Apt 3A

Brooklyn, NY

2026

Simplicity over luxury, consumption, capitalism, and old narratives.

A bedroom with a bed against a white wall, framed abstract line art above, a small round side table with books and a potted plant to the right, and a tall indoor plant with long green leaves on the left.
A potted plant with green leaves on a dark wooden stool, placed on top of a stack of four colorful books titled 'Never Too Small' with numbers 01 to 04, against a plain light-colored wall.
A wooden box with Japanese characters engraved on it, resting on a fabric surface.
A wall with two wooden shelves holding books, framed artwork, and a large green plant with monstera leaves.
Close-up of a large, green Monstera deliciosa leaf with natural sunlight illuminating it, set against a white and light-colored wall.
A living room with a light gray sofa, dark blanket, and multiple gray and beige pillows. A large window with white curtains filters sunlight into the room. There are three wooden floating shelves on the wall holding books and a small potted plant. Tw
Living room with houseplants, framed artwork, bookshelves, and a sofa, seen through large green leaves in the foreground.
A modern kitchen.
The refrigerator door is covered with various magnets, photos, notes, and greeting cards.
A modern kitchen.
A woven basket.
A living room with a plant in the foreground, a wooden table, a patterned chair, white curtains, framed pictures on the wall.
A wooden sideboard with three plants on top, a stack of books, and a small sculpture, with framed photographs on the wall above.
A corner of a living room with two potted plants, a television mounted on the wall, a patterned tapestry hanging above, a black wooden chair with a woven back, a rug with a blue and white pattern, and part of an upholstered chair visible.
Colorful tribal-patterned fabric wall hanging with black, orange, and white geometric designs, frayed edges, and hanging strings.
Living room with a mid-century modern wooden sideboard, potted plants, framed pictures on the wall, a patterned curtain, a wooden rocking chair with a book, and a flat-screen TV on a stand, sitting on a light-colored wooden floor with a blue and whit
White textured shower curtain hanging from a black metal rod in a bathroom with white tiled walls.
Close-up of a black device, with a white wall and part of a socket visible in the background.
Small framed pictures and a hanging clip, with light and shadow creating a gradient effect.
Fabric with a textured surface and varying shades of blue.
Large light-colored curtains and ambient blue-purple light, with some plants and furniture visible. 
Words

If you’re anything like me and need to read aloud. Take a listen.

3A

Apartment 3A is not a standard interior design archetype. It is a curation of discipline: a struggle to commit to the everyday and to create an identity distinct from, yet in relationship to the world around it. Designed with refinement in mind, 3A is ground zero for negotiating love, pursuing progress, and existing without the need for a storyline.

As you navigate each room, you will discover that the design story of 3A is told from all three perspectives—first person, second person, and third person—as a means to conjure a permanent sensibility that is honest, critically thinking, and deeply intuitive.

Welcome to Life in 3A.

As you walk through the entrance, you are greeted, as one should be, by bright white walls, soft tones of blues, greens, and creams, books, and plants. The showstopper is the monstera near the couch. I had her since she was a baby in a much different apartment… in Jersey (right, Jersey..that alone explains the growth you will note throughout).

Your eyes are drawn into the living room, with large windows (typical of the newly, cheaply constructed, high-priced gentrification buildings of Brooklyn that I am not the proudest of…but after a much needed break up this is the place I have called home and loved deeply). Light pours through like a prayer ready to reach you, and you ready to receive. Ceiling track curtains drape and frame the calm inside, juxtaposing a vibrant and beautiful Little Hati, yup, right off Nostrand Ave.

There is no media console, and even the TV is decentered (Insert Danton’s “Ok, girl whatever. Decentering the TV really?”). Yes, really, and I placed it on the floor.  Across from the decentered TV is a large cream couch, anchored by a multicolor sage green, blue rug so soft it demands you sit and ground. You’re welcome.

Oh, wait, but I haven’t invited you all the way in. You’re actually still at the entrance! (Side note, y'all remember Ryan Coogler’s Sinners epic tale of grief, loss, blues, and threshold magic?) And let’s be clear, this is a Black household you’re stepping into. Speaking of which, shoes off! There is a handmade pine bench, but you are better off not sitting on it, honestly.

Immediately to your right off the entrance is the kitchen, masked in deep grey-black; it almost disappears. To soften its appeal, the space between the cabinets and ceiling is painted in Sherwin-Williams shade “Romance”. And yes, I felt very romantic painting it. Once inside the L-shaped kitchen, you will notice a fridge adorned with the best parts of life —photos of friends, family, and community, museum tickets, magnets from global travels, life-affirming messages, and a few random pieces for composition purposes.

To your left, you will find the bathroom. Large format matte black tiles and fixtures contrast the porcelain white tub and waffle-textured curtain. Simplicity at best. I firmly believe the bathroom acts as a holding space for all your shit. Literally and figuratively. Not only do I have a healthy microgut biome, but I also mentally/spiritually process a lot, which means I’m constantly in a grief cycle of people, things, ideas, and old versions of myself. The bathroom is where I let go of a lot. Here is where I feel the closest to God. Where the downloads are so clear. Where my heart is the most open. It is the place where I meet myself time and time again.

To the far end of the apartment lies the bedroom. Unaware of the rest of the apartment's renaissance. It is a white box. A place where the final narrative lies to rest. Trauma that carries from childhood to womanhood can easily be labeled as dysfunctional at best, and it is. But the narratives that stemmed from it are the most condemning. Narratives have always been central to how we as humans make sense of ourselves and the world around us, whereas identity is who you are: your core traits, roles, values, and existence. The issue arises when the narrative takes center stage in your identity. In this all-white box, there is nothing to make sense of; it just is. And the narrative then becomes a tool. One that can be picked up and put down as the circumstances call for. Whether for relatability, holding space, moving with compassion, or pure instinctual survival. And the truth of the matter is my reality today is not that of the child’s latter.

Throughout your time in the home, you did not find a plethora of mirrors, the latest trends, clutter, excess, high amounts of plastic, or waste. Instead, you are beckoned to explore a library of 135 books and counting (not shown in photos), solicited by a very comfortable Tempur-Pedic mattress of heavenly dreams, and called to a couch that holds a range from 5’2 to 6’3. Well, there was that one who was 6’5, but I digress.

3A has been my personal process of confronting the capitalist conquest for material. Not only is consumerism unsustainable, but it is an extreme form of functioning that begins to justify other forms of conquest within our consciousness.

Thank you for stopping by.

-Kaniya