NYC Apartment with a Toddler

It's hard to believe that we've lived in this apartment for almost five years. If you’ve visited us throughout the time we’ve lived here, you know we’ve gone from a “one bedroom” apartment on the 5th floor of a walk up, to a modern studio outside of the city in New Rochelle, to here: our flex-one bedroom in Yorkville. We love you Apt 3N.

Rob was in between jobs when we were searching for this apartment. He looked at dozens and dozens of places and this crooked, rail road apartment, that has GREAT closets, that endured a couple of years of Second Avenue Subway construction right out the front door, and that gets one too many bugs in the summer months has truly become such a great home to us. I did a post about the apartment and our family tree gallery wall after we first started to get settled so you can check that out too if you'd like. It's changed a lot since then, looking back on the old post the biggest difference is that it was definitely emptier.

So what's it like living in a New York City apartment with a toddler? Well, now our apartment is so much more lived in for one thing, and I noticed it's a lot more colorful too. Enjoy the tour! And know that it's definitely possible to make it work! You just need creative storage solutions, and to teach your toddler The Clean Up Song.

Welcome! First your greeted with our snowy, wet shoes outside along with Lucie's latest art work. When you walk in, you set foot into the kitchen.

That photograph above the coat rack is one that Robby took in our first apartment in NYC. We would set our slippers under the radiator during the winter months and they'd be so toasty. We titled the photo Home, and it's such a nice thing to see first thing when you walk in.

Two extra chairs for the dining room become a bench for Lucie and I to sit on in the morning when we're getting our shoes on to head out the door. We hang all our Christmas Cards around that mirror during the holidays. We still have remnants of Valentine's Day decorating it right now. (I spy Bess!)

This space may be what sold me on the entire apartment. I love this counter area. So does Lucie. She pulls one of those chairs by the mirror over to the counter, right next to me, so she can stand on it and helps me cook. We got her a set of kid sized utensils so she could get in on any cooking I'm doing.

View from our bedroom toward the kitchen and entrance. (Bess followed me around while I took all of these pictures. What a model.)

SO. MUCH. STORAGE!

Towels, Bedding, Cleaning Supplies, and Huddle Up NYC Gear. It all fits! YAY!

Squeeze around the front door, and you have our Dining Room/ Play Room/ Office! This is Lucie's Calendar that she likes to cross days off of. We draw activities on certain days and add birthdays so we can tell her about them. The paper lantern balls are from Lucie's birthday party back in December. She likes to run her fingers on them as she runs back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room.

Lucie's shelf with tons and tons of wonderful books. Plus fun bins filled with things for her to play with, color, dress up, stuffed animals, etc. Some of her favorite books right now are, Everything is Mama, Your Baby's First Word Will Be Dada, Shh! We have a Plan, Little Elliott Big City and David and Goliath. There's a preciuos photo of Lucie from when she was just a few hours old that sits up on that shelf too. At times Lucie will point it out and say, "That's Baby Lucie... when I was little!"

Across from her shelf/ play area is the dining room table and our desk space.

Our COLORFUL bookshelves and the bar. Cheers!

Love this room.

Keep walking toward the front of the apartment, and it's our Living Room/ Guest Room that faces 2nd Avenue.

Bessy's favorite spot in the mornings.

Love changing the chalkboard with the seasons. This was in honor of International Women's Day and Women's History Month! The clock is a family heirloom from Robby's grandparents. The painting is of the town of Aguirre, Puerto Rico where my Grandma Lucy grew up. (The three little fish by the clock represent Rob, me and Lucie.)

Family Tree gallery wall, and an entertainment center with lots of drawers for Lucie's toys.

So fun. This could be the guest room, I suppose. LOL. Lucie calls it her apartment.

Head to the back of the apartment, through the french doors, and it's our Bedroom/ Lucie's Nook/ ONLY Bathroom.

When we had Lucie we moved our dresser space to these shelves, so that we could turn the dresser top into a changing table area.

We've added lots of mementos to this area, like that sweet preemie hat from Lucie's NICU days.

Teeny tiny bathroom, with a "Big Potty" and a "Little Potty". Rob was asking why I wanted to show this, and I say, well the title of the post is NYC Apartment with a Toddler. LOL!

You can see how close Lucie's Nook is to our bed frame in this shot. The dividers hanging from the ceiling really help to separate the space for us though.

Lucie's room decoration theme has been a take on Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me since she was a baby. We love the canvas with hot air balloons and colorful finger prints set by our friends who hosted and attended a baby shower for Lucie about a month before we got to bring her home from the hospital. We try to update the photographs on the wall about once a year.

Big Girl Bed!

Bird feeder outside our window. We wake up to doves hooting some mornings.

That's the tour! Welcome, and Adios!

We aren't sure what our living situation will be after this year since our lease is up in the summer. It would be easiest if we could renew our lease so we don't have to pack up and move. But if we do have to move, we'll be glad for the great memories we cherished here before and after becoming parents, getting to grow as a family of three + Bess.

If we are able to stay, we are thinking about a shift to the current set up. We would try to consolidate the Dining Room and Living Room into the back room, so that then the small middle room would become Lucie's bedroom and the front room would become our bedroom. We’ll see!!

Love,

Los Hicksons