of Sweet Digs, we tour Social Media Editor, Ally Hickson's three bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. Ally walks us through her place, showing us what $4,800 a month can get you in NYC. Press play to see how this R29er lives!

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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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TALENT
Follow Ally Hickson on Instagram: https://instagram.com/aphickson/
Transcript
00:00Hi guys, I'm Allie Hickson, social media editor at Refinery29.
00:03Welcome to My Sweet Digs.
00:05Two things before we get started.
00:06Take off your shoes because this is a no-shoe apartment,
00:08and click below to subscribe.
00:10Come on in.
00:12I live in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment
00:15on the Upper West Side, so technically,
00:17this area is Lincoln Square.
00:20I have two roommates, and our apartment is $4,800 a month.
00:31Personally, I think the rent is too damn high,
00:34but I really love this neighborhood.
00:36I love living a block from Central Park.
00:38I love being by Lincoln Center.
00:39One of my top five favorite movies is You've Got Mail,
00:42and it's kind of like an ode to the Upper West Side.
00:46I feel like I am Meg Ryan every day.
00:48This is my kitchen.
00:50I think it's a pretty large kitchen for New York City, to be honest.
00:54We have this amazing countertop here.
00:56It's probably where I eat most of my meals.
00:58Okay, a kitchen confession.
00:59Um, I don't cook that much.
01:02I am a satisfactory cook.
01:04Like, I won't starve.
01:05It's really my roommate, Jess, who's the cook.
01:08She's the true grown-up of this apartment.
01:11My least favorite part of the apartment is definitely my bathroom.
01:14For a few reasons, I don't like sharing a bathroom.
01:17My least favorite thing of all is that we just have shower stalls.
01:21We don't have tubs in our bathroom.
01:23I love taking baths, so I miss having a tub.
01:26Also, it makes a horrible noise.
01:29I hate that sound.
01:31This is our living room.
01:33The couch is my favorite part of the apartment.
01:35The couch is also the most expensive thing in the apartment.
01:38It's like $800.
01:40At the time, I wanted to cry and thought,
01:42how could a piece of furniture be so expensive?
01:44It was worth it.
01:45I got it actually at Ikea, and people love this couch
01:47because it's so cozy.
01:49It's special.
01:51Oh my god, there's like a photo now of me like massaging my couch.
01:55I got this a bajillion years ago.
01:57Why am I holding a flask?
01:58It used to be on the other side of the room as a TV stand,
02:01but we got a much larger TV.
02:04We turned it into a bar.
02:05And obviously, we enjoy alcohol in this apartment.
02:08Help yourself.
02:09This is my roommate Ada's room.
02:11It's the smallest room in our apartment,
02:14but it has its own private bathroom,
02:16so you're kind of winning.
02:17We took the closet doors off,
02:20so that way we could fit a larger bed in here.
02:22There are a few things in her room
02:24that are still things that I brought in here.
02:26This wardrobe actually used to be my wardrobe,
02:28and she took it from me.
02:29It sounds so mean.
02:30She took it from me.
02:31I mean, she bought it from me.
02:32It was a gift.
02:33In the bathroom,
02:34the thing I'm most proud of in this room
02:36is I built one of those floating shelf thingies,
02:39and it's still hanging in there,
02:41and her stuff is on it,
02:42and it hasn't fallen over.
02:43So, like, call me if you need me to build something
02:45in your apartment.
02:47When I first moved in the apartment,
02:48my rent was only $1,400 a month,
02:50which is kind of nice,
02:51especially since I have my own bathroom.
02:53Now I live in one of the bigger bedrooms.
02:55I pay more rent.
02:57It's about $1,590 now.
02:58Welcome to my bedroom.
03:00It's a much larger space.
03:01I have my own huge closet now
03:03and a weird nook that I don't even know what to do with.
03:06I pile things in the little nook in my room,
03:09but I don't really pile things.
03:12Like, I throw it there for, like, an hour,
03:14and then I have to hang everything up
03:15or I can't go to bed.
03:16The only things that I really have a lot of
03:18are shoes and books.
03:21Anywhere there's room,
03:21there's books and there's shoes.
03:23And if I had to guess how many shoes I have in total,
03:26uh, two, four, six, eight,
03:29thirty to forty pairs of shoes.
03:31It's a lot of shoes.
03:32My favorite pair of shoes right now
03:33are these velvet ankle boots.
03:36And then my other favorite I just got
03:38are these little, like, silver school girly shoes.
03:41They're really cute.
03:42And they're actually super comfortable.
03:44I could not choose a favorite book.
03:45Please don't make me.
03:47Please.
03:47Ta-Nehisi Coates.
03:48It's incredible between the world and me.
03:50Toni Morrison and the Bluest Eye,
03:51which is one of my all-time favorites,
03:53but really great because she signed it.
03:56Pretty cool.
03:57This is honestly my eighth grade copy of Romeo and Juliet.
03:59You can flip inside and find really important notes,
04:03like, Romeo loves Rosalyn.
04:06Insightful.
04:07My most sentimental piece of furniture
04:09is definitely my typewriter.
04:10My best friend from college
04:12bought me this typewriter
04:14when I went to journalism school.
04:15It was really expensive
04:16and cost her, like, all of her savings at the time.
04:19Like, actual friendship goals.
04:20I use it to write thank-you notes
04:22and I write letters to my grandmother on it sometimes.
04:25This is my roommate Jess's room.
04:27She is really great at decor,
04:30keeping things neat and organized
04:32and she has, like, a very set, cute style.
04:35It's perfect.
04:36Jess's room is not only super beautiful,
04:38it's also the largest room in the apartment
04:40and it has a huge walk-in closet
04:42that could probably fit, like, another family inside of it.
04:46She pays the most in rent out of all of us.
04:48A friend and I were looking for apartments.
04:50We both really loved the Upper West Side
04:52and then she spotted this place on Craigslist
04:54and we both were like, it can't be real.
04:57And then we came here and it was the real deal.
04:59And we fell in love.
05:00And now I'm here, like, five years later.
05:03Which, in New York, is a long time.
05:06I would say, like, my shared space style is minimal.
05:08I'm really big on keeping things organized.
05:11I don't know if you noticed already in our apartment,
05:13but there's, like, not a single thing out of place.
05:14And that's not because you guys were coming to visit
05:16and we wanted to look cute.
05:18We legitimately don't leave crap out in our apartment.
05:21I would definitely move out,
05:23but it would take a lot to get me a move.
05:25I would probably want my own space.
05:26In my next room apartment, I want more closet space
05:29because I have so many shoes,
05:30more bookshelves for all my books,
05:31and goals to have a washer-dryer in my unit.
05:35Maybe I'll be filming.
05:37I'm so graceful.
05:45That's it.
05:46Thanks for checking out My Sweet Digs.
05:48To watch more videos, click here.
05:50To subscribe, click here.
05:53And that's it.
05:54You gotta go.
05:55Get out.
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