Share Your Space: A huge Sydney share house with a drag queen and two cats.

Mamamia's Share Your Space series asks everyday women to share all the juicy, specific details about their home. How much do you pay in rent? Who do you live with? Where did you get your furniture? It's pulling back the curtain on real estate in Australia, and allowing us to really see how the people around us live. This week, Mamamia's Editorial Assistant Shannen shares a look inside her sprawling Sydney rental.

Age: 23

Job: Editorial Assistant.

Rent: $1100 for four bedrooms, my share is $300 per week.

Location: Zetland, NSW.

Lifestyle: 

My family are serial renters. In total, I have lived in 19 houses in 23 years (no, I'm not joking). It's been a weird situation, and I have never valued a community as much as I do this tiny, quaint and quirky one. 

As someone who has quite literally lived almost everywhere in NSW (and a little bit of QLD), I know all too well how the lifestyle of an area can be hard to settle into - especially when it's not your vibe. 

So I am thankful that I absolutely love Zetland. Its weird quirks are charming, even the hoard of cats who live down a side alley. I'm a big fan of how everything is close to home. I love living with my best mates (Yahn, Mitch and Parker), our two cats Chi Chi and George, and I love having 10-15 friends all within a five minute drive, at any given moment.

I live in a home with three men who all identify as queer, and as such, we partake in a lot of innocuous activities on Oxford Street (Sydney's gay hotspot). My housemate Mitch is a drag queen when he doesn't work in marketing, and so if we're not on Oxford Street, we're in Erskineville cheering him on while he dances to Britney Spears.

Living in the city seems cool, but living just on the outskirts is the COOLEST. We love it, and we count our lucky stars every day for being able to live here!

So, take us inside:

I live in a four-bedroom townhouse with a disjointed garage and a studio living space above it. It's a very large home, with two lounge rooms, a massive dining area and a spacious yard. We refer to it as the 'Roseville Terrace' because that is literally its name, and it's the oldest house on the block. 

Living Room: 

We were slightly overwhelmed when we realised how large our living space was, and just how much work it would take to fill it. 

We did so by getting our TV mounted above the fireplace, adding a bunch of art, an antique chair my sister broke the last time she visited and an eight seater lounge from IKEA. 

The main attraction of the living room is definitely the anti-cat scratching protector on the couches. Image: Supplied.

My housemate Yahn oozes with creativity and after Mitch came home one day with a broken mannequin, Yahn decided to spray paint it and display it as art. The best part is all the housemates added their own touch to it (I painted a really sh***y butterfly), so we'd all have a little bit of ourselves on it. 

Yahn also had a broken mirror, so he decided to jump on the foam mirror trend and it completely transformed it and our space. 

My housemate Yahn made the mannequin and mirror, an art project during quarantine! Image: Supplied.

All the art is from various places - either from family, friends or Facebook Marketplace. 

There's also the entrance hallway, with some art my housemate got as a gift from family, and some red terracotta pots from Marketplace. 

We always try to have some flowers on the entrance table as well, these gorgeous ones are from LVLY's native range! 

Our shopping bags are shoved in the boxes under the entrance table. Image: Supplied.

Dining room: 

We did have a table, but when a former housemate moved out, it kind of just became a barren wasteland for all of our stuff. It's a beautiful space though, and we're just waiting on the right table to truly finish off the area.

What our dining room currently looks like VS a year ago when we had a dining table. Image: Supplied.

There's a tonne of half-finished gin bottles that we keep on our alcohol stand. We also have a number of various wines from places we've travelled to (we're all suckers for some good wine), or gifts we've gotten from friends. 

Off to the side is a bit of storage, and a small powder room. 

Kitchen:

Next stop is the kitchen. There's natural light pouring in from everywhere, so that means that while we're cooking our eggs in the morning, it gets hot as hell.

We just managed to fit our fridge in the allotted space after we took the doors off of the above cupboard (I promise the landlords didn't mind). 

Plain kitchen with all the bells and whistles we need. Image: Supplied.

