A Tiny Room Grows in Brooklyn

Taking life lessons from a space built on change, mad color, and major FUN.

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My daughter turned four last fall. That means a lot of things—most of them totally great—but a few of them scary/stressful, like figuring out where she’s going to school next year, a big new chapter of her journey to becoming a citizen of the world. When I thought about being a parent, I never really dwelled much on the change part, which is funny because having a small child is like bouncing around in a washing machine of relentless change. Going to sleep in the evening, kissing a sweet baby goodnight, and waking up to a kind of rude, indignant person who believes deeply that the pants I suggest she might like to wear are instead “some dirty, stinking garbage.” 

I definitely wasn’t prepared for how quickly I would nuzzle right into a new routine, never wanting to move, whether it was sleeping through the night, moving on to underwear, or (finally) surrendering the paci, only to be cold-cocked every time a new stage/new person suddenly emerged. Luckily though, learning how to be a parent to another human has shown me, over and over—even if it goes against my nature—how to be more chill…easier, allowing the next step, and the next, and the next again to just unfold, knowing it’s my job to just be there when it does…usually with all the snacks. And right now, the most basic example of this very zen-like commitment to almost nothing (other than snacks), is Raffi’s bedroom. Which is changing, yet again.

TOP: The very first photo I ever took of the first spare room of my life, featuring a pair of Alaïa shoes that were a gift from an old friend (and way too high); BOTTOM: The same room’s first life as a cozy place for guests (and more way-too-high shoes…good color, tho😬). Btw, almost everything in this room was thrifted.