Special thanks to Gaston for editing the video!

Living and working in a 400 sq ft studio with a partner already took creativity. Then quarantine happened and my partner is home all the time. When we started drawing straws to see who had to take their conference from the bathroom, I turned my eye to the entryway.

Before

Cluttered, uninspiring entryway

When we moved into our 400 sq ft studio in Hell’s Kitchen, I spent all of my energy optimizing the main room. I was resigned to the fact that we all have ugly stuff so I figured I’d just sequester it to the entryway. Apartment Therapy came to shoot a video tour of our pad, and not one single shot of the entryway made it into the final cut despite the studio being very small so there was only so much to film.

We had a shoe rack on the back of our bedroom door at our last place that we moved with us. But this time there was no discreet place so the first thing you saw when you walked in was a wall of shoes (and ice skates and whatever else I stuffed there). We had considered installing a shoe cabinet, but were afraid of how much it would block the doorway to the bathroom so decided against it.

Difficult to take work calls at the same time

Fast forward to a year later, we’re both working from home during the COVID quarantine. Suddenly, my already tiny home “office” (let’s be honest, it was the dining table) had to fit two. We made that work fairly easily but the struggle was when we both had work meetings. Ryan, is a data scientist and I’m a partner at a marketing agency. Ryan needs to have his monitor while on work calls so he can look at code, the project management tool, and the Zoom call. I need to look presentable with a presentable background for talking with clients and closing new deals.

At first, we would discuss our meetings of the day to strategize whose call was more important and the other person would take their call from the bathroom. Either sitting on the side of the tub or bringing in a small sling stool and side table (which then made it hard to open the bathroom door) and god forbid anyone needed to pee.

The new plan

Realizing this was likely going to be a long term problem (I suspect we will all be working from much more often than before) I decided to turn my eye to the entryway.

My idea was to install a thick, double layer curtain between the entryway and the main room to offer some visual/noise privacy. Then during the day, I’d move my keyboard sling stool and a side table. To make it feel like you weren’t being banished to the The Office annex, we installed a proper shoe cabinet, new knobs on the closet doors, and a bird print I had tucked away to cover the electrical panel.

The products

Tasseled Rio Curtain — Anthropologie $88

Adjustable Double Curtain Rod — Anthropologie $118

Cotton Canvas Curtain — West Elm $88

Monstera Bird Art Print by Jonas Loose — Fy $16

Brusali Shoe Cabinet — Ikea $80

Keegan Knobs — Anthropologie $24

After

It actually works! While the curtains don’t block all the noise, it certainly is less distracting to have some visual privacy and sound dampening. Our video conferencing software can detect that the background noise is in fact background noise and filters it out.

While the shoe cabinet does block a bit of the doorway to the bathroom, it doesn’t block it anymore than the shoe rack hanging on the door did. But now the shoes aren’t uglying up our entryway!

Plus, an unanticipated benefit is that the curtains are providing some insulation! We recently had an 80+ degree day and turned on the air conditioning unit. Having the curtains pulled closed keeps the cool air in the main room and saves on energy and costs!