Each housemate has their own cupboard for snacks and food, and the fridge is usually meticulously kept, unless we've raided it after a night out.

Overall, there's a heap of storage space and we're able to keep absolutely everything - from the three-year-old birthday candles to the dozens of pots and pans - tucked away neatly. 

Second living room and backyard:

Considering three of the four housemates are able to work from home, we took our very old dining table and made use of it as a desk and small office space. 

There's a large, UNBELIEVABLY comfortable couch right across from the TV. We usually spend our lunch breaks watching the latest episode of Ru Pauls Drag Race or Euphoria. 

We spend hours in here, TBH. Image: Supplied.

The living room backs right up on to the yard, which is probably my favourite space in the whole house. We have lots of pot plants, chairs and even an old sofa that we keep out here. 

Above is a bunch of fairy lights that set the vibe perfectly for when we have friends over, if I do say so myself. 

Our plants were babies when we moved in! Image: Supplied.

Bathrooms:

Look, they all function perfectly well (except for the time the shower nozzle somehow untwisted and blasted boiling water in my face). They're not lavish, but my housemate's shared bathroom has a tub, and that is pretty fancy... IMO. 

Two of the four bathrooms in our house. Mine is the one with the cat litter box in the corner. Image: Supplied.

It's also great, because we have a bathroom or toilet on every level, so there is no need for guests to be going where they don't need to go.

Our bedrooms: 

Mine.

I love my bedroom. It's simple but large and fits all of my things very comfortably. 

I like to call myself a cluttered minimalist - someone who doesn't own that much stuff, but has everything they do own out on display like their space is a bloody museum.

The big, luxe king sized bed was given to me by a dear cousin who moved interstate and sold it to me for pennies ($150 to be exact, which was just the cost to get it from her suburb to mine).

Tried to make my bed look presentable. Image: Supplied.

I have a lot of books. Image: Supplied.

Next to my bed, I have a side table where I keep some books, trinkets and oils (or earrings that I've thrown aside after a night out). The side table was given to me as a gift, and above is some art I got from Society6 called 'All Strippers Go To Heaven' by Miranda Lorikeet.

Plus my grandmother's jewellery box which SHE gave ME on her 60th birthday, 15 years ago. Image: Supplied.

Yahn: 

Light, bright and airy - Yahn's room is the perfect mix between eclectic and boho chic. He has spent a lot of time sourcing pieces and furniture he really loves and most of it is from thrift shops and Glebe Markets. 

Yahn's bedroom. Image: Supplied.

Except for the bed, because it used to be mine. That's definitely from IKEA, including the bedside drawers. (He stole one of them from me!)

Yahn's bedroom. Image: supplied.

He's a major plant daddy and spends most of his time outside on his balcony either reading or watering his plants

Yahn's balcony. Image: Supplied.

Parker: 

Parker's room. Image: Supplied.

Parker's room is dark and artsy, it's the perfect escape for someone seeking a bit of solitude. A lot of the art on the wall is of his own making. He has quite a small window, but it lets in a great amount of light most of the day! 

Mitch: 

Mitch's room is the only one separate from the house, and it is above the garage with a bathroom and kitchenette.

Extremely white and green, Mitch went for a dramatic approach when decorating his room. He is a self-described clean freak and enjoys having his room be a reflection of him - clean! Always! Never a thing out of place! 

Mitch's bedroom. Image: Supplied.

His room is also where the second cat lives, because unfortunately our children do not get along so they have to be kept separate at all times (I have the scars to prove it).

Most of his furniture is from IKEA, and the plants are from Bunnings! He would definitely appreciate if I noted that his linens are from Sheridan.

Final thoughts: 

I really love our place, and everyone who visits it appreciates it as well. Of course, our home isn't perfect. It's a quirky, magical culmination of things that manages to stuff four gigantic personalities into it - and I wouldn't have it any other way! 

To see more of our home, follow our socials: Shannen, Yahn, Mitch and Parker. 

Feature Image: Supplied.