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Everything that’s not in Charlotte Parker’s 350-square-foot Brooklyn studio is just as important as what is. Over the past four years of living in the Williamsburg apartment, she’s had to make some tough choices. Beloved pieces that she showed up with on move-in day, like a pair of pillow-topped ottomans cloaked in Oscar de la Renta fabric and a bouclé Miles Talbott armchair, eventually found their way to her parents’ basement in Morristown, New Jersey. “I’ve learned that just because you love something it doesn’t always mean it’s going to work within your footprint,” says Parker. “It’s what you don’t add that makes a space its best.”
Being in the design industry also helped her discern what to keep and what to (temporarily) let go. Parker has long held PR and marketing roles in the homewares world, working for brands like One Kings Lane and, most recently, window treatment purveyor Hunter Douglas. She’s the type of person who goes to show houses on the weekend just for fun and, on the side, runs a Substack called Charlotte’s Web that’s dedicated to all things decorating. If anyone could make 350 square feet feel neat, full of character, and elevated all at the same time, she had the best odds.
Parker had another thing going for her when she moved into her studio back in December 2021: she was already a resident of the building. For two years, she lived in a two-bedroom space with a roommate, so she knew the units came with a lot of perks. For starters, the galley kitchen primarily consists of drawers—a storage game-changer in a small space. The coat closet off the entryway and the clothing closet in the sleeping area are generously sized and the medicine cabinet in the bathroom is “one of the biggest I’ve seen in all of New York City,” says Parker.
The only downside was inherent: the living, dining, and bedroom are all technically one space. While Parker has tweaked the room’s layout over the years, the one piece of furniture that’s remained at the heart of the apartment is the circa-2000 sofa she inherited from her parents. From there, she went on a long search for a sturdy coffee table that could double as a soft spot to rest her feet, eventually landing on Interior Define’s Maxwell Ottoman. The mod round dining table—perfect for two—was a Facebook Marketplace score. The woven rug from Rush House is crafted from individual tiles, making it look like it was custom-cut for the studio.
Perhaps her most crucial purchase was the TV credenza. IKEA’s popular Besta cabinet was the perfect depth. But before Parker attached the particleboard units to the wall, she decided to give them a fresh paint job—err, technically, two paint jobs—using Benjamin Moore’s Clydesdale Brown. “They told me at the paint store all I needed was this one primer, that I didn’t need to sand it,” recalls Parker. It sounded simple enough to her. “But then after I painted it all, it immediately scratched off,” she continues. “It was definitely a lesson in patience.”
Parker had long loved the look of a canopy bed but buying one was out of her budget. Instead she decided to emulate the look by mounting two ceiling curtain tracks perpendicular to each other. One treatment covers the window, the other is tucked in between the mattress and the sofa. Parker ordered nine-foot-long panels through Carole Fabrics, a Hunter Douglas partner brand, and locked in on Only Linen drapes in the color Pearl with thick Hydra lining. “I knew I needed something that had some heft to it. I didn’t want it to be too flowy or too sheer,” she explains. Really, she wanted it to almost act as a wall, which is why she chose a ripple fold over a more traditional pleat. “It felt less curtain-like,” she says. The smart arrangement resulted in a cozy sleeping corner and a semi-private entertaining area.
When she’s not at the office or at home, you can probably find Parker at a vintage shop. She went to France four times in one year, each trip making a point to go antiquing at Les Pouces de Saint-Ouen—that’s how serious she is about the hunt. Though, most weekends, she sticks to local favorites like Humble House where she picked up her Heywood-Wakefield dresser after seeing it pop up for sale on the shop’s Instagram page. She was immediately overcome with nostalgia. “Growing up, we had a bunch of Heywood-Wakefield pieces, including a full bedroom set,” she says. “I had my eye on something tall and slender and it felt like the perfect piece.”
The skinny floor lamp next to the bed was another Humble House steal that barely fit in the cab ride home, while the light on her kitchen counter technically started as a candlestick holder. Parker had her handy dad rig it up with wiring so she could top it with a shade from Fox Object.
There’s no gatekeeping here—Parker uses her newsletter to reveal all her shopping secrets, including her go-to Etsy vendors and how she personally navigates thrift stores to find the best stuff. The only hard part, as the small space-dweller well knows, is weeding out the things that simply won’t fit.
