Apartment Living

Lets face it.  Apartments have their challenges.  They are great for when you are starting out on your own, or if you are saving up for you dream house, but they have some definite drawbacks.  However, just because you live in a rented space, does not mean you have to be resigned to living in a home that doesn't reflect your style or personality.  You can still make your apartment beautiful, unique and completely you!

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Living in various apartments over the last four years has given me the opportunity to become close, personal friends will the various up and downs of apartment life.  The road hasn't always been smooth, but I have definitely learned a lot along the way.  With these experiences, I have learned many possibilities for working with the obstacles presented by apartments, and making them work for me.

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I thought it would be great to share some of what I've learned with you guys.  So I'm planning a short series of posts focusing on all my tips and tricks to make the most out of your rented home.  Sometimes all you need is a little inspiration and direction to help get you started making a space your home.  I hope these posts will help you do just that.  Also for you lucky, non-apartment-dwelling readers, most of these tips can be used in regular homes as well, not just rented spaces.

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These are a few of the topics I'm planning on covering:

Small Space Stress

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The number one problem people usually have with apartments is the general lack of space.  As a self-proclaimed hoarder, this problem causes me the most pain.  I like my stuff, and I like a lot of it.  I do try to purge every once in a while, but unfortunately I'm still left with a more stuff than can be reasonably expected to be stored in apartment supplied storage.  This has forced me to get creative.

Even for those of you who may not have a problem with "collecting", this area can be a sore spot for apartment living.  Most apartments have very little closet and cabinet space, and you can kiss good-bye any hope of those beautiful built-ins you see all over Pinterest.  To make the most of what you have, you need to go in with a plan.  I will be discussing several storage and space saver options to help cope with this issue.

Naked Walls

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I have found that one of the last things in an apartment to get any decorating love can be the walls.  This may be because many apartments don't allow tenants to paint, and people assume that is all you can do to decorate walls.  So they get left bare.  However, just because you can't paint a space, does not mean you have to have empty and colorless walls!  In this post I'll be showing many choices for fun, colorful and cheap wall decor.

Remodel Restriction

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Living in an apartment, and having a great interest in DIY has left me with the insatiable desire to gut a kitchen or knock down a wall.  Seeing all these beautiful remodels all over blogland, and not being able to try my own hand at some serious remodeling is just torture.  Living in a rental means I have to live with the outdated kitchen cabinets, the not-to-skilfully caulked bathroom and the pain in the butt sliding closet doors.  Until I buy a home and can remodel to my hearts content, I will have to make do with what I have and learn to pretty them up as best I can.  This post will cover ideas to update your home, without the use of demolition tools or loss of your security deposit.

So are you all excited to get started?  What are you hoping to learn from this mini series?  I can't wait to dive into all the ways to personalize an apartment and turn it into a real home.  After all, that is one of the reasons I started this blog, to track the progress of my broke-college-girl apartment into a place I can really call home.

In With the New

About a month ago, I shared with you all how I got rid of some extra furniture taking up precious space in the living room.  Gaining this extra space allowed me to rethink the entire setup of the living room.  There were many changes, including bringing the bookshelves from the dining room into the living room, and moving my entry cabinet from in from of the door to under the TV.

Moving these two things into the space where the old couches used to be opened up some very prime wall real estate.  Let's start with the wall where we used to have an entry cabinet of sorts.  This space never really grew on me.  It was always very cluttered, and wasn't set up to satisfy our needs.  It ended up becoming a drop spot for receipts, my purse, dog leash, sunglasses and anything else we would carry in the door and just drop there.

I have always loved the idea of having a mudroom, but living in an apartment makes that dream unrealistic at this point.  But I did warm to the idea of having a simple bench with cubbies right by the front door.  Unfortunately most benches I found were way out of my price range.  Until one day when the clouds parted and angels sang, and I found my perfect bench at Target.

I first found the bench about a year ago.  It was $60, perfectly in my budget, and the exact style I had been imagining.  I immediately fell in love, but wasn't able to buy it right away.  I knew there was just no space in my apartment with the couches still around.  I had been putting off parting with the couches for a good long time, and decided the bench would be my reward when I finally got on it, and got rid of the couches.  So the day after the couches were out of our lives, I ran to Target and brought home my pretty new entryway bench.

