The garret was the room at the top of the house. Under the roof where the ceiling sloped and the walls angled in and you could stand up straight only in the middle. The garret was the attic that somebody moved into because the rent was cheap and the light was good and nobody bothered you because nobody wanted to climb five flights. The garret was where the artist lived because the artist could not afford the parlor floor.

The garret was hot in summer and cold in winter because the garret was one board away from the sky. The roof was right there. You could hear the rain on the shingles like it was raining on your head. You could hear the pigeons walking. You could hear the wind change direction before the people on the street felt it. The garret was the closest room to the weather and the weather was the garret's clock. The climate-controlled apartment does not know what season it is. The garret always knew.

The garret had the best light. The dormer windows faced north and the north light was steady all day because the north light never moved. The painter wanted north light because north light did not change the colors. The south light was dramatic but the south light was a liar. The north light told the truth all day long. The garret window was small but the garret window was honest. The floor-to-ceiling window in the luxury condo gets every kind of light and the light changes every hour and the painter cannot trust any of it.

The garret was the literary room. La Bohème was set in a garret. Every starving artist story started in a garret. The garret was the room where you suffered for your art because the room itself was a form of suffering. The low ceiling and the cold draft and the five flights of stairs were the price of admission to the creative life. The co-working space has good heating and an elevator and a coffee machine. The co-working space has everything except the suffering and the suffering was the point.

Nobody lives in the garret anymore. The renovation turned the garret into a master suite with a skylight and exposed beams and radiant floor heating and the rent went from cheapest in the building to most expensive. The sloped ceiling that was a hardship became a design feature. The room that housed the poet now houses the banker. The view is the same. The pigeons still walk on the roof. The wind still changes direction. But nobody hears it anymore because the skylight is double-paned and the double pane keeps everything out including the weather. The weather was the whole point.

See also: Dormer, Skylight