Alone, Together

At the Art Institute of Chicago, visitors peer through glass panels into the Thorne Miniature Rooms. Behind the glass sit shoebox-sized replicas of Cape Cod living rooms and Tudor manors, complete with real crystal chandeliers. The craftsmanship invites viewers to imagine life inside. But the rooms, meticulously dusted with tiny paintbrushes, are missing something. There are no jackets tossed lazily across the couch, no half-finished glasses of water, no crumbs left on the counter. They’re missing the people who would live within them.

Other projects have offered windows into the home by centering the people who live there. The New Yorker’s short documentary “The Candy Factory” highlighted artists sharing space in one building, and photographer Peter Menzel’s book “Material World” looked at families around the globe. But as a renter myself, I’ve always felt these projects miss one key group: roommates. This piece offers a window into their lives, to uncover the needs of this growing group and how brands can better serve them.

As housing prices rise, the face of the roommate has changed.

Roommatehood is no longer reserved for college students and recent grads. Today, roommates range in age from 18 to 80-plus, bringing varied ways of living into the home. The number of households with roommates has risen more than 20% in the past decade.

While it offers affordability, living with roommates comes with a challenge: creating a home with people who may have different ideas of what that means. According to a 2024 report from IKEA, roommates have the hardest time finding enjoyment at home, with 60% saying they experience it only sometimes, rarely, or never. That’s a clear gap, one that brands can fill. Yet most brands rooted in the home design for households with deeply intertwined lifestyles, not for near-strangers with separate lives.

And many roommates really do begin as strangers. While families and couples negotiate what they need from home privately and informally, prospective roommates often start by searching listings on platforms like Craigslist and Facebook. These posts reveal what usually stays behind four walls—how residents use the common areas, how they handle conflict, and how to navigate their cat’s idiosyncrasies. The details are candid and vulnerable because the stakes are high. Make the wrong choice, and you’ll feel it for the length of a lease.

I wondered: What could brands learn from these listings to help make shared living feel more like home?

To find out, I used roommate listings as a form of digital ethnography. I analyzed 50 listings per city in Richmond, VA; New York, NY; and Portland, OR—all cities where I’ve searched for roommates myself.

Across listings, a spectrum emerged.

At one end, The BFF—pulling toward belonging. At the other end, The Ghost—pulling toward independence.

For BFFs, roommates are there for the ups, the downs, and the lulls in life. One listing described the dynamic this way: “Four women who genuinely enjoy sharing coffee, meals, life milestones, and hot-goss. We give will pick you up from a medical procedure in Manhattan energy.” For them, roommates shape daily life, fostering unplanned time with others.

Ghosts are more reserved, preferring to go about their lives individually. “People spend most of their time in their own rooms or out and about,” one listing said. “We are like a modern version of a friendly, old-fashioned boarding house. It is a VERY quiet household. We use headphones.” Here, roommates are a financial necessity, not built-in friends.

But often, roommates fall somewhere in the middle, depending on the time, day, and circumstances. This shows up in contradictions like “sociable introvert” or “you can be our friend or keep to yourself if you like.” One listing asked for “someone who is interested in chatting about the day while cooking dinner, but also comfortable reading their book on the couch.” This requires knowing when and how to flex between being together and being apart, often while everyone’s in the same room. It’s tricky to get right, and when the balance fails, the cost is an emotional one. “I feel more alone when a roommate is present but detached, than when they’re gone gone,” one listing confessed.

Navigating this push and pull requires spatial, identity-based, and temporal calibrations. For brands looking to help roommates find balance between independence and belonging, these three areas are where they can act as the dial.

Spatial Calibrations

Fixed square footage pushes roommates to decide, moment to moment, how to use it: as a place to gather or a place to retreat? Some homes set explicit constraints, avoiding any chance for confusion: “We keep the kitchen as a pro-social, internet-free zone, and there is no TV in the living room.” More often, listings speak to their limited footprint as adaptable and multipurpose. A backyard is a “spot to unwind” or to “host”; a basement, a destination for “tea parties” or “lounging around.” Common areas can transform from quiet nooks to social hubs in an instant, but when there’s nothing to mark the switch, dissonance forms. How might brands turn a room’s shifting modes—quiet, social, cozy—into visible cues?

Build signals that activate tonal flexibility. Renters are increasingly fighting the ‘landlord special’ by investing in temporary, adaptable decor. Fluid elements like hidden technology and layered lighting from cordless lamps help shift a room’s purpose and mood. A rolling TV cart, for instance, keeps the focus on the conversation in the room when it isn’t in use. Consider: What transitions do shared spaces move through, and what acts as the signal?

Identity-Based Calibrations

Across listings, there’s an imbalance in attention given to personal identity versus collective house identity. Listings rely primarily on the personal. They string together never-before-seen combinations like “herbalist, artist, nanny, doula” or “enjoys classical music, opera, math, dive bars.” Those that keep it simple make it noteworthy: “regional beard competition champion.” But when it comes to describing the broader home dynamic, the adjectives turn generic. Posts include some variation of the same three words, offered as proof of social literacy: “We are clean, respectful, and considerate of others.” Textured personal descriptions signal a need to express identity, while vague house descriptions reveal uncertainty about the collective. How can brands create moments that build collective expression at home?

Provide tools for imaginative play. Play suspends social norms, offering a safe way to signal identity, both individually and collectively. The ’90s brought collaborative play to the fridge with Magnetic Poetry. Each poem is one person’s creation, shuffled together from standalone words, but the delight lies in coming home to the surprise combinations others have left. Today, demand is growing for this type of tactile play that brings identity into the home, and it isn’t coming from kids. Ornate Play-Doh bouquets and Lego Post-Impressionist art furnish homes across America. Consider: What forms of childlike fun offer both individual immersion and an open invite for others to join in?

Temporal Calibrations

Roommates constantly adjust to time-based needs, setting expectations for me time versus us time. They coordinate quiet hours, house meetings, and roommate hangs. Some negotiate for more hours alone: “Who I’m looking for: A roommate who has a 9-to-5 schedule and is generally out during the day.” Others are more flexible. One listing said, “The house has tended to draw roommates who like to have occasional meals and game nights together, but tend to recharge in their rooms.” Agreeing on how and when to come together brings an intentionality that softens the retreat back to independence. But striking this balance requires coordinating the invisible variables of busy schedules. How can brands help clarify a shared sense of time?

Increase visibility around time-based needs. The switch from physical calendars in shared spaces to digital calendars and crowded text threads often leads to forgotten plans. Partiful responded with an app that sets expectations for events, from housewarming parties to admin nights. The app promotes silly designs, oddly themed events, and ridiculous descriptions that lend a casual unseriousness to what might otherwise be a formal invite. Consider: Where can a touch of levity be added to formal negotiations?

One final window into the home.

If the Thorne Miniature Rooms offered a glimpse into shared living, the scene might look like this: Last night’s board game lies crooked on the table. A shared calendar, covered in scribbled dates, hangs on the fridge. One roommate’s on the couch listening to a record. The other reads a book in their room, door ajar. The home feels warm and full.

There’s a contentment in being alone, together.

About the Writer

Clare Malone is a Senior Strategist interested in people, how they think, and the lives they live. A former seasonal worker, she has lived with over 30 roommates across seven states and four countries. She loves postcards, handmade pasta, salmon facts, and going outside.