Studio Sounds

From what I gather, people who don’t live in studio apartments have very different ideas of what kind of dwellings they are. Some people imagine giant spaces in restored warehouses with mezzanine bedrooms and bathrooms cordoned off by huge neon fish tanks, the kind of thing you’d see in a Rosanna Arquette movie about Desperately Seeking After Hours Life Lessons for Susan.

Other people imagine roach infested tiny dank dark rooms with enough space for a single bed, where you wash in the sink and there’s a leaking toilet in the corner. When I tell people about my studio, I try to describe it as a large, light bedroom, with a tidy bathroom and kitchen/dining area. Big enough to swing a cat, small enough to open the fridge without getting out of bed.

I read somewhere once that walking into someone’s studio apartment is like walking into their personality cos everything about them is in your face and on display. One quick trip around the room will tell you everything about them, their music tastes, their favourite food, their grooming equipment. I find this a mixed blessing cos whilst visitors can admire my great taste in DVD’s, ornaments and rock biographies, they can also see I haven’t done the washing this week.

Compacted living also gives you an idea the inhabitants priorities. Have they sacrificed owning an oven in order to keep decorative china cabinet? Does their weights machine also double as their bed? Do they have a giant TV and hang the rest of their stuff out the window in a bag?

Yes storage is often an issue. There are only so many places to hide secret things in a studio. Underneath beds or on top of the cupboards is fine to clear some space, but the minute you actually need something your entire life dissolves into a really dusty version of Tetris. Everything might look neat and organised in my house, but open the wrong cupboard and you’re likely to be buried under an avalanche of random shit I’ve stuffed in with a shovel.

Unless, like me, you’ve got a large roof space or a balcony, you might as well you can forget about parties in your studio too. There’s no room for a couch, so entertaining does take place on the bed. I’ve found that this makes bringing dates home exceptionally awkward, even if you were just going to have a cup of tea. With literally nowhere else to sit it’s no wonder some people have got the wrong impression and said ‘well, we’re already here…’

Moreover, whilst bed entertaining (or bedertaining) is fine for watching TV, it’s really terrible for dinner parties. I once went to bed to find someone had stashed pizza crusts under my pillow. Not to mention, if you cook a lot in a studio, all your clothes start to smell like food and you end up with dogs following you around and not one will sit next to you on the train.

Now that I’m considering moving back into a share scenario, I’m gonna have to kerb some of my studio dweller habits. No more storing facial toner in the fridge. The five minute house clean will also be a thing of the past. And my preference of post shower air-drying, naked TV watching and stripping off the minute I get through the front door will also have to stop. Unless my future housemate is exceptionally liberal, I expect my nudity quota to plummet dramatically. I might still be able to get away with naked blogging though…