I Turned My 700 sq. ft. Apartment Into a Boutique Hotel for One Weekend

How to reframe guests staying over as an opportunity to make your own little hotel — plus a weekend itinerary for New York City.

A Note on Being Creative at Home:

I think home should be the place we feel most creatively free. Remember what it was like to play house as a kid? How we imagined all these details about our space — even the cleaning and maintenance seemed a little magical.

Everyone is surviving in different ways. We are all trying to make an income, enjoy our lives, maintain relationships, pay bills, and take care of our health. It’s a full-time job just to be generally well. So I understand when I suggest plating your food with flair or taking on creative projects in your home — I may get an eye roll.

I argue, adamantly, that practicing things perceived as frivolous is often essential to well-being and the human experience. Delight brings hope, and we desperately need hope. How dare we believe that if something doesn’t make us money or “better” us in some metric, it is a waste of time! Don’t believe that lie.

Arrange the flowers, write the letter, set the table. We need these human signs of dignity.

After working as a creative director in a few different capacities, I ended up working from home. And while the work I was doing on the computer was creative, my hands were bored. I wasn’t challenged enough. I found myself longing to learn how to really cook, pairing plates with linens, researching home fragrance, and inviting more people over to feed than ever before.

My creative energy came alive in my home, and it became a place where my imagination was restored. I wasn’t doing anything for performance or income. I was simply arranging candles and books and putting color palettes together just for the few who came into my space to enjoy. It was restorative. And I want you to have that restoration of your creativity, especially if you’ve been burning at both ends.

✷ In the comments: I would love to hear a story of a time you stayed with someone. What impacted you about how they prepared the space? What made you feel at home and delighted?

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I Turned My 700 sq. ft. Apartment Into a Boutique Hotel for One Weekend

They told her they were going to the airport to pick me up. Then on the way, they broke the news: she would be getting on a flight to New York.

She thought she was going on a beach trip. Her bag was full of bathing suits. The bag her sister secretly packed was full of warm coats.

My brother-in-law is getting married, and during a bridesmaids’ chat about the bachelorette party, I had a crazy idea: What if we completely surprised the bride and brought her to New York City? She loves surprises, so I pitched the idea privately to the other bridesmaids. They could stay in my 700-square-foot Brooklyn apartment for free.

They loved it. We developed a plot to catch her completely off guard.

Then reality hit. Where would I fit everyone? My one-bedroom apartment is already pretty crammed. But New York hotel prices would make pulling this off less feasible, so I had to make it work.

I reframed the whole thing as a creative project: turn my tiny apartment into a boutique hotel pop-up for the weekend. Instead of stressing about logistics, I focused on joy — like the giddiness of elementary school sleepovers. My priority became: how can I delight and surprise my guests?

I wanted them to feel like this was one of the most special weekends of their lives.

Setting up the Stay:

Define the Purpose:

I always start with the purpose of the gathering (thanks, Priya Parker). In this instance, it was for the bride and her bridesmaids to bond together before the wedding and for the bride to feel like the most special girl on the planet. I wanted my guests to have the experience of feeling special, grown up, and in New York.

Determine Logistics:

The second thing to consider was determining logistics: where would they sleep? Would they be comfortable in a one-bedroom apartment? Could I make them feel like they had some privacy somehow? Consider water, shower access, fresh towels, and clean sheets.

Make a Plan for Maximum Coziness:

I decided to move my dining table and turn the living space into a big sleepover setup. I had a queen air mattress already, so I ordered a twin-size one, and put together sheets and quilts, and blankets for everyone to be extra cozy.

I love Parachute Home’s bedding, so I was delighted to get some striped sheets and the Java duvet cover to make everything extra cozy. I paired them with a quilt I already had and some extra fuzzy blankets.

I put a stool in between the two beds to serve as a little nightstand with a lamp, and I sprayed all the sheets with Dedcool’s Xtra Milk linen spray.

(I scented the sheets to be like light fluffy clouds. I told you the whimsy ramps up.)

I used every square inch! But it fit! And maximum sleepver vibes commenced.

Once I had the basics down, I moved to step two, elevating it to a boutique hotel experience.

The good news was that I didn’t have to spend a lot or do anything crazy to pull it off. It was all about thoughtful touches that anyone could include for their guests. Most of these ideas could be done with what you already have, with a little imagination!

✷ Towels

I rolled a freshly washed hotel towel on each of their pillows. That’s one less thing for guests to worry about having to ask for — I just had it already there for them!

My “hotel” is super colorful and a little mismatched, partly because that’s how I like it, and partly because I worked with what I had. I put together bedding that made them feel like they were in a whimsical boutique bed-and-breakfast situation. Since it was a girls’ trip, I leaned fully into color.

✷ Beverage

I placed a bottle of sparkling water on each pillow, so they had something fresh to drink that they could refill throughout the weekend.

✷ Luxury Soap

Then I included a bar of soap — something luxury but still practical — using the holiday pack from Soft Services.

One of the best things you can do as a host is give guests what they need before they have to ask for it.

I loved that the soaps were wrapped uniquely so each guest got their own scent!

✷ Signature Scents

Fragrance is essential to me. So, in representing my apartment as a hotel, of course, I considered what my signature scent would be for the weekend!

I used Aromatech, which was a scent product on my dream list for a really long time because they partner with hotels to make scent blends of their lobbies (dreamy). I used Noir, which smelled like a boutique hotel in Chelsea — notes of leather, wood, and musk, yet kind of sweet.