The clock hanging above the bench is also a new addition.  It was a birthday present, but it was also bought at Target, for those of you who might want to snatch one up as well.  I love how it adds a much needed punch of color to our living room, which we're slowly working on changing from dark and colorless to bright and happy :)

I also picked up three Threshold bins to go with the bench, again from Target (are you sensing a theme?).  They were on sale for about $10 each at the time.  I love how there are exactly 3 spaces, so Melissa, Dakota and I each get our own cubby.

I love the cute little leather handles, and plan to add labels to them very soon.  The bins are also lined with the a fun plaid fabric, which is a happy surprise every time you pull them out.  Melissa and I have been storing our sunglasses, umbrellas, hats and other to-go items in our bins.

This bench has been especially useful for taking the munchkin out.  Having a 5lb dog who stands approximately 6 inches off the ground has its definitely downfalls.  One being breaking your back stooping to her level to get her harness on every time she needs to go outside.  Now I just have her jump up on the bench to get all hooked up and ready to go.

I also store things such as her jacket, extra poop bags and a towel for rainy days in her bin.  It has been a serious lifesaver not having to run to 5 different areas of the house for all her accessories.  And she seems pretty happy with the arrangement as well.

With the entryway all set up and looking beautiful, we still had an empty wall left in the dining room where the bookcases used to be.  This area we also had a very specific plan for.

A few days before we got rid of the couches, Melissa's parents told us they had a cabinet that was ours if we wanted it.  I had loved this cabinet for a while and was super excited that it could actually be ours!  This was the final straw where the couches were concerned, and a few days later they were out and we had room to bring in our new cabinet.

Living in an apartment can mean that storage is hard to come by, so I love that this cabinet comes with oodles of storage space.  We were able to find so many things a new home in this baby.  We now store all our 'nice' (read: not plastic) dishes in here, as well as all of our vases, and a few cooking dishes.  But the best was being able to finally find a place for some of our smaller appliances, like the fondue pot and mini deep fryer.  This opened up some serious space in the kitchen, which I'll share with you guys soon.

I just love how pretty and tall and white and shiny it is.  It just makes me smile every time I walk through the dining room.  With all the space available, I was even left with some empty shelf spots where I could add in some decorative pieces.  Finding leftover space for decor in an apartment is like finding the pot at the end of the rainbow, so I was pretty psyched.

The last thing we added to the apartment still may be my favorite.  It is a simple addition but makes a world of a difference to me.  We never really did anything on the walls in the dining room, and they were just so bare.  Ever since we moved in I had wanted to put a giant mirror over the table, but never found a wall mounted one of the right size in our price range.  Until this beauty popped up from my parents on my birthday.

It's from the same collection at Target as the entryway mirror, so they tie in nicely together, but aren't too matchy since they are different colors and slightly different designs.  I still wanted to place them in separate rooms since they are basically the same pattern.

I absolutely love how it really brings light into the dining room.  The mirror is facing our new cabinet you just saw, so it reflects the white and glass of the cabinet, which in turn reflects all the light from the sliding door.  And the light just bounces back and forth.  So it really opens up that small space.

The dining room finally feels a little more intentional and put together.  It even motivated us to clear off the table and stop using it as a dumping grounds for things without a home.

These few changes we've made just keep having a domino effect on the apartment.  Getting rid of the couches spurred us to do all this, and these recent changes have really inspired me to start planning a bunch more updates.  I can't wait to share all of them with you.  There are some big plans in store for the table and chairs once it really warms up.

And now for a close up of that beautiful mirror.

I am just obsessed with that beautiful design.  I can't get enough of it.  If no one stopped me, I may have gone out and bought that entire collection.

And to really show you how far these spaces have come, how about some before and afters?

