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Take a peek into full time blogger Carly Hietlinger’s Madison, NJ home that she shares with her boyfriend and two dogs. BTW - this was filmed in February 2020

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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, I'm Carly, and welcome to my sweet digs.
00:02Come on in.
00:07I live in Madison, New Jersey in a three bedroom home
00:10with my boyfriend, Mike, and my two dogs, Teddy and Hamilton.
00:13We moved in about seven months ago,
00:15and I absolutely love living in the suburbs.
00:17We have the absolute nicest neighbors
00:19and the cutest downtown.
00:22Mike and I did go into the home buying experience
00:24with a definite budget in mind.
00:25We actually bought this place for $820,000.
00:32Welcome to our family room.
00:34This is where Mike and I spend most of our time
00:36just hanging out and relaxing.
00:38One of the design features that I definitely wanted
00:40to incorporate in this room specifically were bookshelves.
00:43Mike and I are avid readers,
00:45and we have collected a ton of books over the years.
00:47So having these two bookcases filled
00:49with some of our favorite reads
00:50just makes the whole room seem that much more warm.
00:53But even though we love to read,
00:55we also really like to watch TV.
00:57And it was important for us to have a TV
00:59in this family room, but we didn't really want
01:01just like a black box on the wall.
01:03So we invested in the Samsung frame TV,
01:06which incorporates a beautiful picture when it's off.
01:09And I love how seamlessly it fits into our home decor.
01:12The frame TV was our biggest slurge in this room,
01:14but it was 100% worth it because I love the way it looks.
01:18But the real hero piece of the room
01:19is this white couch that I've had for years.
01:22It is the most comfortable couch I've ever sat on.
01:26And we have a ton of friends spend the night.
01:28And even with guest rooms upstairs,
01:30this is almost always the preferred bed of choice
01:32because it's just that comfortable.
01:37This is our dining room.
01:39And this is actually the first time in my adult life
01:42where I've had an actual dining room
01:44where I can put our dining room table.
01:46This one actually has leaves so they can fold down
01:49and it can take up a little bit of a smaller space.
01:51But since we have the room,
01:52it's so nice to have the leaves up and have all of our friends
01:55and family over for dinner parties.
01:58Another thing that I was super excited
02:00when we came to the open house
02:01was seeing these amazing built-in shelves.
02:05I was so excited to start collecting
02:08and to start filling it up
02:09with some of our favorite treasures.
02:11Right through this entryway
02:12is my favorite room in the house, the kitchen.
02:15In our previous apartment,
02:17we had the tiniest kitchen.
02:19So when we came to the open house
02:21and saw this gorgeous open concept kitchen,
02:24I was completely sold.
02:26We spend so much of our time here
02:28with this big island.
02:30We're either cooking, eating, doing work, hanging out.
02:34In our previous apartment,
02:35only one of us could fit at a time
02:37and this feels so spacious and amazing.
02:39We love just inviting people over on the weekends
02:41and we can all hang out,
02:43feeling like everyone is super welcome here.
02:45And one of the best features about this kitchen
02:48are the open shelves.
02:49It's a little hard because you can't just hide
02:52everything behind the cabinet,
02:53but I love the way it looks.
02:54And because it doesn't have cabinets
02:56and because we don't have a lot of storage,
02:59we also realized there was no pantry.
03:01And that was gonna be a huge issue for us
03:03because we cook so much
03:04and like to have a lot of snacks on hand, that's me.
03:07So we converted a coat closet
03:09right next to the powder room
03:10into a pantry with some custom shelving
03:12and a little thing on the door
03:13to keep things nice and organized.
03:16All right, back to the map.
03:18This is my office.
03:20This is our third bedroom,
03:21which I use as a home office.
03:23I love having a door that I can close
03:25and get into a nice focus mode.
03:27This is my desk area,
03:28which I just love tying in a lot of pops of blue denim,
03:32but because it's also a third bedroom
03:34and we wanna be able to utilize it as a guest room,
03:37I made sure to include a day bed with a trundle
03:40so we have two extra spaces for people to sleep.
03:43I am a blogger and I have a ton of outfit changes
03:45and need to know what I'm shooting with my photographer.
03:48And my office actually has a really nice deep closet,
03:52but it was kind of hard to figure out what to do with it.
03:54And then I came up with the perfect idea.
03:57A rolling clothing rack.
03:59I love that I can have everything set up,
04:01put it away when I don't wanna see it,
04:03and then when I need it,
04:04I can just roll it right on out.
04:06And here we have our master bedroom.
04:08I love our master bedroom.
04:11We're so fortunate to have two windows on each wall
04:13and it just brings in so much light during the day,
04:16which I absolutely love.
04:17And we wanted to keep that feeling into the design
04:20by keeping it super bright and airy and very neutral.
04:23I wanted it to kind of have that hotel vibe.
04:26And one thing that I really love about my room
04:28and that I'm super proud of is my closet.
04:31It's not the biggest closet,
04:33but I have really maximized all the space
04:37and tried to make sure that I could fit
04:39as many clothes as possible by bringing in this piece.
04:42I've got a shoe rack that I've had
04:43since I lived in New York City about 10 years ago,
04:46and then some of my favorite handbags up top.
04:48Our master bathroom is on the small side,
04:51but we make it work,
04:52and Mike and I haven't killed each other yet,
04:53which I feel like is a great sign for a relationship.
04:58This is our guest room and it's by far
05:01our biggest design challenge.
05:02When we moved in,
05:03this was at the bottom of the list of things to do,
05:06and it's just a hodgepodge of furniture
05:08from old apartments,
05:09but I'd love to make some updates.
05:11Maybe new bedding, lamps,
05:13or a mirror or two will help tie together the whole space.
05:17Are you ready to see what I chose?
05:20The mirror and the lamps go so well together.
05:22I love the simplicity and sleekness of these items,
05:24but I decided to add a few more accents
05:26I had around the house to round up the look.
05:28This setup cost $168.99.
05:33Thanks for checking out my sweet digs.
05:35Now I've got to go walk my dogs.
05:37Bye.
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