When I moved to London, me and my great friends Tom and Matt decided to live together in an incredibly suspect split-level flat covered in pink velvet furniture, cockroaches and dead maggots in a drawer that the landlord (who would let himself in to read his mail) told me were 'dried bits of rice'. Tom lived in the living room, next to the kitchen which was especially difficult when we had an ant infestation and he would wake up covered in ants. Then Tom and I moved into a place that was even smaller and both of us lived on the kitchen floor for a period of time because we had clearly lost all sense of perspective.
Both times, though, Tom managed to make the living room look at least vaguely bedroom-like while still retaining its function as an essentially communal space. You just have to be savvy and smart and cool about it. I rang him up the other day to find out what he'd learned, and how you can go about saving money by living in the living room (a two person flat, but with three people guys!) without wanting to strangle both yourself and the entire world...
Don't panic-rent
When other-housemate-Matt went on tour (he's an excellent actor) and our landlord pushed the rent up, me and Tom moved in to our second flat in another area of the city. I didn't look around it before moving in as I was away, but Tom basically panicked and sort of convinced himself he'd live in the living room and it'd be fine. It wasn't. It was so small I had to basically walk over him to go to the loo, the oven once exploded next to his face, he once woke up with the rain coming through the ceiling, and he'd slide all over the floor so would regularly find himself underneath the kitchen table. Do not rent somewhere like this. 'I panicked because we had nowhere to live, and the terrifying thing is that I'm not sure I wouldn't do it again,' Tom says. 'Finding a flat is hard and it was between that and a flat where you shared a bathroom with ten people. Recently thought I'd found the perfect flat until it turned out that a man called Andreas wanted to live in the bedroom with me. It's hard not to panic, but it's worse if you make a mistake like we did in Finsbury Park [the hellish second flat]'
Pay less rent
I mean that's just obvious. I can't remember if we did this with Tom but the fact he said on the phone to me just then that all bills were included (they weren't) makes me think we let him off paying the bills because he lived in the living room for god's sake. We probably should have knocked his rent down too but apparently we were arseholes.
Don't do it if you're having a bad time
When Tom lived under the kitchen table, the deal was I'd swap with him in the summer, which coincided, handily, with breaking up with my boyfriend. So at aged 24 I was single and living under a table. I was also a waitress and all my wages went on rent because we paid £45o each for the pleasure of waking up covered in water next to the oven having slid halfway across the room. 'Every morning I rolled up my sleeping bag and put it behind the sofa, which was too small to sleep on,' Tom remembers. 'It was quite sad.' I can attest to also being quite sad, and smoking roughly 40 a day to numb the pain. Don't sign a contract to live in a tiny living room/kitchen area if you're already poor and sad because it will make you want to die. I vividly remember having a horrible conversation with my ex on the phone, going outside to the weird bamboo-fenced coffin that was sold as a 'yard' to have a cry and returning back to sleep on the floor. In the middle of the night I woke up and a snail was crawling across my forehead - after having crawled onto me while I was outside - and I think I cried for about four hours.
Make sure it fits the bedroom criteria
If it's a good living room, it'll probably make a bad bedroom. So pick a bad living room. 'You need to check that it has separate access and isn't a thoroughfare. Dining room tables that fold up are a plus, a sofa bed is ideal and check there's somewhere to store your clothes - I used a chest of drawers that made the living room look quite decorative. I think I put a watch and a lamp on it,' Tom remembers. Oh, and make sure there's adequate ventilation because 'the living room is often where people eat so you end up with a room that smells like curry'. On top of this, it's important to ensure that there aren't interior windows facing in from other areas of the house. In our first flat, there was one looking in from the kitchen which we boarded up because privacy is important. There was also a big hole in the wall looking in from the kitchen which we didn't board up because it was really useful for, like, passing food through canteen-style, but in retrospect we bloody should have done.
Delineate the space
You need to separate the room with something otherwise it'll drive you slightly insane. In the first flat, Tom bought a shelving unit off Gumtree and put it together using a saucepan instead of a hammer because we were young and free and only had a saucepan and three plates in the entire flat. 'You then need to put stuff on it so people can't see through - you [he's referring to me, Stevie**] stole a free standing sign for a shoe sale from a bin which worked well as a free standing poster frame, but just put any tat you've got lying around on there,' he says. 'I also had a shelf entirely dedicated to colourful shoes.' Also, different flooring works too; stick a colourful rug in your bedroom section to make a living room really scream 'two separate rooms, thanks' and Tom also decorated his bed to make it look less weird. 'We found a big bit of brown carpet and then Matt had some kind of South African shawl I used as a valance around the base of a bed.' I mean, that sounds way weirder than it looked.
Decorate your half with artwork
Can't afford artwork? Of course you can't because you're living in the goddamn living room. 'Get frames from charity shops and buy some second hand books from those 5 for 50p stores to make collages. I bought funny annuals from the 1950s that were slightly racist and misogynistic as well as odd illustrated short stories called things like "Fanny loses her cake"' he says. Or you can make collages out of normal things that don't involve Fanny losing her cake. You get the idea.
Really keep on top of pests
As previously mentioned, Tom once woke up with ants crawling across his bed because he lived next to the kitchen and I once woke up with a snail on my face. Because you're near the food, and the general place that pests gravitate towards, it's important to make sure you deal with them properly and not like me and Tom. 'When we had ants, we used to just spray them with antibacterial spray everytime we saw them rather than buying some ant spray like normal people,' Tom says. I'm convinced he tried to block up the hole with expanding shaving foam, but he can neither confirm nor deny this. Either way, the cockroach infestation had to be dealt with stat because there's nothing worse than lying in bed knowing there are cockroaches in the next room just by your head.
Have set rules
'The worst part of living in the living room was when people would come round who I didn't know, because they were your friends, and I'd have to explain that I live in the living room,' he says. 'It's fine during house parties though - I'd just go and sleep in your bed if I was tired.' Have a rule where you're allowed to crash in another person's room if your room is full of guests, because that's only fair. Secondly, have a rule where if the door is shut, it means you don't want to be disturbed. I'd come in late and if the door was shut I'd never go into the living room, because it's really important to have some privacy if you're living in what is essentially a communal area. There was also a window going from the kitchen to the living room, which we made sure was covered up at all times.
Like this? You might also be interested in...
Things To Buy If You're Struggling To Live Between Your House And Your Boyfriend's
How To Move Out Of A Shared Flat Without Causing Loads Of Drama
Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
Picture: Lukasz Wierzbowski
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.