The 250-Square-Foot Studio

Reasonable people should recoil at the thought of living in a 250-square-foot studio, much less living with one’s spouse in a 250-square-foot studio, yet this couple actually lives in a 250-square-foot studio:

Blood-red dahlias were obligingly photogenic in the pool of light thrown by an alabaster lamp. Indeed, all 250 square feet of this bento box of an apartment glowed and winked, every inch of it a lesson in trenchant urban survival.

“The overriding ethic, here and everywhere,” said Mr. [Maxwell] Gillingham-Ryan, who speaks in a cool, hushed tone that tends to lower the pitch of any conversation, “is to get rid of any excess: clothes, furniture, doors. I find that most doors, particularly closet doors, you can do without. New York is a hard, mineral environment — all concrete, steel and glass — so I try to get rid of as many hard elements as possible and replace them with soft things.”

Mr. Gillingham-Ryan has thrown out his dresser and armchair and all his closet doors. There are lots of soft things here instead: canvas or sheer curtains instead of doors, a bedroom floor/platform padded with gymnastic matting (you can buy it on Canal Street by the yard and slice it with a razor, Mr. Gillingham-Ryan said) wrapped in oatmeal-colored raw linen.

It’s a room designed like a boat, with six padded compartments making up its platform “floor.”

“Here’s our office,” Ms. [Sara Kate] Gilligham-Ryan said, opening one, “and his socks,” she said, opening another.

Let me just say that again: it’s a 250-square-foot studio.

Comparing living spaces is a sport and, as someone who shares a 482-square-foot studio with his loved one, it’s not often that I get to experience the satisfaction of housing schadenfreude, so do me a favor and read the article!

[Gilligham also runs a consulting business/website called Apartment Therapy which I need to check out . . .]