While Sampson Dahl’s ex-girlfriend thought the old laundromat he was considering as a potential new apartment was “disgusting,” he saw the potential for a great live-work space. He moved in a month later.
“I don’t think a space needs to be a perfect representation of what we hope a simple mind looks like,” Dahl tells CNBC Make It. “I think a space should be an imperfect representation of the people who are in it at that moment in their lives.”
The 27-year-old production designer is no stranger to living in commercial spaces; he used to live in a warehouse in Chicago, so he knew going into his apartment hunt that he wanted to repeat that experience.
“I like the freedom of a commercial space, even though there are definitely fewer tenant rights,” he said. “Something feels more ethical about moving into a vacant storefront that’s been empty for years than taking up an apartment in some residential neighborhood that you’re not familiar with.”
Dahl found the former laundromat in Maspeth, Queens, on an online forum in 2019. A former tenant added a small kitchen that gives Dahl enough space to have a sink, stovetop, and toaster oven. The laundromat hasn’t been in working order since 2005.
When he first moved in March 2019, the rent was $1750, and he paid two months’ rent up front and an $875 security deposit. In 2021, his rent went up to $1850, and on average, he pays $120 for electricity and $60 for the internet.
Dahl is in production design, and one of the perks of the job is access to a lot of free furniture after the projects are done, so he’s used that to decorate the space.
“This space enables some [my] hoarding tendencies, but I try to be as decorative with it as possible,” Dahl says. “While most of the stuff is technically trash, and a lot of it was free, I try to curate it in the way that is most comfy to me.”
For Dahl, his favorite part of living in the former laundromat is the sense of community he gets from his neighbors because it reminds him of his childhood. The…
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