Our Apartment

I absolutely loved our place when we first saw it, but having our stuff in it makes me love it even more. It just feels so cozy and a real reflection of both mine and Brad's personalities. Since we’ve lived here for over six months (which is absolutely insane to think about), we've gotten almost all the furniture we need to make the space more than live-able. I'm sure we will continue to acquire smaller home items over the course of us living here, and I will continue to update you on those sorts of things, however I think the layout we have now will be the same for the foreseeable future, so I figured now would be the best time to finally share our place with you all!

Desk: Floyd Table, Chairs: Poly and Bark, Bench: IKEA

By far my favorite room in the apartment is the living room. We have super big windows that look out to a bunch of trees, which is super nice considering we live in a major city and coming across views like that are few and far between. The room itself is so cozy and really feels like the center of the place (easy enough when you're dealing with a 700 square foot place). Because we got so lucky with the living room being so spacious, it doubles as my and Brad's office. We ended up getting a Floyd Table for our desk, because it was big enough to fit both of us comfortably, and when we move (although I don't think that will be for awhile), we can always repurpose the table as a dining table. 

Bookcase: IKEA

One of my favorite parts of the living room is our bookcase. I had a ton of books left over from all of my classes in college and because I had spent so much money on them I wanted to make sure to keep as many as possible (granted I found them interesting at the time). It’s definitely not the most instagrammable bookcase, mainly because it’s not organized in rainbow order, but I wanted it to look real and like it actually gets used, rather than it just being a fixture in the room. I will say though, I organized it in alphabetical order when we first moved in and it took me forever, but it does make finding a book so much easier than having the spines be in a certain color order.

Couch: Interior Define, Coffee Table: West Elm, Throw Blanket: Tweedmill, Rug: NuLoom

The couch was probably our biggest investment piece and one that we ummed and ahh’d over for a while. Luckily when we moved in we had a couch to use, however it wasn’t totally our style and it looked too heavy for the space. A lot of our furniture is very mid-century modern and it did make sense to continue that trend with the couch, but I didn’t want our place to look too matchy matchy or like it came out of a furniture store catalogue. I also love the look of mixing styles of furniture! I’ve always loved the look of traditional English roll arm sofas and they are simple enough that they can work easily with other styles of furniture, especially more modern furniture. I found the perfect one at Interior Define, and we are so so happy with it! Its a very formal looking couch because it’s very overstuffed couch, but it has already started to soften up quite a bit and adding throw pillows and blankets helps it to look more casual.

Media Unit: IKEA

The kitchen and the bathrooms were definitely the easiest rooms to put together just because they are such small rooms and they don't really require much in the way of decorating. Luckily our kitchen has just enough room to house our IKEA little table that we had at Brad's old apartment. Because we don't have much counter space, the table also doubles as extra work space. The chairs are from Poly and Bark, and were a complete steal, I think we got a set of four for $120! I am absolutely obsessed with our bathroom; it's so outdated, but there's a certain charm about it. Luckily, even though its outdated, it's been well-kept over the years so it doesn't look too worn out. 

Dining Table: IKEA, Dining Chairs: Poly and Bark

Last but not least is the bedroom. Our bedroom isn't all that big, so we don't spend a lot of time in here besides sleeping, however I still wanted the space to be comfortable and relaxing. Brad had bought the bed last year from West Elm and it definitely is the focal point of the room, mainly because it takes up most of the room. We got our bedside tables and dresser from Living Spaces (and they are almost an exact dupe for a set from West Elm, but came to about 60% less than we would have spent on the West Elm version). One thing that I would 100% recommend if you are either moving or are redecorating is investing in good linen bedding. There’s just something about linen that always looks good, even when it is wrinkled. It also just keeps getting better and better the more you wash and use it. Because we live in such a temperate climate, we don’t need super warm sheets, so the linen also works as year-round bedding for us.

Bed: West Elm, Bedside Tables: Living Spaces, Bedding: Parachute and West Elm

An Interiors Mood Board

We are moving in a couple of weeks and I could not be more excited about it! Obviously I'm incredibly excited to be moving in with Brad, but I'm also really excited about the prospect of building a little home in a very conscious way, with pieces that we will want to keep for years to come. I've aways loved interiors, which I think mainly comes down to the fact that my dad works in construction and home renovation and my parents spent a lot of my childhood renovating our own home with the help of some family friends who were incredible interior designers. I also am someone who is very much affected by the space around me. My mood changes so much depending on how I perceive the space around me, which is why I always feel so stressed when there is any sort of mess in my space. 

We are just renting our new apartment, so doing any sort of permanent changes are out the window at the moment, however we have a really great blank canvas to work with in our new place and I think we will be able to make it feel like our own in a lot of other ways. We don't have a ton of furniture, but we definitely have enough to be able to live comfortably. One of the good things about having a pretty minimal furniture collection is that we can wait to buy certain pieces that we know we will want to get a lot of longevity out of. We aren't planning on buying everything as soon as we move in, but rather plan on getting furniture piece by piece so as to guarantee we are finding our favorite pieces.  Both Brad and I are very much drawn to the mid-century look, but neither of us want to get everything to look like it came straight out of a West Elm catalogue (although there is absolutely nothing wrong with that). A lot of the pieces we have our eye on definitely lean towards the mid-century look, but we are planning on breaking it up with some more traditional-looking pieces to keep a balance and just put our stamp on the place a bit more. 

I've been finding most of my inspiration on Pinterest and Instagram, although it's obviously much easier to find specific things on Pinterest. I want the whole space overall to feel very relaxed and cozy, so I'm sure there will be a lot of throw pillows and blankets involved in our decoration process. The apartment also has really nice soft light and I think that'll just enhance the cozy feel we want the place to have. Of course there will be tons of plants everywhere, and to be honest all I want to spend money on at the moment is plants and furniture. 

I'm incredibly excited to document this whole process on the blog, although I'm sure there will be some significant time between when we move in and when we'll feel like it's totally done. I'm very happy that none of this process feels rushed and that hopefully we'll have a place that we will want to stay in for years to come!