Here it how the entry was set up a couple months back, up until a few weeks ago

And here it is all cleaned up and looking so purty

And here is the dining room wall which used to hold the bookcases.  This was pretty much right after we moved in, so it definitely had changed since then, but unfortunately I can't find a picture of how it was right before the switch.  Basically, the white bookshelf got moves into the bedroom, and the two wooden ones were centered on the wall.  Oh and all that junk has gotten moved in and put away by now :)

Here is what that same space looks like now.

And finally, the dining table before (which I wish I could also blame the mess on just moving in, but reality is the table looked some variation of this cluttered until a few weeks ago)

And here it is finally all cleaned up and ready to host dinner

What do you all think?  This apartment is finally starting to feel like a real home now.  I am so excited about all these changes, and can't wait to get started on some more plans I have in mind.  Most of these updates are awesome space savers in such a tiny apartment.  Have any of you made any changes recently that freed up a ton of space in your home?  Or makes a daily chore (like taking the dog out) much more bearable ?  Any other super space saver tips to share with the rest of us?

Household Cleaning Binder

With spring officially upon us, and spring cleaning in full swing around the blogosphere, I thought now would be the perfect time to share with you all how I organize my household cleaning.  I had originally planned to develop and share my cleaning schedule with you guys when I made my home management binder.

However, I must admit I got stumped trying to work out how exactly to organize all the tasks I wanted to accomplish to keep my apartment spic and span.  I also decided I wanted to separate the cleaning section into it's own binder, to keep things streamlined and simple.

One of the mistakes I made while trying to develop a cleaning routine was trying to do everything.  I am a full time student, who only needs to maintain a one bedroom apartment.  Yet I was trying to develop a cleaning schedule to rival Martha's.

I finally came to terms with the fact that I did not have 5 hours a day to devote to cleaning.  Once I made the decision to reel myself back in, the process was really simple.  I just had to sit down and figure out exactly what needed to be done, and how much time I could realistically spend cleaning each day.

I have always been partial to cleaning using the 'zone' method.  This involves rotating which area of the home get cleaned each day of the week, based on it's 'zone'.  I have 5 major rooms in my apartment, which each count as their own zone.  I then added two more zones, floors/trash and laundry.  This gave me enough zones to spread out to each day of the week.

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When scheduling which zone would get cleaned on which day, I made sure to keep my schedule in mind.  Since I have classes pretty much all day Tuesdays and Thursdays, Melissa volunteered to take over those days.  We assigned each zone to a day based on how much free time we had, and how much time it would take to clean that zone each week.

After figuring out a basic weekly schedule, I also wanted to have a page where I could see and check off a list of all tasks that needed to be accomplished for each zone on each day.  This is what tripped me up a lot when I previously tried to make a cleaning schedule.  In addition to having way to many tasks per zone, I also made the mistake of making a separate checklist page for each zone.  This meant I needed 7 pages of checklists each week, and 30ish each month.  I was not thrilled about having to flip through all those pages to find the one I needed each day.

That first system wasn't easy to follow, and it was definitely way to bulky.  So during my second attempt, I decided to try and make a checklist that covered an entire week of chores.  This turned out so much better than my original plan.

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This is the only page I need for an entire week of cleaning.  There are seven boxes down the page, one for each day of the week.  Then I have all my daily tasks listed on the left side of each day, and all the weekly tasks for each zone listed on the right of each day.

This makes keeping up with my cleaning so simple.  Instead of sorting through 30 or so pages to find the one I need, I just flip to the current week's page whenever I'm cleaning, and I'm good to go.  I also print these pages double sided to try and save even more space in my binder.  This has been wonderful.

The last step was to include all my monthly cleaning chores.  Since some things only need to be cleaned once a month, and others need a deep cleaning every month as well as weekly upkeep, this is a necessary part of any cleaning routine.  I decided to designate the first week of each month to be the week that I do the monthly chores.  So the first 7 days of each month I follow my monthly routine, and the rest of the month I following my weekly routine, if that makes sense.

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For the week that has monthly tasks, I made up this printable to simply replace the first week's weekly schedule.  It has all the monthly tasks listed down the right side of each day.  Since some areas do not need deep cleaning on a monthly basis, I kept a few of the weekly tasks in the middle to still complete during the 'monthly week'.

