How an Artist Filled Her Brooklyn Apartment With Secondhand Treasures

[light music]

Since I was a kid, I always sort of knew

that I was going to land in New York.

I ended up looking at this building on StreetEasy

and I discovered this unit

but it had been rented for quite a long time.

But I did see that there was an available unit,

two floors up and I rented it.

I had a feeling that if I got close to this place,

eventually I could weasel my way in.

Lo and behold, I think three weeks

after I moved in upstairs it was vacant.

I called the landlord and sort of insisted

I'm moving downstairs, thank you.

This space is just the best canvas I could have asked for.

If anything, I only wanted to amplify the bones of the space

through the art that I brought in.

Sifting through websites like Facebook Marketplace,

like Etsy, I totally feel like an archeologist

when I'm on Facebook Marketplace and finding these pieces

sort of yanks me outta my neighborhood,

yanks me out of the same people that I'm with all the time

and all of a sudden I'm in, you know,

someone's living room somewhere that I've never been before

and that's actually one of my favorite parts

of living in New York.

I think that is such a privilege

and like really, really fuels me creatively.

I'm Talia Mayden,

and this is my 850 square foot Brooklyn apartment.

[light music]

So this is the living room.

I love to collect things.

I try to be really disciplined when I'm collecting things,

but it still manages to like climb up the walls.

The piano is one of the first things

I brought into the apartment.

So I remember when I was looking for it on Marketplace,

I was sitting in like a folding chair with a folding table

'cause I hadn't bought like real furniture yet.

I found this one and I liked how it's fairly unadorned.

I didn't want anything too ornate

'cause I didn't wanna compete

with all the molding et cetera in this space.

And the best part of course was the price, which was free.

So it was the one.

I went to art school

and what I learned there really deeply informs

the art that I bring into the space.

A piece all the way over there was a Craigslist find

from when I lived in Los Angeles.

Next to that the ballerina shoes, that is a street find.

My friend Lorenzo, Craigslist, Marketplace,

Marketplace, New Year's Eve party, it's a long story,

my friend Riley.

The second hand market is so different in New York versus LA

versus Tennessee versus Michigan.

Everywhere that I've lived, I would say

that New York is a Facebook Marketplace city,

LA is a Craigslist city.

That's an important dichotomy to understand

if you're gonna get into this.

So obviously a space should be super functional,

but because of my art and photography background,

I really think in terms the shot.

When I got here,

this bookcase I knew was gonna be a shot.

This was a painting that used to belong to my grandmother.

And something that I like about this

is it's a little bit of a polarizing thing

to put the painting on the bookshelf,

but it does have a good use case

because bear with me, if you take it off,

it's all the ugly stuff that I don't want people to see

like Catan and my camera bag and like random CDs and stuff.

So it actually serves a functional purpose as well

and I think it makes a great shot when it's up

and centered on the bookcase.

I often just slap art on top of things that I don't like.

For example, I'm not like the biggest fan

of this light switch,

but I had this tin type taken last summer, boom.

Now nobody's seeing the light switch.

One day I was deep in Facebook Marketplace as I often am.

I was looking for a white slip cover sofa

and I had honestly seen a lot of duds.

But then this one popped up.

By the time we got it to the apartment,

I realized that it couldn't fit through my front door.

It wasn't even close.

So I had heard of someone called the Couch Doctor,

I think I had seen him on TikTok.

He arrived with a literal hand saw.

He sawed the couch in half like like right here

you can't even tell anymore.

But he sawed it in half to get it through the door

and now it's as if it never happened.

So because the couch was so beat up,

they sold it to me for $300.

The Couch Doctor actually did end up costing

more than the couch but totally worth it to me.

I think this is a piece that I'm gonna have forever.

It's a great napping couch, great friends in town couch,

so I'm happy with it.

And all of the furniture in this spot is secondhand.

This table is Craigslist.

The chairs I got on Facebook Marketplace

and the rug I found on Etsy.

A few of my other favorite things

that I found for the apartment are this lamp.

This is one of the few things

that I've taken from apartment to apartment

as I moved throughout my twenties.

I found that lamp on Craigslist when I lived in Los Angeles.

And then these paintings I found just stooped on the street.

