Unless you've been living under a rock, you know how there's been a housing crunch going on the last few years, and it's just gotten worse during this last year of COVID. Developers are building more and more units that deviate from the long-time standard of separate rooms for kitchen, living room, and bedroom, instead offering single rooms that do it all at the same time. Here, I'll explore the pros and cons of living in a studio.
Pro - Cost
The biggest pro is cost: studio apartments are almost always cheaper than 1BR units. Saving money and being fiscally responsible can save you a lot of stress-- if you lose your job, it will be easier to keep paying rent until you find a new position. You might even be able to have a lot more disposable income, to take vacations and spend more time with friends. And with a minimal kitchen, you'll have more money you can use to eat out rather than cooking.
Even if it's just by $100, when you factor in utilities, food, and all the other monthly expenses, that $100 can make a big difference in whether a person can afford to live on their own, rather than compromising and remaining with family or sharing with roommates. If you're early in your career and want to save the money, it might be the most sensible choice. You can always upgrade if you don't like it, once your lease is up.
Pro - Snug As a Bug
Another pro is coziness: small equals snug, which-- if done right-- can also equal a warm, welcoming, even fun space. There's something romantic about the idea of a modern-day artist's garret, where self-denial is considered a worthy sacrifice for the sake of one's passion.
Your passion doesn't have to be landscapes in oil or granite sculptures or operatic works about languishing consumptives; it can be the dream of home ownership made more accessible with the fat down payment you can hand over because you didn't pay top dollar for rent.
It can be a fancier wedding than a quick hop to town hall to be married by the mayor; it can be attending college or graduate school without acquiring crippling student loans. It can even be a sabbatical of backpacking around Europe or biking through South America or hiking Mount Everest.
Pro - Mental Health
This is also a con, as you'll see below. But having less space means there's less storage to fill up with stuff you don't really need and rarely-- if ever-- use. Unless you want to be a crazy hoarder-type person, if you have nowhere to store single-use kitchen gadgets and equipment for sports or musical instruments you no longer play, you can't keep them-- out they go.
This simplicity and efficiency not only leads to more money-in-pocket (rather than handed over to stores in buying all this useless crap) but an easier life. Less to clean, less to have to move and work around, and if you're a lazy person, less walking back and forth required. For many people, there's something calming about having what they need and nothing more or less. It helps break a person free of the lie that things will make them happy.
If you're an introvert, you might find that a small home forces you out of your comfort zone and actually gets you out more. You might find yourself rarely at home, always out doing something, meeting people, having new experiences you wouldn't if you'd remained at home in front of the TV with a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos turning your lips orange.
All of this sounds great, doesn't it? But there are definite cons to living in a studio apartment, too. I've personally lived in a studio and did not find it a pleasant experience. In my case, it wasn't to save money so much as because I had no money to save-- I could barely afford the studio, let alone something more posh. I came to view the place with resentment, simply because I had no choice but to live there (or else in my car).
Con - Lack of Variety
I found it was wearing to live my entire life in a single room. It's all the same place, all the time, with little to no change of scenery. And if you work from home, you literally spend your entire life in a single room, which was depressing to me. It's the same view out the same windows every day; the same walls with the same art on them, the same curtains, same furniture, without relief.
In this age of quarantine and isolation because of COVID, many of us are living our lives almost exclusively at home. No more are we getting reprieves from our limited spaces by going to work, restaurants, sporting and musical events, etc. Even just regular shopping is happening more and more via remote ordering (internet, mostly) so popping out to the store for milk and eggs (or wine and condoms, IDK your life) is no longer a viable excuse for a change of scenery.
Con - Lack of Space
Just as lack of space means you can't have as many things, as discussed in the 'pros' above... if that enforced minimalism isn't for you, it can create stress. Want rollerblades to go around the park... where do you put them? Want to cook a nice dinner? It takes twice as long, with no counter space and only two small burners. Finding clothes is a pain, because everything is packed so tightly or hidden away under the bed or behind the sofa. Camping gear? Not a chance, unless you pay for a separate storage unit elsewhere, and there goes a chunk of whatever you might be saving by choosing a studio over a regular apartment.
With the new working-from-home paradigm, too, many of us are now having to create a full-fledged workspace, needing a desk and chair and some way of rendering the wall behind us professional enough for Zoom meetings. If you can't eke out the snippet of space needed for a WFH setup because you don't have even an inch to spare, it becomes an intolerable situation where you have to make some hard choices about what to give up and do without in order to accommodate your new needs.
Con - No Privacy
There's no privacy when people come over. Everyone gets to see everything, so you're forced to either keep everything tidy all the time, or let people know you're a slob: no more hiding the overflowing laundry basket behind a closed door. And no pretending the meal you cooked was an effortless display of your culinary acumen, because the wrecked kitchen shows that to be a filthy lie.
Con - Smells, Smells, Everywhere
Odors in one part of the room will permeate the rest of it. That burnt toast will be with you all day. Last week's garlic shrimp? Still there. And there's no escaping the cat box you should have cleaned yesterday but didn't.
Why do these stinks linger so persistently? Mostly because grease and particulates from cooking floats, mist-like, throughout the space to land on your upholstery, bedding, curtains... everything. Similarly, dust from the litter box rises up to meander around until settling on your pillow, your dishes, etc. Have fun inhaling Fluffy's giardia infection! Just tell yourself it's creating emotional intimacy between the two of you.
It sounds pretty great and also pretty awful at the same time.
Yes. But there are some compromises and middle ground to be found that can move the balance in one direction or the other.
Quasi-separated Rooms
A lot of newer apartments have open one bedrooms (sometimes called 'urban one bedrooms'). These have a separate sleeping area, but it usually is a little alcove with no door or windows-- sort of like the short leg of an L. Others might have a floating wall sectioning off part of the room, providing a bit of separation and privacy without entirely closing it off from the main area. They're usually cheaper than a true one bedroom, but more spacious and costly than a studio.
Location, Location, Location
Location matters a lot. Urban areas, where it's quick and easy to leave your home and get to what you need or want, can make a studio apartment more livable. Cooking's a drag because the kitchen sucks? There are a dozen restaurants within a 10-minute walk. Bored? There's a movie theater, nightclub, comic book store, and 47 coffee shops within two blocks. And even if there are places you want to visit but are further away, odds are there's an excellent public transit system standing ready to schlep you there.
In less urban areas, however, there's often fewer interesting things to do, unless you like strip plazas, mini-golf, and malls. Those tend to lose their sparkle after the first few hundred times. There's only so many Hallmark and Payless and Dollar Tree stores you can visit before the bloom's off the rose.
Not only that, but these places are typically more distant from your home and each other, and public transit usually isn't as available. Going somewhere can become a half-hour drive or longer, which means you need a car, and those are expensive... thus eating into what you save in rent.
Conclusion
Only you can decide if what you gain out-balances what you lose, in choosing a studio. For me, the answer is 'no'. I find it more stressful than saving the money is worth. For you? Perhaps the warm glow of knowing you're saving a fortune makes it all worthwhile. I hope this post has helped you to know what you could be getting into, and deciding what is best for you.
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