Trisha Young and Nick Adams
Trisha Young and Nick Adams agree on most things, including the fact that their tiny home—a 480-square-foot apartment on The Hill—fails them in one big way: Its lack of space keeps them from entertaining at home.
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“We have no living room,” says Adams, 35, founder of Mademan Design. “When we’re on top of the bedsheets, we say that the bed counts as a couch.”
Despite the absence of traditional comforts, the couple relishes living with less. “I enjoy the lack of maintenance, the lack of cleaning and responsibility,” Adams says. Much of the couple’s furniture doubles as storage—tubs are filled with clothes and stored under the bed—and wire bins stretching to the 10-foot ceilings hold everyday items. With 4 feet of closet space and a five-drawer dresser between them, the couple has little room for extraneous stuff.
Before they moved in together, quarter-life crises set the two on similar paths. Adams had quit his job and lived out of his car as he toured the American West, trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. For Young, 39, a medical mission trip to Nepal moved her to see the world in a new way.
“I met people who were living with next to nothing, yet they were happy,” says Young, a dentist. “I decided to come back and live a simpler life.”
Five years later, though, change is on the horizon. The couple is building a 2,200-square-foot home in Webster Groves. “It’s going to be different,” says Adams. “Our fear is that we’ll drift apart in that big space,” adds Young. But the prospect of having more room in which to entertainor to start a family is motivation to keep building.
“Let it come and see how it feels,” Adams says.
Randy Girsch and Leah Conant
When Randy Girsch, 33, and Leah Conant, 27, moved into a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment at Two Twelve Clayton, they were nervous about sharing closet space for the first time. But views of the Arch and of Forest Park cast away their doubts. “We fell in love with the apartment,” says Girsch, vice president of community development and event management for the St. Louis Blues.
Right off the bat, the couple designated his-and-her closets to prevent quarrels. Girsch gets the closet and a chest of drawers in the master bedroom, and the apartment’s second bedroom has been converted into Conant’s sitting room, complete with a closet of her own, which they call the Rosé Room. There, surrounded by blush, gold, and cream décor, Conant—a surgical resident at Barnes-Jewish Hospital—unwinds after a long day and hosts her friends before heading out for the night. A stylish garment rack allows her to display her collection of cocktail dresses.
“I didn’t want my feminine decorating to take over the entire apartment, so it’s nice to have this one room dedicated to being whimsical and dainty,” she says.
Throughout the 1,000-square-foot residence, the couple has made other small adjustments. They built additional shelves in each closet and tacked a hanging rack behind every door. They also only purchased furniture they deemed necessary.
“We’re not fans of big spaces,” says Girsch. “The apartment makes us feel close, and when we have friends over, it’s in an intimate setting.”