Hopefully that wasn't to complicated to follow.  In case it was, this next page may help clear things up.  I made up a complete monthly schedule for April, so you can follow along my cleaning routine if you want.  Each day tells you what zone to focus on and what type of cleaning (monthly or weekly) to complete.

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I'm planning on making one of these monthly schedules each month, so let me know if you'd be interested in me sharing these each month on the blog.

Whether you're hoping to tweak an existing cleaning routine, or you're starting from scratch, I hope my schedule helps you towards creating the perfect cleaning system for your home.  All of the printables I shared in this post can be downloaded for free by either clicking the link in the captions, or by going to my new cleaning printables page.

So do you think you'll be following my cleaning schedule?  How do you clean your home?  Do you also do a zone method, or do you clean by type of chore (vacuum, dusting, polishing etc.)?  I'm always looking for ways to improve my systems, so feel free to share any tips or tricks you may have in the comments below!  And for more cleaning inspiration, you can find tons of goodies on my cleaning Pinterest board.

Out With the Old

Have you ever put off a project in your home for entirely way to long for no good reason?  And then every time you walk into that room, that project is staring you in the face, taunting you?  That's where I was with my living room.  As I showed you in this post, I had a crazy amount of seating in my living room.  I'm talking enough seating for an entire basketball team.  And that was just way too much for my little apartment living room.

I tried to make it all work in this post, but even with all furniture flat on the ground (as opposed to upended...as the white couches were for a couple months) it just wasn't happening.

So why did I have so much seating?  Well it's a long story, but basically I originally had three couches and a much larger living room area.  Then I got rid of one of the couches, and got another couch and 2 arm chairs from a friend.  So then I was left with 3 couches and 2 size-able armchairs.  This all still worked in my old apartment, however, when we moved, it just wasn't going to happen.  I knew this, yet I didn't want to admit it.  I was convinced I could make it all work somehow.

The way we had all the furniture arranged had about a 1 foot space maximum between the coffee table and each of the couches/chairs.  This meant walking sideways wherever you needed to go in the living room.  This also meant me having to climb over the arm of the couch, like a true grown-up, to get on and off the couch.

This arrangement also made it so the white couches weren't even 100% usable.  Half of each couch was completely blocked by an armchair.

And having the two white couches flanking the TV just looked bad.  They were so low that they made the TV and it's shelves look like they were floating randomly in the middle of the wall.

So a year after moving in (yes a full year), I finally made peace with the fact that the 2 white IKEA couches had to go.  No one ever sat on them, and since I had originally gotten them off Craigslist, they had seen better days.  I had thought about selling the couches on Craigslist, but that only made them stick around longer while I never seemed to get around to putting them up for sale.  So finally, finally, enough was enough.  We got them out of the apartment, left them at our dump, and haven't looked back.  So without further ado, our brand new living room :)

We knew we wanted to bring the bookcases into the living room once the couches were gone.  This was for two reasons.  First, they anchored the TV a bit more since they're taller than the couches were.  And seeing them in place now, I personally think they kind of look like a very basic, college-apartment-version of wall built-ins.  But maybe that's just me.  Second, we had new plans for their previous home in the dining room, which I will share with you guys in another post, soon to come.

That area now really feels like a real, thought-out setup, rather than this is where are furniture fits, so this is where it will go.  We still have plans for the white cabinet in the middle.  We're going to drill a hole into the back of it, so we can store our router and all that good stuff inside the cabinets.  We will hopefully see less off all those lovely cords going on once we get that all finished up.

The thing I'm enjoying the most however, it all this extra space we found!  It literally feels like we have a whole new apartment.  We can actually walk around our living room with ease.  And there's the added bonus of not hitting our shins on the coffee table every. single. day.

We even have some completely unused space at the moment in one of the corners, which is a completely foreign concept to us at this point.

For now, we've made that corner Dakota's unofficial 'room'.  It stores her bin of toys, a dog bed and her bumpa-doodle, which is her favorite napping spot.  She was a little concerned at first when I moved all her stuff, but she's made herself right at home in that little corner, and seems to be loving it.