✷ Printed Magic

I also included a printed itinerary of their trip. I think it’s a kindness for guests — we all like to know what we’re doing! I went the extra step of designing the itineraries and printing them out. It was loose — I didn’t put times, but it gave everyone the same general idea of what the day would be like and built excitement.

✷ Digital Decor

I know we think of digital frames primarily as a way to share family memories, but I think we can ask even more of them. I’ve been using my chic little Aura Frame as a rotating canvas for creative projects. As the self-titled Creative Director of my apartment, the frame has become a new outlet for creative hosting.

If I’m hosting a dinner party, I can put a menu in the frame. For a themed bachelorette weekend, I put a welcome sign on it that matched the itinerary. For everyday use, I’ve added quotes and color palettes on top of displaying happy memories and some of my favorite photos. It’s like a small billboard for hosting — really adding a touch of whimsy to my events.

I love that I can constantly rotate the design out for whatever creative endeavor I am working on. The Aura Frame has a beautiful white mat around it so it looks like a real picture, and the app lets me wirelessly send images whenever an idea strikes.

Good news for readers of Feeling! — Aura is offering $40 off the full price of Aura’s Aspen Frame, with code FEELING.

I have the 12" Aspen frame in "clay"

The Itinerary

Here is a brief breakdown of the itinerary, in case you are coming to NY and want to steal it! (Or adapt to your hometown.)

Friday

• 6:00 p.m. Guests arrive at Hotel O’Brien.

• 8:00 p.m. Takeout pizza is demolished, everyone changed, and we went straight to Times Square for the true New York experience. I kept telling them that the rest of the city is not like that, but we had to go see it because two of them had never been to New York! My best advice is to avoid the Minion and Elmo people, and stop at Van Leeuwen’s for ice cream while you walk through the chaos.

• 10:30 p.m. Back at the apartment, I had the remote out so they could watch any rom-com, do face masks, and pass out whenever they were tired! Remember that after a travel day, guests are likely ready to go to bed early on the first night.

Saturday

• 9:00 a.m. My guests slept in while I prepared banana chocolate chip pancakes and a London Fog bar. A Hotel O’Brien staple, I decided.

  

• 11:00 a.m. We departed for bagels and then walked to Washington Square Park to watch the pigeons, performers, and eat our deliciously hot bagels.

• 11:30 a.m.—Dinner Time: We walked down to West Village to Do Not Feed the Alligators, one of my favorite coffee shops. I got the strawberry matcha while we strolled down Bleecker Street. We popped into Abbode to look at bridal embroidery ideas, Dossier to smell perfumes, and actually got the bride her signature scent for the wedding day!

• We walked all the way to Chinatown, to my favorite street in New York: Orchard Street. Be sure to go by Vintage Twin and Coming Soon.

• 7:00 p.m. Dinner at Jack’s Wife Frida where we all got a burger, because we were absolutely craving burgers. After dinner, we went down to Spritzenhaus to play card games outside on a picnic bench with some drinks.

  

Sunday

• Church together after grabbing lattes to go. Then brunch at Modern Bread Bagel, walked to Central Park to see the fall leaves (and have another latte). We took the train down to 5th Avenue and the girls got to see some famous flagship stores and go shopping one last time, then we went back to my apartment and they departed for the airport.

  

• It was a totally packed weekend, but they got so much time to bond, shop, and eat bagels. I did my best to pack New York into a couple of days!

Here are a few tips for extra whimsy during the hosting season:

• Make your linens smell amazing. Use a scented laundry detergent just for blankets or linens, complement with linen spray.

• Always have a backlog of ideas of things to do at home to entertain your guests—like a backlog of movies you know everyone would appreciate, puzzles, games, cookies to bake together, DIY pizza, or coloring books. Just make sure there are things you can do when there is a lull, and your guests will feel so considered in the process.

• Always leave a towel out for them with a washcloth.

• Provide them with a water bottle or carafe.

• Leave space for them to put their luggage where they can easily pack and unpack.

• Add little details that make it feel like a hotel, like printed menus, room service offerings, an itinerary, a printed Wi-Fi password, or a little note.

Here are a few tips for being an extra wonderful guest if you find yourself traveling to someone else’s home:

• Bring some ideas of activities you would be excited about so the host does not have to do all the planning and guessing. Whether that’s your own card game, a movie you want to watch, or something in their town that you want to go do or see, the host will appreciate you taking the pressure off of them by vocalizing something you’re looking forward to.

• Always put away your dishes.

• Make your bed.

• Give your host time to decompress and be considerate of their space.

• Be flexible and adaptable, and do not die on a hill for your own plans. The best guests go with the flow.

• Offer to cover dinner one night.

• Ask what you can do to be of service around the house, or even better, just notice what needs to get done, and do it without asking!

I hope that if you are hosting anyone for the holidays, you use it as an opportunity to stretch your creative muscles by both planning logistics and the whimsical details for them. I am confident you can make your home hotel absolutely amazing. If you do or have any additional tips for hosts, please share them in the comments. I am excited to share your advice with readers in a future Monday letter, so leave all the wisdom you can! Even if you have stayed at someone else’s house and they did an amazing job, I would love to know what about your experience made it so great! Let’s really study this together!

Happy hosting!

P.S. I put together all my favorite “home as a hotel” supplies here!

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