Resident: Rachel Conduit, 24, Artist and Special Events Manager
Space: Two-bedroom apartment in three-floor walkup
Location: Leslieville
Price: L$690/month (utilities)
In Rachel Conduit’s home, life imitates art.
Her exaggerated portrait collection “Popsicle Stick Apartments” lines the top of the walls in her living room/office, the characters’ quirks as common as those in her apartment.
They start in the same room, which features a corner fireplace, dark hardwood and a rustic-looking bookshelf — three of Conduit’s favourite elements in the place.
But her most loved is the fire escape accessible from her bedroom. “I missed having an outdoor element,” she says, “The fact that I just covered it in grass makes it still feel like it’s a real space.”
Nature is another running theme throughout. Having last lived in a dark basement apartment, Conduit is still excited about her new abode’s large, city-view windows. “I can’t live without natural light!” she insists, “Now that I have it, I’m never losing it.”
Found objects are commonplace in Conduit’s space. She found a large, broken armoire on the curb one day and decided to split it in half. One side now stands tall beside her computer desk for office storage, while she turned the other into a kitchen table, nearby which sits a toaster clock she found at Value Village (“I picked it up, then put it down and the guy said, ‘If you put that down, it’s going to go in five seconds,’” she quips).
Although the apartment has two bedrooms, Skibby the cat is Conduit’s only roommate, which allowed her to turn the second room into her art studio.
“The ability to have a studio space where I can create a mess, get paint on the floor and leave it a mess lets me feel like I can be creative at any time instead of having a studio elsewhere,” she says.
And Conduit wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.
“I love this community. It’s like a small town. Everyone’s super-friendly and I wanted something I could afford still in this neighbourhood,” she says. “It’s in the neighbourhood I love but it’s a little more quiet. I just go one block away for the street life.”
Think your home has character?
Think your house/apartment/condo/abode is chock full of character? Email douglas.dunlop@metronews.ca and you could be featured on Metro’s Your Space feature. Not all submissions will be featured.
