When Crissy Spivey bought herself a large one-bedroom, one-bath co-op in Brooklyn's Ditmas Park neighborhood in 2018, she had all the space she needed. Shortly before she closed, she met John Richie, who had just moved to New York from New Orleans. Before long, he joined her in the apartment. The following year, the couple's daughter was born and they transformed the place into a two-bedroom with a small office.
Given the unaffordable prices of a standalone house in Randwick, a vibrant suburb in the city's east, they opted to renovate a sunroom. We had to take a creative approach and create a flexible third bedroom, Henderson says. Otherwise we would need to move away from here, and we'd be moving further away from jobs, further away from work and schools. The compromise we came up with was to remain where we were, but create a third space.