First Person
I Miss My Crowded, Messy, and Crumbling College House
The house on Pine Street was a place to gather. Now, home is safe because it’s not shared.
I Moved Home When Coronavirus Hit. I Might Never Come Back to New York.
Four women on settling into adult life in their childhood hometowns.
In Defense of the Aboveground Pool
With public swimming options limited because of the pandemic, this backyard classic is finally getting its due.
Learning to recognize myself in the bathroom mirror
When I was a teenager, it was the most dangerous room in the house. Today, it’s where I feel most like myself.
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A brief history of South Park, SF’s oldest—and most underrated—public park
It has a rich and thrilling past, which includes the birthplace of Twitter and setting the stage for an Oscar-winning performance.
Slow streets are the path to a better city
Overnight, slow streets transformed our neighborhood. Everyone should have access to the same opportunity.
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The appeal of the TikTok everyhouse
The clocks look familiar, and the doors are probably from Lowe’s, and the speckles in the granite look like the speckles in your granite.
I only felt at home once my home disappeared
The further we travel from our life in Germantown, the more it reveals itself as the place I belonged.
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Our house was a refuge—until COVID-19 came home
When my kids grow up, I hope they remember watching "Frozen 2," not the pandemic.
The basement where we fell out of love
After the breakup, we created a second bedroom by assembling an Ikea bed in the kitchen.
Living in a hallway made me comfortable with discomfort
I was exhausted all the time, but I knew my temporary sleeping arrangement would serve me in the end.
Learning to love my Brutalist childhood home
The Brunswick’s ugliness once mortified me, but now I appreciate its utopian roots.
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My Brooklyn bedroom has no windows
What originally worried me about the place turned out to be a boon—until lockdown.
My year of free mattresses
I slept on a new one every 100 nights, but I couldn’t scam my way to self-care.
The statement rug that finally made my apartment feel like home
Finding an attractive, affordable, and sustainably-made rug was no easy task.
How to Breathe Cleaner Air, Indoors and Outside
Protect yourself from what’s out your door, but also make some changes in your home.
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What I learned from living a socially isolated life for the past two years
"It will get easier after you adjust," says Amanda Chicago Lewis.
Finding beautiful baby decor in a sea of plastic
I’d been on the fence about having kids, and one of the reasons I’d wavered for so long was the stuff.
The green dream of Portland
Decades ago, Portland, Oregon established an image as the most environmentally friendly city in the world. But is the progressive city’s progress still too slow?
The mouse in our house
The arrival of the mouse jeopardized the carefree space we’d so deliberately cultivated.
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Why home organizing is my coronavirus coping tool
Faced with a pandemic, I’m sheltering in place—and finding solace in bringing order to my home.
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Why repainting my apartment was a crucial step in my healing process
I didn’t have the resources to move out of my home, but I’d finally recovered the strength to transform it
I needed help to sort a lifetime of my mother’s belongings
Moving had been a fraught subject even before my mom got sick. After her diagnosis, we found an organizer-slash-diplomat.
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Once upon a time in my Hollywood
Traces of the Hollywood I remember can still be found, if you know where to look.
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Building community in an unfamiliar place
Being a regular at a bar offers routine and a sense of civic involvement, but real relationships can only be built at home.
How your cool new fridge forces you to waste more food
Keeping food cold is a leading contributor to climate change. So why are our refrigerators bigger than ever?
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On our bedbug anniversary, we got bedbugs again
When you have bedbugs, your first impulse is to pick up and move—to a new apartment, to a ranch in Montana to start a new life—but this is the last thing you are supposed to do.
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I bought an alarm system to feel safe while living alone
I am not likely to become the victim of a home invasion crime, but what if letting my guard down just this once invites chaos into the place where I am supposed to feel at home?
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From internet friends to upstairs neighbors
My building lacks the shared spaces that newer, flashier buildings advertise as a hedge against urban isolation, but we’ve formed a community just the same.
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I lost myself within my married household. I found myself by creating my own.
I experimented with the ’70s, with farmhouse accents, with psychedelic rainbow cactus prints.
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I never thought I’d feel at home in my neighborhood—until we got The Slide
The primary-colored eyesore became a community gathering place.
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How buying a house activated all of my anxieties
Purchasing a home means phone calls—and late-night worries about gentrification.
The sculptural bookshelf practical enough for small spaces
This spine-like shelf helped my space look "design-y" without being an actual stack of books on the floor.
My dad is a real Bob the Builder
I spent my childhood observing my dad at work, but I didn’t understand everything that went into it until we began a project together.
10 favorite Personal Space essays of 2019
Finding furniture to remember a parent, growing up without a fixed address, and more.
What I learned from a year in utopias
2019 saw a flood of interest in idealized ways to live. But to what end?
I didn’t realize how much our kitchen island stools meant until I lived without them
The kitchen island represented what I desperately craved: normalcy.
My new home came with chickens
Caring for the chatty, social creatures meant I was deep in the long-term of my new life from day one.