Apartment Tour pt. 1

     I took these photos about a week after we moved in and finally got these main rooms settled. A few changes have been made since then but here is the living room, dining room and kitchen! The green color in the living and dining room worked perfectly with the color theme I already had going on with the couch and pillows and what not. We are allowed to paint if we want but so far the only room I have real plans for is our bedroom. More to come on that. 

     Vintage charm is a fantastic element to have in your home environment, but vintage charm also comes with vintage problems as well. You have to accept that you will never get all the dirt out of the cracks between the floor boards, that the radiators will always have dust bunnies no matter how many times you vaccuum them, and that the cupboards probably need a decent amount of contact paper on the inside in order for you to feel comfortable putting your dishes in them. We've had to do a ton of cleaning and a good amount of communicating with our maintenance guy since we've moved in, but overall we love this new place. It feels like home. Neither Tanner or I had an ounce of regret or sadness as we moved from our old place to this new home. The neighborhood is a really nice area also. I have walked to my grandma's house and down to the little corner market on Como. There are a bunch of cute cafes and restaurants we have yet to explore but I'm looking forward to this summer when we can walk freely without bundles of jackets and scarves wrapped about us.

Goals: plants in every window. Since I've taken these photos I've potted some herbs, I'm starting to see sprouts!

We've hung a coat rack above the boot rack in the corner there. The brown wall is a hallway that connects back behind the kitchen, I'm working on a gallery wall there. 

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This side of the kitchen could use a little decor, but I'm still trying to brainstorm what I want to do with it rather than just digging through boxes and hanging up whatever I find. I've got a lot of picture frames and wall art that I don't have a space for yet. This place has such a different feel from our last apartment. I wanted to cover up the ugly walls in our old place. This new apartment has so much character and charm on its own that I don't want to suffocate it. The natural light and the woodwork really take precedence here. So for now we have several unpacked boxes with photos and frames that don't yet have a place. 

     Norman is the newest member of our little family. He loves the window sills and has most recently discovered all the different plants that he can try to eat and throw up. Many plants have been moved to the top of the book shelf since this discovery. He's a lazy and sweet cat who loves everyone. He also is proving to be very talkative in the wee hours of the morning when he thinks its time for breakfast. I've been sleeping through it the last couple of nights but he's been waking Tanner. We tried to let him sleep with us the first night, but he woke us up literally almost every hour of the night meowing or walking on our pillows.. etc. He just wanted attention but he ended up getting kicked out of the room around 4:30am. Since then he has learned that night time means he gets to stay out on his favorite spot on the couch.

     TTFN (ta ta for now for those of you who aren't fluent in Pooh Bear language, or Tigger rather). Once I get the bedrooms a little more fixed up to what I would like them to be I will do the rest of the apartment tour! I've also got a few ideas that I'd like to implement for our 3 season porch. Until then!

Thinking about Interior Decor

     I can slowly see my interior decor preferences changing. I love a lot of styles but I often try to incorporate too many in one room. Since I've moved into our current beige carpeted off-white wall apartment I've begun to pay much more attention to color. I was trying to force a style and color scheme upon this dwelling that simply just didn't work. And then I was like, hm, maybe I should try to work WITH the apartment and the colors instead of fighting against them. I am getting more and more excited to move to our new place. It's so gorgeous inside and I will have much more freedom with colors and styles. If you follow me on Pinterest you might already know some of my inspiration photos. I think if I had to put a label on what images inspire me, it would be mid-century modern and modern (whites, woods, and greens) mix with touches of rustic cottage here and there. So here are some images and styles that have been stuck in my head as of late.

I know for sure our new kitchen is all painted white which I LOVE. I can't wait to incorporate the organic components into the stark white. Our bedroom might not go all white but I do have ideas for just simplifying the decor and becoming a little more minimalist with it. I still love gallery walls and have a couple ideas for those in the living and dining room, but lately I've been all about stripping things down to the bare bones and decluttering, which is really quite a difference from what my style used to be.

Before, if I saw something I liked, I got it no matter what. Now I ask myself if do I love it? Do I need it? Is it useful? This is a great mantra to go by for decluttering your home and ridding your life of excess objects and therefor stress. I think the generation before ours was very possessive and that's kind of how I was raised, waste not want not. I certainly don't like to waste but saving every twisty tie and cardboard box etc seems to cause more stress than not saving things like that. I like to have certain things well stocked, but at the same time holding onto objects that you haven't used in years because you "might need it sometime" isn't really a healthy thing in my opinion. 

Ideas have been floating around in my head and getting them down on paper seems to really help me a lot. Once this has all actually taken place, photos will most certainly be posted. Until then, thanks for sharing inspiration with me.