Hi, I’m Marcella, welcome to your AirBnB…I
mean my Sweet Digs. Before you come in just click the link below
to subscribe. Okay, come on in. I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and rent is
2900 dollars with all utilities included. Plus the 10,000 dollars that I invested into
the space. It was just one big empty rectangle. So I turned it into what essentially is a
four bedroom, one bath, bed and breakfast in the middle of Brooklyn. It’s also my home, and then we also rent
it out for film and photoshoots. For what the space was when I found it, it
was too much. With the work that I put into it, I think
it might be a little too little, but it’s definitely more in the ballpark. So this is my kitchen. All of these knobs I’ve been collecting
for maybe a decade or so. My favorite one, probably the elephant or
the dinosaur. I’m actually thinking about changing the
kitchen cabinets to be like a powder yellow. I’m not sure. Let me know what you think if I should paint
them yellow or keep them blue, in the comments below. Going over here to the refrigerator. This is definitely one of the most expensive
things in the apartment. I bought it for around 1600 or 1800 dollars. In Burbank, California there’s this store
that refurbishes old stoves and refrigerators. And I found this guy and they paint it whatever
you like. So I had them paint it red, and then they
had a Coca-Cola decal that they put on it. And now it’s just my Coca-Cola refrigerator. Because it’s from the 1950s it has little
things inside that they just don’t put in refrigerators today. They have like 12 eggs for you to put all
of your eggs in. The lazy Susan shelves come out, the shelves
rotate to show you what you need that’s all the way in the back that you can’t reach. So my dining table. I pretty much stalked it for about three years. I found it at Cost Plus World Market, and
it was $800 but I couldn’t afford it. I am a regular CraigsList searcher. After 3 years eventually someone posted it
for $300 and I bought it up really fast. Yeah it’s a pretty cool piece. This is the washer and dryer. Obviously having a bed and breakfast where
you need a lot of sheets and towels to be constantly washed, I needed to have a washer
and dryer in the space. And then we built this box that hides the
washer and dryer as well as a countertop for our dumping ground. Over here is our bathroom. When we first moved in it was just white and
bland and boring. I wanted to do something really wacky. The wallpaper I found on etsy, so there was
a seller who sells a bunch of vintage wallpaper. I wanted to do all of the bathroom but there
just wasn’t that much, so instead I matched the orange in the lion and just painted everywhere
that the wallpaper didn’t cover. I know it’s very loud and very kitschy,
but when you put all of these things together it just works. I’m gonna go over here to the rest of like
where we kinda hang out. The swing, um, I just wanted a swing in my home. It’s 40 dollars worth of materials at Home Depot. My handyman came over and did it in a couple
hours and I paid him 70 dollars for him to do it all. A cheap little thing that can be really fun. These are blue velvet chairs. I am a little tired of them. I’ve had them for 5 years and I look at
them every day, so part of me wants to either reupholster them or completely get rid of
them and get new chairs. I’m kinda curious, do you think I should
keep these guys? Reupholster them? Or start fresh and get some new chairs. Leave your answers in the comments below. One thing I will never get rid of is this
poster of the cigarette girl from the 40s. It’s from my parents. Every time I see it I remember my home that
I was raised in, I was also born in, I was born in my living room. I moved to New York a little over 2 years ago. I’ve always wanted to live in New York,
and I just thought why not? I was searching for a loft that was either
big enough for me to build inside it or that already had rooms built out. Then eventually I found this space. The windows and the natural light that came
in were just gorgeous. I was like like, ugh I can do something with this. Then I wrote the landlord asking if he was
okay with me building. Told him about AirBnB, about film and photoshoots,
and he was totally okay with it. I was making his investment a lot nicer. I built out the layout of the loft so the
three bedrooms and the upstairs balcony and stairs. We just kinda added all of that in. Luckily it did work out. I made it back in just a little less than
three months. But it definitely was a gamble. The guest rooms are all right here. Two of them with the sliding barn doors. This is the “Room with a View. Because you have a view…of the living area
but still. It gets really beautiful light in throughout
the day. It’s an old reclaimed window, and we kinda
built the wall around it. I’ve been doing AirBnB for a pretty long
time, and I’ve met people from all over the world. I remember a couple from France, they brought
us bamboo toothbrushes with our names on them. It was so, so, so incredibly sweet. Bad experiences? Hmmm. If you are staying in someones home in a shared
space, don’t walk around in your underwear. This is the “Tropical Getaway” …
in Brooklyn. I found this bedspread on Urban Outfitters. I also have the Edison bulb marquee lights
around the top. The worst part about the loft, we have a big
wall heater and it makes like a, a loud sound but it just kinda sounds like white noise. When the heater shuts off you can hear a pin
drop, it’s super super quiet. IN the middle of the night if we have to go
to the bathroom and the heat turns off, I have to be really quiet, otherwise somebody
might hear me. This room which you don’t really realize is a room. This is the “Backpacker’s Dream” room. Originally this was going to be our walk-in closet. Then we thought, well why don’t we just
rent this room out to also make back some of our money, and then we’ll turn it into
a closet again, and this is actually the room that everyone started booking non-stop. So we were like okay, well then maybe we should
just fix it up and make this a proper room. Upstairs is my room. This is my boyfriend and my room. This ledge is where all my books are. And this is my kinda work space, even though
most of the time I’m on the bed with my laptop. This is my husband pillow. I have have my boyfriend and I have my husband. Whenever we set up to watch a movie or hangout
in bed or something like that, he’ll ask me do you want your husband, or am I good
enough? I usually go for the husband. My home style, um, it’s basically a collage
of many styles. I buy what I like. If I see something and I like it, I don’t
think oh is this going to match what I have. Because nothing matches, and when nothing
matches you can get whatever you want and you don’t have to worry about that. Funky, that’s why it’s the Funky Loft. Sharing the space with my boyfriend and other
people, guests, we haven’t come up with any issues yet. They’re out most of the day and night seeing
the city, being tourists, doing what they came here to do in New York. So we definitely get a lot of private time
to ourselves. I don’t want to live alone, I like having
people around me. Especially if you have such a big space. So it was just like, you know always having
friends over to visit. One of my favorite things is when someone
comes in and the look on their face of just like *gasp* this is so great, I’ve never
seen something like this, this is so homey. It always just reminds me oh okay, ya know,
this is a cool thing that you did, and maybe it is worth it. What is something that you have taken a gamble
on that you’re not sure if it will pay out, or maybe it has. Write it in the comments below. Thanks for watching my Sweet Digs. To subscribe click here, and to watch more
videos click here. Okay, bye!