While we were moving furniture around, we also decided to plan out our lighting situation.  We previously had one floor lamp in between the dining room and living room, and one right next to our sliding door.  With no overhead lighting in the living room, this made our entrance area and half of the living room very dark.  So we took each lamp and put them on the outsides of the bookshelves.  So now there is no shortage of light in the living room.

Since we finally 'redid' our living room, so many more plans and ideas have popped into our heads.  The living room to-do list has now gone from one gigantic DO IT ALREADY item, to a ton of new ideas to improve the space even further.  One of these being decorating the wall space above the bookcases.

Since they're uneven, I want something slightly larger on the right side.  I may size them so each frame or piece of art ends equal with the TV.  I'm hoping this will add to the cohesiveness of this space, and really make it look like a defined unit.

Another biggy on the list is to add color!  I am in serious color withdrawal with the living areas of this apartment.  Neither the living room nor dining room has much in the way of color, and as you can tell from my bedroom, I'm a bright color kind of girl.  I think I've mentioned that my planned color palette for the living room includes bright corals, blues and yellows.  So I'm going to try and bring some of that in with art, throw pillows and decor items for the shelves and bookcases.

I will be sure to keep you updated on all the changes as they happen!  For now I'm just going to enjoy my nice, new spacious living room.  I think I love most the fact that I can just stand up from the couch and walk to wherever I need to go, instead of crawling over the arm or back of the couch.  It's the small things ;)

And now for one final before and after, just because I can't get enough of how much more space we have now!

So tell me what you guys think?  A million times better right?  Has anyone else put off doing something until it drives you absolutely crazy to look at it?  I know that's how things get done around here.  Or maybe making a single change in a room really changed the entire feel of the room.  I'll be writing another post really soon to show you guys what other changes have happened here since we moved everything around, I hope you'll come check it out!

To the End of Pi

Hello everyone!  I'd like to share with you a quick like project I knocked out last week.  A little while ago now Melissa and I added a mini frame wall in our living room.  I'd had all the frames from previous apartments, and they had always been hung together.  Over the years I had switched out the pictures in them a couple of times, but recently I've decided that I'm tired of having all of them filled with personal photos.  I wanted to bring on the art!  Unfortunately...art does not come on a college student's budget.  So it was decided that we would DIY our art.

Once we had a vague plan for the frames, it was time to talk details.  I have spent more time than I'd like to admit scouring Pinterest and other blogs for ideas.  And I have not come up empty handed.  The problem now is narrowing down exactly which projects I want to try, and how I will adapt them to my specific tastes.

This project I have to give a shout out to John and Sherry from Young House Love for my inspiration.  I have been following their blog for almost a year now, and whenever they are talking art or decor, they always stress how they incorporate things that are important to them as a couple.  Specifically, they like to throw in the number 7 whenever they can, as it holds special meaning to them.

Well that got me thinking if there were any important numbers for Melissa and I. And then I got an idea.  Pi.  Pi is our important number.  One of our 'sayings' is "I love you to the end of pi and back."  Our nerdly version of 'to the moon and back.'  So I decided to set out and make some pi art.  A couple episodes of Dexter later, and I had come up with this ode to our favorite irrational number.

As you can clearly see, there is a large pi symbol as the main focal point of the picture.  The background, however, is where the real magic lies.

The background is pi, written to as many digits as could fit :)  I chose to alternate the colors coral, yellow and teal (our planned living room colors) to add some subtle color.  Picture me painstakingly selecting and changing the color of every. single. number.  I definitely went cross eyed more than once during that process.  But in the end I think it was worth it, as we have our very first DIY art for our frame wall done and framed.  And here is my pi art in its new home.

I love having that simple reminder up on my wall of the love I have in my life.  And for any other pi lovers out there, I've made my new printable available for download in my printables page under the new decor printables section.  As for the rest of the frames on my frame wall, stay tuned as I add more fun (and cheap) art.

So what do you think of my Pi art?  Isn't it nerd-tastic?  Does anyone have any other silly love sayings?  Or maybe a special number or sign you and your sweetie share?  Who else is craving a slice of pie after a post about pi?