I can't tell if an adult made them or if a child made them.

I think it's an adult pretending to be a child.

But those are a little kooky and fun.

And then this cast aluminum base I found on eBay.

So of course the real star of the show here

are these stunning windows behind me.

When I first walked into this space

and saw these windows, my jaw dropped.

I was just like, holy shit, am I allowed to cuss?

[Director] Yes. Okay.

I was just like, holy shit,

I cannot believe someone anyone could live here.

I've really never seen anything like them in New York.

And I love how this shape is echoed

on the lattice work on the ceiling.

Although in wood it looks like little chocolate bars.

So it took me over a year, maybe closer to two years

to find the right dining table for this space.

When I first saw this table,

and this is often the case

with my best finds on Marketplace,

the photos that this woman took of it were horrific.

Like it looks like she took them with a toaster.

Really poorly lit, you couldn't even tell that it was green.

Really hard to get a sense of the scale,

but I had a feeling that it might be magnificent in person.

So we entered the negotiation portal, you're gonna hate me,

but I did get this table for $300.

Often when I'm sourcing furniture for clients

or just for my audience on the internet,

a lot of times I show people pieces

that are photographed poorly or they're not styled

and I have a hard time convincing people

that like listen to me, this is the moment.

A lot of my clients find me via TikTok.

And being online is a bit of a double-edged sword

because it is how I connect with clients.

It is also a style killer.

I think that like the more strict

I try to get with my style,

the more that I try to niche it down to feed the algorithm,

the more insincere I feel.

The pendulum has certainly swung on the internet

from that stark Kim Kardashian minimalism

to ultra maximalism.

In an ideal world,

I could stay completely outside of that conversation,

but it is interesting that I have received

some maximalist allegations on the internet

because I don't think of myself as a maximalist.

When I think of maximalism, I think of saying yes

and bringing everything that you love into the space.

I think that is a lovely way to approach design,

but it doesn't necessarily feel like what I've done in here.

I think just because it's such a small space,

it might feel like a lot,

but I've been trying to be pretty disciplined about it.

So when I look around and I see my art on the walls

and the books everywhere, like I don't think of it

as a maximalist design choice,

I just think of it as proof of life.

[light music]

So now we're in the kitchen.

It looked pretty similar to this originally,

so just wanted it to be what it is.

I put on a fresh coat of paint,

a little bit of styling and here we are.

So as you can see it's a bit of a tight squeeze in here.

It is not a two person kitchen.

When my fiance moved in with me, we really quickly realized

that it's a one at a time situation

or we might start getting in fights.

So like if I'm cooking up something beautiful on the stove

and my fiance's trying to get into the fridge behind me,

like we're ass to ass and it's a problem.

There's just not enough room in here.

I mean even when I'm opening the oven,

I'm like fully backed into the fridge.

I can't like open it all the way down

without banging my knees.

So that's just the reality of the situation, very New York.

So this vessel was actually an anniversary present

from my fiance.

He got it off of eBay 'cause he knows what I like.

This is a cutting board

by a maker in Fort Green called Bartleby Objects.

This I actually got on Craigslist

when I lived in Los Angeles.

The guy that sold it to me told me that he salvaged it

from the Bloomingdale's in West Hollywood.

I don't know if that's true,

but I like to believe that it is.

And another anniversary eBay find from my fiance.

This is a nineties vintage sumi ink piece

that I found on Etsy.

And then we just keep all of our cookbooks

on top of the fridge for easy access.

It's funny, I didn't think twice

about putting art on the fridge.

I was like, we have blank space.

I have art, I'm gonna put it on there.

And I just did it in magnets,

but it does get a reaction

as if I'm doing something new and crazy.

So it was a non-negotiable for me

to have an office in this apartment,

but I couldn't stomach putting like my ugly work stuff

in such a beautiful room, like in my living room.

So in such a small space you had to get creative,

make a couple compromises.

So now my office is very much in my kitchen.

I have a lot of my film and my digital cameras here,

some paints that I've used in the space,

very many hard drives.

I worked with the Container Store

to custom cut these shelves

to fit perfectly into this space.

'cause I knew I had to get really into the minutiae

to make this work.

