00:00Hi, I'm Marcella. Welcome to your Airbnb. I mean, my sweet day. Before you come in,
00:06just click the link below to subscribe. Okay, come on in.
00:12I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and rent is $2,900 with all utilities included,
00:19plus the $10,000 that I invested into the space. It was just one big empty rectangle,
00:26so I turned it into what essentially is a four bedroom, one bath bed and breakfast in the middle
00:32of Brooklyn. It's also my home, and then we also rent it out for film and photo shoots. For what
00:36the space was, when I found it, it was too much. With the work that I've put into it,
00:42I think it might be a little too little, but it's definitely more in the ballpark.
00:53So this is my kitchen. All of these knobs, I've been collecting for maybe a decade or so. My
00:58favorite one, probably the elephant or the dinosaur. I'm actually thinking about changing the kitchen
01:06cabinets to be like a powder yellow. I'm not sure. Let me know what you think if I should paint
01:11them
01:11yellow or keep them blue in the comments below. Going over here to the refrigerator. This is
01:17definitely one of the most expensive things in the apartment. I bought it for around $1,600
01:22or $1,800 in Burbank, California. There's this store that refurbishes old stoves and refrigerators,
01:30and I found this guy, and they paint it whatever you'd like. So I had them paint it red, and
01:37then they
01:37had a Coca-Cola decal they put on it, and now it's just my Coca-Cola refrigerator. Because it's
01:43from the 1950s, it has little things inside that they just don't put in refrigerators today. They
01:49have like 12 eggs for you to put all of your eggs in. The Lazy Susan shelves that come out.
01:54The
01:54shelves rotate to show you what you need that's all the way in the back that you can't reach. So
01:59my
02:00dining table, I pretty much stocked it for about three years. I found it at Cost Plus World Market,
02:05and it was $800, and I couldn't afford it. I am a regular Craigslist searcher. After three years,
02:14eventually someone posted it for $300, and I bought it up really fast. Yeah, it's a pretty cool piece.
02:21This is the washer and dryer. Obviously, having a bed and breakfast where you need a lot of sheets
02:27and towels to be constantly washed, I needed a washer and dryer in the space. And then we built this
02:32box
02:33that hides the washer and dryer, as well as a countertop for our dumping ground. Over here
02:39is our bathroom. When we first moved in, it was just white and bland and boring. I wanted to do
02:47something really wacky. The wallpaper I found on Etsy. So there was a seller who sells a bunch of
02:54vintage wallpaper. I wanted to do all of the bathroom, but there just wasn't that much. So instead,
02:59I matched the orange in the lion and just painted everywhere that the wallpaper didn't cover.
03:06I know it's very loud and very kitschy, but when you put all of these things together,
03:11it just works. Going over here to the rest of like where we kind of hang out. The swing,
03:19I just wanted a swing in my home. It's $40 worth of materials at Home Depot. My handyman came over
03:26and did it in a couple hours, and I paid him $70 for him to do it all. A cheap
03:31little thing that can
03:32be really fun. These are blue velvet chairs. I am a little tired of them. I've had them for five
03:41years, and I look at them every day. So part of me wants to either reupholster them or completely
03:49get rid of them and get new chairs. I'm kind of curious. Do you think I should keep these guys,
03:55reupholster them, or start fresh and get some new chairs? Leave your answers in the comments below.
04:00One thing I will never get rid of is this poster of the cigarette girl from the 40s. It's from
04:08my
04:09parents. Every time I see it, I remember my home that I was raised in. I was also born in.
04:15I was
04:15born in my living room. I moved to New York a little over two years ago. I've always wanted to
04:21live in
04:21New York, and I just thought, why not? I was searching for a loft that was either big enough
04:30for me to build inside it or that already had rooms built out. Then eventually I found this space. The
04:36windows and the natural light that came in were just gorgeous. I was like, I can do something with
04:42this. And I wrote the landlord asking if he was okay with me building. I told him about Airbnb,
04:49about film and photo shoots, and he was totally okay with it. I was making his investment a lot nicer.
04:57I built out the layout of the loft, so the three bedrooms and the upstairs balcony and stairs. We just
05:04kind of added all of that in. Luckily, it did work out. I made it back in just a little
05:10less than three
05:11months, but it definitely was a gamble. The guest rooms are all right here. Two of them with the
05:16siding barn doors. This is the room with a view because you have a view of the living area, but
05:27still it gets really beautiful light in throughout the day. It's an old reclaimed window, and we kind
05:32of built the wall around it. I've been doing Airbnb for a pretty long time, and I've met people from
05:37all
05:37over the world. I remember a couple from France. They brought us bamboo toothbrushes with our names
05:44on them. It was so, so, so incredibly sweet. Bad experiences. Hmm. If you are staying in someone's
05:50home in a shared space, don't walk around in your underwear. This is the tropical getaway in Brooklyn.
06:01I found this spread spread on Outfitters. I also have the Edison ball marquee lights around the top.
06:09The worst part about the loft, we have a big wall heater, and it makes like a loud sound, but
06:15it just
06:15kind of sounds like white noise. When the heater shuts off, you can hear a pin drop. It's super, super
06:22quiet. In the middle of the night, if we have to go to the bathroom and the heat turns off,
06:28I have to be
06:28really quiet, otherwise somebody might hear me. This room, which you don't really realize is a room,
06:36this is the backpacker's dream room. Originally, this was going to be our walk-in closet, so we
06:42thought, well, why don't we just rent this room out to also make back some of our money, and then
06:46we'll
06:46turn it into a closet again. And this was actually the room that everyone started booking nonstop,
06:52so we were like, okay, well, then maybe we should just fix it up and make this a proper room.
06:56Upstairs is my room. This is my boyfriend in my room. This ledge is where all my books are. And
07:05this
07:06is my kind of workspace, even though most of the time I'm on the bed with my laptop. This is
07:11my
07:11husband pillow. I have my boyfriend and I have my husband. Whenever we set up to watch a movie or
07:16hang out in bed or something like that, he'll ask me, do you want your husband or am I good
07:20enough?
07:21I usually go for the husband. My home style. It's basically a collage of many styles. I buy
07:29what I like. If I see something and I like it, I don't think, oh, is this going to match
07:33what I
07:34have? Because nothing matches. And when nothing matches, you can get whatever you want and you
07:38don't have to worry about that. Funky. That's why it's the funky loft. Sharing the space with my
07:44boyfriend and other people, guests. We haven't come up with any issues yet. They're out most of
07:51the day and night seeing the city, being tourists, doing what they came here to do in New York. So
07:56we definitely get a lot of private time to ourselves. I don't want to live alone. I like
08:00having people around me, especially if you have such a big space. So it's just like, you know,
08:05always having friends over to visit. One of my favorite things is when someone comes in and the look on
08:11their face. I'm just like, this is so great. Oh my God. I've never seen something like this. This is
08:15so
08:16homey. It always just reminds me like, okay, you know, this is a cool thing that you did. And maybe
08:21it is
08:21worth it.
08:26What is something that you have taken a gamble on that you're not sure if it'll pay out or maybe
08:31it has?
08:31Write it in the comments below.
08:33Thanks for watching my sweet digs. To subscribe, click here. And to watch more videos, click here. Okay. Bye.
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