(upbeat music)
- [Woman] Ever wondered what it's like
to live in a different city?
Four people in different
neighborhoods invite
us into their homes and give us a glimpse
of what it's like to
live in London, England.
This is Apartments Around the World.
(gentle music)
- Hi, my name is Ada and
I live in East London,
more specifically the Bow area.
Bow is
close enough to the center
so that I don't feel like
I'm outside of London,
but also far enough away that
you kind of like miss a bit
of the hustle and bustle.
So, I can walk to Tower
Bridge within around about,
just over an hour, or
if like if I was gonna
get the tube it would me like 20 minutes.
Our apartment is 1600 a month,
and I live with my boyfriend
so we pay £800 each.
So, our building is actually
and old dog biscuit factory,
and then it just got
converted into apartments.
- Hey, I'm Jeff and I've lived in London
for about three years now.
I currently in Clapham
which is in South London.
Clapham known to be kind of a rowdy area.
There is a lot of students living here,
there's a lot of Australians living here,
there's a lot of gay people living here.
There are a lot of bars that are open
really late on weekends.
Definitely a fun part of
town but it's definitely,
at least this area's a lot younger
than other places in London.
I decided to move south mostly because
of the gay scene and for Clapham Common,
which is this really,
really beautiful park.
Really big park, it's
beautiful and has a few ponds,
some nicely like lined
sidewalk paths with trees.
My flatmate and I pay
just under 2,000 total,
so just under a 1,000 each which is
for a two bedroom, one bath flat.
Our flat also has a shared garden
which has been really nice.
- Hi.
My name is Sogol and I live in an area
in West London called Earl's Court,
which is walking distance
to Kensington and Chelsea.
Earl's Court is best known
for being a popular place
for visitors to stay,
since it's pretty central
and there's a hotel on every corner.
More and more local coffee
shops and restaurants
are popping up though, making it feel
a bit more neighborhood .
In this area, apparently only 37%
of the residents were born in England,
making it very cosmopolitan.
On the contrary, I don't love walking
to the tube and seeing a bunch tourists,
hearing their suitcases
rattle over the cobble stone.
We live in a two bed, two and half bath
first floor flat, and I live here
with my husband and four month old baby.
We pay £3800.
Our apartment is on the
pricier end given the location,
but the flat is really well renovated
and has modern amenities which
justifies the high price.
- Hi guys, my name's Amy.
I live in a converted
warehouse in North London
in the borough of Harringay.
I live with 19 other creatives
who vary from photographers
to graphic designers,
events coordinators, fashion designers,
actors, musicians, coders, carpenters,
there's someone here that can do anything.
Area's well known for
it's warehouse community.
This used to be a textiles
factory until the '80s
when somebody bought it and converted it
into about 300 rooms.
I paid £680 a month to live here.
Considering that includes
my bedroom, my studio space,
a car parking space and outside spaces,
I think that's a great price.
We share about 8,000
square feet which includes
three bathrooms, one
kitchen, seven fridges,
four freezers and one cat.
- [Ada] Never thought
it was too expensive.
When we first viewed the place,
I fell in love with it immediately.
Not so sure about my boyfriend,
but I knew that once I saw this place,
we weren't gonna look at anywhere else
so this was gonna be it.
The number one thing in
London is that people
do not have storage.
And the cupboards on the
black, these white cupboards,
you can see if they didn't do this,
I don't know what mess we'd be in,
it's like a life saver for us,
like we don't have a lot of things around,
we can still keep a lot of our space,
we can still keep the
living room generally
quite uncluttered.
This is a one bedroom apartment,
but we do have a Murphy bed
that guests can stay on,
which is like a super
American thing to me.
Like, I'd never known British places
to have a Murphy bed.
(bed creaks)
It's very squeaky but, it's a bed!
(bed creaks)
Ooh!
- [Jeff] This is one kind
of communal living space.
This is our dining area.
It consists of one table.
So, a few of our favorite parts of this
are obviously our bar cart,
with all of our booze.
I was so excited to buy this.
And this cool little industrial lamp,
which I love how it all looks together.
We also have this little day bed
which is perfect for hung over Sundays.
And if we ever have a guest
come and visit to stay,
they have an actual bed
as opposed to trying to
squeeze on a tiny couch.
- [Sogol] You have one big
spacious room with high ceilings,
and we have a dining
table in the same room.
So, sometimes that's
used as a desk as well.
We love
the Victorian,
kind of ceiling molding and
the beautiful chandeliers,
the high ceilings and
all of the natural light
that we get in this apartment.
The cool thing is also here
we have some privacy shades.
So, with the click of a button
the shades will just come down.
Obviously that doesn't block out light
so we sleep with eye masks.
But, it's nice and
convenient to have that just
for privacy purposes.
- [Amy] Many nights are
spent watching movies
on the projector and playing
video games in the lounge.
It can be quite intense
living with so many people,
but I definitely think there
are more pros than cons.
There's always someone to hang out with,
always someone to talk to,
and always a lot to do.
- [Ada] So, the only downside
I guess of this place
is that our kitchen is quite small.
It just wasn't something I looked at
when we moved in, because I don't really
spend that much time in the kitchen.
But, my boyfriend is the cook of the house
and he does complain that it's
really small all the time.
See, I didn't cook this.
Like I said, I don't cook but this
is our little quaint kitchen.
- [Jeff] And our kitchen.
