How do I get the cool air from my bedroom to actually reach the living room?

The biggest hurdle you're facing is that cold air is much denser than warm air, so it basically acts like a puddle on your bedroom floor. To get that air moving through a hallway and into the living room, you need to break that 'wall' at the door frame. A ceiling fan in the bedroom isn't going to do much for horizontal travel; set it to **counter-clockwise** (pushing air down) just to keep the room from becoming a walk-in freezer, but don't expect it to push air out the door. What you actually need is a high-velocity box fan or a circular air mover placed on the floor right in the bedroom doorway. Point it toward the living room. Since the cold air is sitting low, you have to physically scoop it up and shove it down the hall. If you place a fan up high or use a tower fan, you're mostly just moving the warmer air that's already stratified near the ceiling. Pushing the air from the floor level is the only way to get that thermal mass to migrate.

In the living room, set that ceiling fan to pull air **up** (clockwise/winter mode). This creates a slight low-pressure zone at the floor level wich helps 'suck' the incoming cold air toward the center of the room instead of letting it just stall out in the kitchen. It won't be a miracle cure because an 8,000 BTU unit—especially a single-hose portable—is fighting an uphill battle against the heat gain of a 375-square-foot space, but it will even out those extreme temperature swings. Keep in mind that portable units create negative pressure because they exhaust indoor air out the window. This means your apartment is constantly pulling in hot air from cracks in the windows or under the front door. If you can, insulate that exhaust hose with a sleeve or a towel; those plastic hoses radiate a massive amount of heat back into the room while they're running, which is likely why your bedroom feels like it's struggling to stay ahead of the curve.

You really need to account for the return air path, because while pushing the dense, cooled air out at floor level is thermodynamically sound, you must simultaneously facilitate an unobstructed return of displaced warmer air from the living room back into the bedroom to complete the convective circuit. Without maintaining this cyclical flow, you’re essentially attempting to pressurize the living area, which simply won't happen efficiently given the inherent limitations of an 8,000 BTU single-hose configuration. Additionally, ensure your bedroom door is opened as wide as possible to minimize frictional losses at the transition point, as even a slight bottleneck can induce turbulence that disrupts the laminar flow necessary for effective air migration across such a significant distance.

I had this exact setup in my old studio and what actualy made the difference for me was the 'over-the-door' approach. I tried the floor fan thing, but I kept tripping over it. I ended up mounting a small, high-powered 8-inch desk fan on a shelf right above the bedroom door frame, angled down into the hallway. It sounds counterintuitive, but it forced the warm air back into the bedroom to get cooled, wich pushed the cold air out the bottom of the door much faster. Once I did that, the living room temp dropped five degrees in an hour. Are you able to mount anything high up or is it a strict rental?

Spot on about the negative pressure with those single-hose units. One thing people usually miss is that while you're moving air between rooms, that exhaust hose is essentially acting like a space heater. If you haven't yet, wrap that plastic hose in some bubble foil insulation or even a thick seasonal blanket. It stops the heat from radiating back into the bedroom, which actually gives the unit enugh 'overhead' to let that cold air finally reach the living room instead of just fighting its own exhaust heat.

Honestly, the single-hose unit is your real enemy here. If you want that 70-degree consistency across 375 square feet, you shoud swap that unit for a Midea Duo 12,000 BTU. It’s a dual-hose setup so it doesn't create that negative pressure everyone is talking about, and the 'AirSpreader' feature actualy blasts air way further than standard portables. To help it out, grab a Vornado 660 Large Air Circulator. Unlike a cheap box fan, it’s designed to push a beam of air up to 100 feet. Stick that Vornado in the hall and it’ll actually bridge the gap to your living room way better than any ceiling fan ever coud.

Quick update—I felt the exhaust hose after reading that comment and wow, it’s basicly a radiator. I’m going to try insulating it tonight. One question though: for the “return air path” idea, does it matter where the living room fan is? If I’m pushing cold air out at the floor level, should the ceiling fan in the living room be pulling air up to help that cycle?