When you walk in the front door, you are immediately in the living room. This is the room our little family spends the most time in. This unfortunately transfer into the room with the most mess. Brace yourselves, these are some severe before pictures.
Now that I've ripped off this band-aid, let me try to justify this disaster. The living room in our last apartment was much larger, so it had ample room to accommodate our 3 couches and 2 large chairs. I have tried tirelessly to come up with an arrangement that will fit all our seating options into our new living room. I have finally come to the conclusion that we need to get rid of our two white IKEA couches.
For now, the couches are crammed into our room. One is upended sitting right next to the door, and the other is on the far wall, pushing one of the chairs into an inaccessible corner. Once we get rid of the IKEA couches, we will rearrange the seating with one chair at each end of the coffee table.
We also plan to mount the TV on the wall, and hang some glass shelves under for DVDs and various consoles. We hope this will open up the room, and allow us to take advantage of the limited space as much as possible. We also hope to hang something on the far wall (on the left in the above picture). I was thinking some long floating shelves would break up the blank space nicely. But that project is probably pretty far off at this point.
Once we clear out the unnecessary furniture, get everything hung out and finalize all the basics of setup, we will be able to focus on the decor aspects. Our end goal is to have a color scheme of a nice chocolaty brown and a light teal. I want to lighten up the space to balance out our dark coffee table and seating. So far the only piece we have that promotes our color goal is the teal and white lampshade next to the TV. We were forced to buy a new shade when Melissa had an unfortunate moving experience with the original glass shade. Ultimately the demise of the shade turned out to be a blessing and I love our new accessory.
Back at the door, you'll find our little "entryway" area and a nice large coat closet. Since we have moved in, this has been one of the dumping grounds that has persisted for still-packed bags and unhung wall accessories.
I hope to eventually add a nice little bench in place of that table. We are also in the process of planning a nice wall system for above the table. This will hopefully include things such as a whiteboard for messages and notes, a place to put bills as they come in and go out, and a place to hold Melissa's keys/my purse/Dakota's leash. We're still mapping out our exact needs for this system, but I'll be sure to keep you updated on it's process.
At the back of the living room we have our everyday use bookshelf. This ideally holds things such as schoolbooks, craft tools I use regularly and other things I want easy access to. In the bottom corner, you will catch your first glimpse of my little baby Dakota. She's used to being in front of the camera and was really confused that mom was taking pictures of something other than her.
Our kitchen is straight ahead when you walk in the front door. Even thought it's tiny, I love our kitchen. I have always adored white kitchens, so I was super excited to find out our kitchen has white cabinets. Our kitchen decor goal is centered around bright yellows and greens.
As mentioned, these pictures were taken spur of the moment, so again, please excuse the dishes in the sink. One of my favorite implementations in our kitchen is the rack hung over the counter holding cooking utensils and dish cleaning supplies. We got the rack, along with the hanging caddy and hooks, from IKEA (can you tell how much I love that place yet?). Melissa, our designated cook, loves having the various spoons and measuring cups within reach, while I love that they are also kept off precious counter space.
To the right of the door we have this amazing island I got off Craigslist for my first apartment. In the new place, it has become home to the microwave, toaster oven, and various other things that need to be accessible on a daily basis. This table helps to keep our primary counter space clear of clutter and open for food prep.
Above the island is another amazing IKEA find. Before we got that shelf, all our pots were crammed together in a tiny cabinet above the stove. Besides being hard to reach for shorties like myself, it was impossible to easily get pots out. In order to pull out one, you'd have to pull out a whole stack. The new shelf also allows pretty and easy storage for pot lids, slid in between each rod. We hope to eventually get more hooks to hang some extra stuff off the bottom of this shelf. Since this kitchen is pretty small, we have to make the most out of the storage opportunities we have.
In the kitchen, we also have our laundry area ("area" being used in the most generous way possible). I hope to eventually add a curtain hung on a tension rod in front of our machines to pretty up the space a little.
In front of the machines we have Dakota's little eating area. I hope to eventually replace her place mat with something that matches the kitchen's colors. The caddy was a great find in Target's clearance section. We use this to store Dakota's food and her many treat options.
The tour continues into our dining room, which is an extension past the living room. The dining room table has become another dumping ground for everything that still needs to be unpacked and hung up. This room needs the most work decor wise. I hope to eventually have mostly a white or silver dominant color, with pops of bright coral. It took me forever to come up with this idea, but I really like what I have pictured in my head.
Since it's such a small space, we decided to push the table up against the wall. We still have enough space to pull it out if we ever need to use the whole table. But since there's only two of us who will use it on a regular basis, having the table as far out of the way as possible really helps to keep the space open. We eventually plan to DIY a big mirror and hang it right over the long end of the table. The hope is to make the room appear larger and more open.
On the opposite wall we have our "library". The bookshelves were basically put there when we moved in just so they were in the apartment. They never got specifically set up in the places I want them.
The white bookshelf is meant for the bedroom, but I haven't really found a way to fit it in there yet. I also want to ideally center the bookshelves on that wall. Hopefully it won't narrow the path between them and the dining room table to much. My goal is to also get some nice wall decorations going on above the bookshelves, but I'm still working out the details on that one.
Through the dining room there is a short hallway that leads to the bathroom and master bedroom. I redid the look of our bathroom when we were living at our last place, and really like how it turned out. I like it even better now that I have a bathroom which was design after 1950. I chose to do a black and white scheme after I fell in love with the shower curtain, which I found at Target (another love of mine).
Then finally at the back of the apartment is my bedroom. Now is time for disclaimer #2. If you read my About Me page, you will remember that I love pink. I also believe that your bedroom should be your own personal heaven on earth. A place you can walk into, and immediately feel calm and happy. That being said, since I was 16 and living at my parents house, my room has been pink. Like hot pink. I believe the paint chip was called "Tinkerbell" by Disney (which I always thought was weird since Tinkerbell's dress was green...). Now my walls are no longer pink, but I do still have all the lovely pink accessories and DIY painted furniture. So without further ado, my hot pink heaven:
My newest addition to my heaven, which i love, love, LOVE, is my IKEA Expedit desk system. It was my 21st birthday present from my lovely parents, and it has started a love affair with cubed organizational systems that I never want to end.
Finally, we have our awesome two door walk in closet on the left side of the bedroom. Melissa gets the right side, I get the left. I am a bit of a hoarder, so I'm used to a little more closet space than this apartment has to offer. My side is a bit crammed at the moment, so I'm looking forward to when I can really sit down and organize the bejeesus out of it to make the most out of the space I have.
Melissa's closet is her domain, so for now it's hands off. But I'm hoping once she sees what I do with my closet, she'll let me get in there and work some magic.
And if you were wondering, yes, those tiny clothes in the front of Melissa's closet are Dakota's.
So there you have it. A complete before picture of my apartment. I can't wait to really get started on whipping this place into shape. Leave me some comment love and tell me what you think about some of my ideas. Or maybe you've moved recently and are still dealing with the fallout of seemingly endless unpacking? Or are you gearing up to a full home makeover?
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