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Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

gregkroleski.com

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Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#81

Post by ljk »

greg-kroleski wrote: post #55
tinbad wrote: post #14

Growing up in communist Russia, 400sq. feet apartment would be the luxury option for 2 or 3 families with multiple children each. No joke, my parents lived with their siblings and parents (and sometimes grandparents) in the same apartment even after everyone had children of their own. Somehow we still managed to occasionally have 20 more people over for birthday celebrations and cook all the accompanying excessive am…

Author here. As we lived in that apartment I constantly reminded myself that compared to all families from around the world and across time, we had a luxurious life. Clean water, climate control, safety, food 3 times a day, etc. We definitely had company over, often gatherings of 10-12 people and one time we had 5 overnight guests (that was a bit crazy but fun).

Very helpful read! Even for someone who doesn't have a lack of space, all the lessons are still relevant and definitely made me think about my living spaces.

Also, in the sentence about the coffee table (seen two photos up), shouldn't that be "second photo from the top"? Unless I misunderstood and tried to find a coffee table in the photo with the surfboards/piano

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#82

Post by greg-kroleski »

ljk wrote: post #81
greg-kroleski wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. As we lived in that apartment I constantly reminded myself that compared to all families from around the world and across time, we had a luxurious life. Clean water, climate control, safety, food 3 times a day, etc. We definitely had company over, often gatherings of 10-12 people and one time we had 5 overnight guests (that was a bit crazy but fun).

Very helpful read! Even for someone who doesn't have a lack of space, all the lessons are still relevant and definitely made me think about my living spaces. Also, in the sentence about the coffee table (seen two photos up), shouldn't that be "second photo from the top"? Unless I misunderstood and tried to find a coffee table in the photo with the surfboards/piano

Will check, thanks. I shuffled things some during editing and might have missed that.

Edit: it was in the picture with the surfboards. It is the blue trunk in the lower left. Coffee table/trunk/changing table

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#83

Post by joepvd »

greg-kroleski wrote: post #58
ChuckMcM wrote: post #38

I really like the insight about density. I temporarily changed my living situation from a 4 bedroom house where my kids had moved out, to a 2 br apartment and I recognized the density issue but had not conceptualized it so clearly as the author did.

One of my favorite parts about living in constraints is it forces me to build new mental models.

Thanks for writing your experiences down so precise and readable. While reading, I had to think multiple times abouts the movie The Five Constraints[0], where a profound link is made between restrictions and a boost in creativity and new thoughts.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Obstructions

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#84

Post by ljk »

greg-kroleski wrote: post #82
ljk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very helpful read! Even for someone who doesn't have a lack of space, all the lessons are still relevant and definitely made me think about my living spaces. Also, in the sentence about the coffee table (seen two photos up), shouldn't that be "second photo from the top"? Unless I misunderstood and tried to find a coffee table in the photo with the surfboards/piano

Will check, thanks. I shuffled things some during editing and might have missed that. Edit: it was in the picture with the surfboards. It is the blue trunk in the lower left. Coffee table/trunk/changing table

Thanks for replying! I see now I was looking at the coffee table in the old "bachelor setup"

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#85

Post by Turing_Machine »

goodJobWalrus wrote: post #79
Turing_Machine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I bet you'd be surprised to hear that in some countries people actually prefer to live in apartments to houses." One sniff test for the credibility of this is to look at what rich people do. No matter where you go, the wealthy tend to have large country estates. Sure, they may have a luxury apartment in town as well, but where do they spend their leisure time? Bingo.

I wasn't referring to rich people. They have a whole different set of requirements. Also, they typically don't have to clean their own mansion, of take care of the pesky chores around the house.

Well, they're the ones who are free to choose anything.

Someone who is forced to live in a tiny apartment because they can't afford anything better isn't really making a free choice, even if they rationalize it by claiming that it is.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#86

Post by goodJobWalrus »

goodJobWalrus wrote: post #79
Turing_Machine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I bet you'd be surprised to hear that in some countries people actually prefer to live in apartments to houses." One sniff test for the credibility of this is to look at what rich people do. No matter where you go, the wealthy tend to have large country estates. Sure, they may have a luxury apartment in town as well, but where do they spend their leisure time? Bingo.

I wasn't referring to rich people. They have a whole different set of requirements. Also, they typically don't have to clean their own mansion, of take care of the pesky chores around the house.

> Someone who is forced to live in a tiny apartment because they can't afford anything better isn't really making a free choice, even if they rationalize it by claiming that it is.

Of course, but I wasn't referring to those people. I was talking about the people who prefer to live in apartments, like, for example, my parents who moved from a house (that was actually in a great location) to an apartment by choice (in a worse location, and some years after that in another apt in a better location). Now they live in a house again (not by choice), but keep their city apartment. And my mom keeps telling me how she hates the house, and can't wait to move back to the city apartment :)

and she even has a housekeeper so it's not like she has to do the whole work around the house by herself. This is why I say it's really deeply culturally embedded. You are not able to step out of your cultural conditioning and imagine that there are people who really truly prefer to live in apartment.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#87

Post by charlesdm »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #59
sawthat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone keeps asking this question. The answer: they are hiring remote workers. But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs?

> But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs? You could look at the growing number of layoffs at post-seed stage companies[1]. Or you could look at startups that voluntarily publish financial information. Take, for example, this one[2], which, as of June, was spending $525,000/month on payroll (equating to an all-in cost of $146,000/year per…

He said tech companies, not startups.

For tech companies, it doesn't really matter. They have unlimited money (relative to the cost of an employee). For startups, it does.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#88

Post by philh »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #62
philh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and... Netherlands is number 30. Admittedly most of the others are a lot smaller, but Bangladesh and South Korea are a lot bigger. San Fran is also denser than the Netherlands, and AFAICS denser than any Dutch city (comparable with The Hague).

Just compare the US to other developed countries (e.g. the vast majority of Europe), high-density living (like SF) is pretty much the standard, that's really his point. [0] On population density maps the US as a whole is more akin to Australia. [1] Beyond that, I always wonder about population density figures, afaik there is no standardised process for these calculations. You may think 'well it doesn't get much simpl…

I take your point that floor space per person is probably a better metric than population density.

That said,

> high-density living (like SF) is pretty much the standard

I don't believe this. Yes, there are denser cities than San Fran, and yes, San Fran probably has more floor space per square mile than most European cities. Still, my default guess is that people living in San Fran have less floor space per person than average, for most reasonable choices of population to average over.

If you have statistics that show otherwise (don't have time to look currently), I'll gladly admit that I was wrong.

It's also not really relevant what the U.S. As a whole looks like.

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#89

Post by hluska »

This is off topic, but in March 2016, I'll become a dad for the first time and I was wondering if some more experienced parents could answer a question for me.

That article has a black board with a tally of diapers changed today. The count was up to thirty. Is that somewhat accurate/possible???

If so, holy shit, I'm investing in cloth....

Re: Life in a Studio Apartment with My Wife and Two Sons

#90

Post by raycmorgan »

hluska wrote: post #89

This is off topic, but in March 2016, I'll become a dad for the first time and I was wondering if some more experienced parents could answer a question for me. That article has a black board with a tally of diapers changed today. The count was up to thirty. Is that somewhat accurate/possible??? If so, holy shit, I'm investing in cloth....

My 3 month old goes through about 5-8 and my 2 year old 1-4 a day depending if he uses the potty or not.
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