Sink, microwave, stove, oven.
We have our
fridge.
With not too much in there because
we ate everything this week.
And our freezer which is a bit small
but kind of, you know, is what it is.
We also have dishwasher
here.
Which again, is actually
something that not all flats have.
So, we had to put special requests in
in order to find a place with a
dishwasher.
- [Sogol] And then here
we have the kitchen
to the right when you walk in.
And this also nice too,
it has sliding doors in case you want
some privacy in the kitchen.
So, really nice, modern kitchen.
They've done a great job renovating it.
Hard to tell what is what here.
But, we have
a nice oven.
Under that we have a dishwasher,
and then next to the
dishwasher, the freezer,
and above that is the fridge.
It's a bit smaller, a smaller fridge,
but as expected here in London.
- [Amy] We spend our
nights playing board games
around the kitchen table.
Creative writing together,
having dinner parties,
and making cocktails.
There are lots of fridges
as there are so many of us.
- [Ada] This is our bedroom.
That's like really nice.
Wide open windows here in the morning.
You know, it's just nothing
too special to be honest.
This is the bathroom.
And we don't have a
window in the bathroom.
So, we have this air vent
that goes straight outside,
and there's a family of
birds living in the air vent,
so in the morning you
can just here them going
(Ada shushing)
- [Jeff] It is kind of, you know,
abnormally large with a weird design.
This alcove is really nice,
but totally not necessary.
I feel they easily could've designed it
so I had a little bit
less space so my flatmate
could have more, since his
room is much smaller than mine.
And so this is my flat mate's room.
As you can see, it is
much smaller than mine.
Basically just fits the
bed and a bedside table.
It has like a mini wardrobe,
but again, not anything
compared to the size of mine,
which is why his
bureau
and
kind of closet has to be out here, so.
- [Sogol] So, upstairs is
where the second bedroom is,
or the master bedroom so to speak.
So, you walk up and you
have a little entryway.
The apartment has good closet space.
But, you can never have enough
so I've added this rack here
for jackets and what not.
But there's a lot of built in drawers
and space for hanging things.
Down there is the nursery.
So, there's some light
coming in from that.
And we go into the bedroom.
And this is where we can overlook
the living room and the garden.
This here also has the
privacy shades that come down,
which is quite nice.
And then,
the small little window over there
which overlooks a school.
We're gonna go into our second bedroom,
which we recently
converted into a nursery,
which still needs a little bit of work.
- [Amy] Our bedrooms are
all along the hallway,
and at the back of the
house we have our studio.
Most people here are freelance creatives,
so we need the space to work.
Working here is like being
in the most fun office ever.
It's a hub of activity, ideas and making.
Most of the bedrooms
have a mezzanine level.
So, upstairs for sleeping,
and downstairs is like our own lounge.
- And this is the bathroom.
Hello!
It's nothing too special.
We have two sinks.
I think you can tell who's
is whose sink for sure.
But yeah, we have a shower bath.
And towel rack just here,
a little heated towel rack.
- [Jeff] Something
interesting about London flats
is that the light switches to the bathroom
are on the outside.
So yeah, here is our bathroom.
Pretty nicely sized,
good amount of storage.
With this little medicine cabinet here.
And then more here.
This is my rubber duck collection
from places I've traveled.
Of course we have the
Queen, how could we not?
Strangely, this rubber duck toilet seat
was here and part of the flat when
we moved in,
and has nothing to do
with these rubber ducks.
So, we strangely now have a
rubber duck themed bathroom,
which I am not mad at.
Also, it didn't have built
in toilet roll thing,
which I thought was really interesting,
so we actually had to buy that.
So like, I don't know if
people were just putting
their toilet like up there before, but.
Another thing too is plugs.
So, brits are really like safe
about electricity in
the bathrooms, I guess.
So, these are only meant
to have shaver plugs.
But strangely it fits American plugs.
So, I don't really
understand that whole deal.
- [Sogol] Nice big spacious bathroom,
with a bathtub, which is really
relaxing on certain evenings.
And then here we have little laundry room,
not even a laundry room, a laundry closet.
This is the bathroom.
There's a standing shower
with a rain shower head
which is really nice.
And then a towel heater here.
Obviously a much smaller
bathroom for the upstairs.
So, this is our half bath.
Or guest bathroom.
One cool feature is that
it has floor heaters.
So, really useful during London winters.
- [Amy] We have three bathrooms
with tiny, mini baths.
- [Ada] We've been here for almost a year,
and we still haven't
sorted out the balcony.
But it's coming, it's coming.
But I do like having a balcony,
especially for the two
days that we get sun here.
It's really nice to stretch your feet out.
- [Jeff] Another great features
it this little patio area.
I didn't expect to appreciate it so much.
And then we also back
there have a shared garden,
which again has been really, really
nice to be able to sit outside.
- [Sogol] We also have this terrace.
Which
also opens up to the,
the garden.
So, any resident gets
that, access to the garden,
the private key.
- [Amy] The outside space is communal
and shared with the other
residents of the community.
Each unit has its own
little outside space.
Out back we have our yard and car park.
The landlord commissions
artists who live here
to create murals which is awesome.
It means our creative space is
super colorful and inspiring.
In the summer, it feels like you're
at a cute little beer garden.
We grow our own veg and have a trampoline.
- [Woman] Thanks for joining us
on Apartments Around the World.
Let us know in the comments
where you want us to go next.
