Apartment living and decorating.

We've lived in this apartment for almost a year now and I've not said a lot about it or posted many pictures. Truth is, it's been okay. I think having decent wall color and laminate/tile floors help make it feel a little more like home. It can be quite cozy with the four of us at times, but I think there is something about small spaces that makes you learn how to get along a lot better. Sure, you might hear me complain about the lovely mauve counter tops, the leaky pipes, occasional critters, and tiny oven, but overall, living in this little apartment has been a blessing and a great experience for us.

Sooo...are we staying here? For now, yes. We look at houses online occasionally and drive by some we've seen, but right now we just feel like doing anything would be impulsive. We want to stay in the community, but we don't want to be responsible for maintaining a lot of land. Finding a place around here without a lot of acreage is nearly impossible. Soooo...we wait.

For the first probably 6 months we lived here, I didn't want to do a lot of decorating. I guess apartment living seemed so temporary and it seemed unnecessary to fix it up. I got the living/dining/hallway done "enough" and left everything else alone. However, the longer we've been here, the more I felt like the bedrooms were looking a little too "male college apartment" to me. So, I started doing a few things here and there.

Here are some of my favorite decorative things right now....

The inspiration for the plate wall was from here. It's still a work in progress, but I've had such fun putting it together. I don't think I've paid more than $3 for any of the plates. It's been fun having something to look for at thrift stores, flea markets, and TJ Maxx.

I've had that old window since before Evan and I married and it actually came from the one room school my dad attended when he was a little boy. It used to have glass in it, but when we moved to Louisville, the glass was the only thing that broke in the entire move! It's now hanging in our hallway, displaying some of my favorite shots of the girls. I plan re-doing it a little bit by adding another row of wire to I put up a few more pictures. 

The hall bathroom needed some serious work. Paint would do a world of good in there, but neither Evan nor I want to mess with it right now. We had very little space for towels and toiletries, and we use our counter space too much to have a bunch of "stuff" sitting around. I tried several different options and put a few too many holes in the wall before I found something that would work for us.   I found this on Pinterest and knew it would work great for extra storage and still look nice at the same time. While my dad visited one afternoon this summer, he helped me figure out the best way to make the shelving work.  I really love it, and it's perfect for all the extras! 

Finally...the girls' room.  We LOVE books in our house and were running out of shelving space! Using rain guttering for shelving is not a new technique; I knew several teachers who used this in their classroom. We put a shelf on either side of the window at the girls' reach and it's perfect. Easy access, easy put-away and frees up some shelving space in the closet for other toys.

I would say my decorating style is really eclectic. I like abstract art, flea market finds, family heirlooms, anything that is functional, and useful storage. I like light, neutral walls (I've learned this after painting bold colors in both our houses and then tiring of them quickly!) with color in the accents. I don't feel like I have any sort of theme, I just like what I like and decorate with that. It takes me a long time to make up my mind about decorating a space because once it's decorated, it's staying that way for a while!

Loving these changes in our apartment that make it feel a little more like home!