A parlour-floor Bed-Stuy apartment in an 1800s brownstone
Artist and actor Samiha keeps her 600 sq ft brownstone apartment calm and minimal, furnished almost all secondhand.
Samiha and her partner rent the parlour floor of a brownstone in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Giant pocket doors with their original brass knobs sold them on the 600 sq ft apartment, even though the rent was a little over budget. They've lived here four years, the longest they've stayed anywhere. Samiha says it took all four to get it looking like this.
Samiha calls herself a minimalist, and her partner is not. Their home balances the two. They skipped a TV because a big black screen felt wrong in such an old room. A projector shows films on the wall instead. Five IKEA stools from the street serve as a coffee table and extra seats.
The apartment comes with a rule that rugs cover 80% of the floor, so they used rugs to zone the room. A green rug matches their cat's eyes. Almost everything came secondhand: a CB2 sofa and a 1950s credenza from Facebook Marketplace, and a Flos pendant from Craigslist. A painting from Marketplace, by an unknown artist, has become their TV.
Most of the art comes from friends. Samiha is an actor too, and her self-tape backdrop and ring light tuck in beside the clothes closet.
