Apartment Tour: This Renter Completely Transformed Her 450-Square Foot Back Bay Studio

Claire O’Brien, 28, recently celebrated her sixth anniversary of moving to Boston. She had always aspired to move there, being an avid Boston sports fan thanks to family ties to the city. “I knew once high school was over that I was going to get myself to Boston, or at least as close as I could,” O’Brien says. She made that dream a reality by attending college in the area. Then, upon graduating, she found a sublet in nearby Allston as soon as she could.   

As her time in Boston progressed, she discovered that she had a new goal: To live in the center of the city. It took her years to inch closer, as she moved from Allston to Brookline, and finally, to the Back Bay studio where she now resides.  

When she moved into this space in 2022, her love for the neighborhood and living alone was instant. “I have not looked back since,” she says. But the 450 square-foot apartment? It needed a little love. The previous tenant had left behind a sea of stuff, and the older finishes in the studio didn’t quite match O’Brien’s vision. Transforming the apartment took a little elbow grease and TLC, but now O’Brien finally has her haven in the city.  

In this studio apartment tour, she shows us every section of her space, talking through its DIY interior design journey from a cluttered fixer-upper to a site for comfort and connection with others.  

O’Brien’s apartment has a classic studio layout with the bed visible from every corner of the room, and she soon realized she had to embrace that fact. She decided to leverage the old, nonfunctional fireplace in the space and use it as a backdrop for her bed.  

She uses the mantel as a built-in bookshelf to display a rainbow of books (electing not to take up precious floor space with a bookshelf). Above the books, she hung a Thomas McKnight painting of the Boston Public Garden. “My grandma found this painting when I got my first apartment in Boston,” she says. “I look at that painting and see how far I’ve come in this city in the past six years.” She displays these colorful details to offset the neutrals of the bed itself. 

The sleeping area is O’Brien’s favorite part of the space. “I love that I can see my whole place from the bed, and it makes me appreciate how far it has come since I moved in and had no idea how I was going to work with this studio.” 

At first glance, O’Brien noticed two things about the kitchen in her Boston apartment. One was good: The area had different flooring, which created natural separation from the rest of the apartment. The other, not so much: There was almost no counter space — a common issue in small apartments. One hack, she discovered, could optimize that natural separation and afford her more counter space: Find a kitchen island. 

After buying one on Wayfair, she went back and forth about adding a bar cart. Opting again to use vertical space instead of precious floor space, she decided on wall-mounted bar shelving instead. “It was also a way to decorate the walls with something other than art,” she says. 

O’Brien says the kitchen is a work in progress. Soon, she hopes to change out the hardware on the cupboards and find an emerald green or blue backsplash to brighten up the whole area and jive with the gold accents she’s included throughout the apartment.  

The biggest challenge in a studio for many renters is how multi-use many of the spaces are. For O’Brien, the living area, which includes the couch, TV, and her desk, is the part of the studio that plays the most roles. She’s a remote worker, exercises in her apartment, and entertains friends as often as she can.  

Making the living space welcoming was also of the utmost importance to O’Brien; her parents had set an example by being incredible hosts to family, friends, and neighbors. “Right when people walked in [to our house], it felt like home,” she says. “I hope that when people come into my apartment that they feel that same way.” 

To create coziness and separation for the living area, she used the area rug and couch to orient the space. She relies on the rug to help her make color decisions. “I wanted it to have some color but also be subtle enough for a studio apartment,” she says. It inspired her to reach for green and rust colors, which she’s implemented throughout the apartment.  

“When I first moved into this apartment, the bathroom was a complete mess,” says O’Brien. “The light fixture and mirror were falling apart, and it reminded me of a college dorm bathroom.” Today, it’s a cozy space for self-care.  

To redo the bathroom, O’Brien replaced the rusty silver curtain rod with a gold rod and hangers and used peel-and-stick gold trim to accent the perimeter of the tile.  

“I feel like a bathroom should connect with the rest of the apartment but have its own personality, and it’s something you can really have fun with because you and your guests aren’t necessarily seeing it all the time,” she explains. “I want to dress it up a bit more, but I am really happy with how far it has come.” 

Although transforming her small home has been a lot of work, O’Brien is learning to take her time and enjoy the ongoing journey of cultivating the space instead of wishing it was a finished product. “I appreciate the slowness of the process now, and that I can’t change everything all at once,” she says. The apartment is important to her, and it’s worth nurturing despite being a rental; besides, although it’s a temporary space, it’s the backdrop for memories she’ll cherish forever. 

Want more inspiration for transforming your space? Check out this New York City apartment tour.