So we're in a really high traffic area right now.

We have kitchen, bedroom, living room,

so it's not the best place to take video calls

'cause you're getting a lot of company in the background.

This definitely isn't the most aesthetic zone

of my apartment, but it is so hyper functional

and enables me to work from home,

enables me to store all of my creative gear.

So I definitely have no shame about it

because of what it lets me do.

This table lamp is a recent Facebook Marketplace find

from a nice man named Bob on the Upper East Side.

Thank you Bob.

[light music]

Welcome to the Boudoir.

I completely color drenched this room.

I decided to paint it based off of the color

of the figure in this Paris Review print.

I liked how it was like a very inbetweenie, not quite red,

not quite purple, not quite brown,

and decided to do the whole thing.

Something I love about a color drenched room

is when you walk in, it's super transportive,

especially because we're right next to that

office kitchen space right there.

Which one could say lacks sensuality.

The moment you walk into this space,

you are completely enveloped by it.

The wrought iron bed I found on Marketplace,

and this is actually, this was a good lesson for me

because it wasn't the first bed that I bought for the space.

I originally bought a pretty low, dark wood platform bed.

After having it for a couple weeks, I had to admit to myself

that it just didn't suit the vibe of the room.

So I took the effort to post it to sell it,

and then the Marketplace gods reward me

with this beautiful piece.

I know I sound like a broken record,

but almost everything in this room I found secondhand.

This dresser I found on Marketplace,

this nightstand Marketplace, this sculpture, Craigslist,

this pencil sketch I found on Etsy, the linens,

I did not buy second hand, that's where I draw the line.

But I did get these sheets custom made.

This is a little bit extra of me,

but I got Paradiso stitched into the sheets.

It's the last word of one of my favorite poems

by Dana Levin,

and I thought it fit the sensual vibe in here.

It's definitely tight here between the bed and the dresser,

I made sure I gave myself just enough room

to be able to sit here

and open the dresser drawers all the way.

So it's still functional, but it's definitely not roomy.

So the rose taped over my bed.

I originally put it there as a placeholder

for a larger piece,

but like I stuck it to the wall, took a step back

and was like, huh, there's something to it.

And then I never took it down.

[light music]

[lively music]

Okay, so now we are on the patio,

which is kind of like the apartment's secret weapon.

I found this bar on Marketplace when I was scrolling,

but I didn't love the color of it,

but loaded it in here anyway

and then painted it black knowing that it would wear

and show a little bit of like patina over time.

And I really like how it's turning out.

This was a rare case when this was actually pretty seamless

to get in here.

The man that made it just dropped it off

and called it a day.

Love it when that happens.

And something I love about this place is that it's set up

really intuitively so I can, you know,

like make my friends a drink here

and then bring it over to the table,

plate it like a regular Martha Stewart.

For these chairs, I was dead set on these Giacometti chairs.

That's what these are called.

That's the designer.

So I had changed my search radius on Marketplace

to I think like 40 miles,

which is bigger than New York City,

if you didn't know that.

Sometimes it can be worth it

to expand that radius on Marketplace,

but just know you're gonna have to rent a car

or you're gonna need to bother a friend with a car.

So it's only for those high ticket items

that you're dying for.

This view I think is so pretty.

This is what makes me feel like the luckiest person

living in New York to be able to have this view

is just like, chef's kiss.

I do think that being in a space

that I found so creatively inspiring,

encouraged a ton of growth in my life.

My career exploded

and I was honestly really prioritizing romance.

So I didn't know yet

that that's what I was coming to New York to do.

I just knew that I love decorating my apartment.

Even when styling my bedroom, for example.

I made sure to have two nightstands

even though it was such a small space

because I wanted to encourage the idea

that one day I would have a partner

who would sleep in my bed with me

and use a second nightstand.

I met a wonderful partner who I'm marrying,

and I mean, I don't credit it all to this apartment,

but it was certainly a magnificent backdrop to this era.

I think coming to New York

and landing in a space like this proved to me

that those like big dreams that I had when I was younger

of what my life could look like,

you know, there are pieces of that that really are possible.

Maybe not all of it all at once,

but like a slice of something as heavenly

as this is wonderful proof

that some of those things can come true.