The move is officially OVER! Our old apartments are empty, cleaned, and our keys have been returned. The long nights and stressful days are behind us, and now we can focus on organizing, designing, and settling into our new space. As requested by the ST Instagram fam, I'm bringing you all along for the apartment design journey!
Whether you're moving into a new apartment or looking to revamp your current small space, be sure to check out My Tips for Designing Small Spaces. A lot of the pieces from my old apartment, featured in that post, are being used in our new space.
For the first post-move blog post, I'm sharing our first five purchases for the new space! As far as aesthetic, we are channeling a modern and quirky take on mid-century modern. Think: dark wood, geometric designs, and color. You can view my design inspiration here. Follow me on Pinterest for more design ideas!
YELLOW COUCH
If you're looking for a boldly functional couch, this yellow couch is for you. When I started my search for colorful couches, many of you messaged me suggesting Wayfair for stylish and reasonably priced couches. Looks like you all were right! We eventually decided on this mid-century modern inspired sleeper sofa from Wayfair. We loved the velvet and tufted design, the feet matched the MCM style of our vintage pieces, and it folds down into a daybed for visitors.
Warning: Picking a colorful couch for a small space is a big decision. When deciding on our couch, we considered budget, style, and the potential design of our small space. We were torn between a light pink or yellow couch, and after some discussion, we felt yellow was more appropriate for our living room design. A yellow couch with pink pillows felt more "us" than a pink couch with yellow pillows. Don't worry we didn't drop pink as an accent color, just keep reading.
FLOOR LAMP
Our new space doesn't get as much natural light as my old apartment (sad face). Within the first few days, I knew we needed a floor lamp for evenings in our living room. Our vintage furniture (and couch) give off a MCM aesthetic, therefore, I wanted to bring a more modern lamp to 1) offset the retro feels and 2) bring more of a modern flair into the space.
I am partial to gold (vs. silver), and I found this modern Window Pane Floor Lamp at Target. I liked the clean lines, the marble base, and I thought the window pane feature was perfect for our small space. In small spaces, it's important to create the appearance of space and depth - avoid cluttering the space with bulky items. The window pane of this lamp allows the eyes to see 'through' the empty space, thereby 1) drawing your eyes through the small space 2) tricking your brain to thinking there's more depth to the space.
Here are my picks for floor lamps under $100, ideal for small spaces:
BATH TOWELS
Very few bathroom accessories accompanied us to the new apartment. A trash can, along with a few mismatched towels and wash clothes made the cut, for practicality's sake. First on my first list of things to purchase for the bathroom: bath towels, hand towels, a shower curtain, and a bath mat. Because my design idea relies on colorful pattern mixing with a mid-century modern flair, I decided on this colorful set of bath and hand towels from Opalhouse collection at Target!
Again, our design involves color and pattern mixing so these towels were ideal. The yellow connects the living space to the bathroom, and the multi-colored nature of the towels provides us endless re-design potential. If we get tired of the light pink, we can totally keep the towels + revamp the space with new pieces that compliment the other accent colors: light blue, teal, red, or green.
SHOWER CURTAIN
We trashed our old shower curtains to start fresh in our new bathroom, but we couldn't ditch pink! I knew I wanted a colorful and geometric shower curtain that would lend itself to easy pattern mixing. Amazon only had solid colors, not what I wanted.
A shower curtain is a necessary and practical home item that will allow you to add more color, design, or texture into a space. I loved the light pink in our bath towels, and I knew I wanted to use that color to tie the towels and shower curtain together (as well as tie the bathroom and bedroom together). Despite loving Opalhouse's designs, I didn't find any shower curtains that fit the bill for the space...until I checked Poshmark! Join with my code STBLOG to save $10. I found a brand new Opalhouse shower curtain with a light pink and brass geometric design.
While I can't link you to our exact shower curtain, I have found some similar styles at Target. If you like this color + want a pattern, I suggest you check out this Abundance Shower Curtain or this Geometric Shower Curtain. For reference, we use a white cloth liner behind the curtain.
Here are my picks for colorful and geometric shower curtains from Urban Outfitters:
DUVET COVER
Let's talk bedroom purchases! Admittedly, we haven't made much progress on the design of our bedroom (most of our focus has been on the living room). We were given an extra white down comforter from my mother, and I've been loving it....except for the feathers. I'm trying to minimize mess in the new space through weekly cleaning, but the down feathers weren't doing me any favors. Needless to say, I felt as though we could benefit from a duvet cover to contain the feathers. I shopped a West Elm sale and found this organic cotton duvet cover in champagne pink. Yes, more pink! The cotton is soft, and it makes our bed feel so luxurious. Although no one told me how hard it is to put a duvet cover on a comforter by yourself??
If you're looking to refresh your bedroom or elevate your night time routine, a duvet cover is a good investment. Check out the full range of sizes and colors here!
My grandmother was an interior designer and as a little girl, I often accompanied her to consults to help clients consolidate while still getting the most out of their spaces. So it's safe to say I'm REALLY excited to share this process with you all. Thank you in advance for reading, clicking, and sharing our designs.
If you've recently moved or are redesigning your small space, check out my tips and picks from Ashley Furniture HomeStore in my post, 7 Tips for Designing Small Spaces. In collaboration with James, we've also discussed Our Home Kitchen Must-Haves to help you step up your home cooking game. It probably comes as no surprise that James loves all the new counter space in our apartment's kitchen!
If you love anything I've shared here, comment on this post, send to a friend, and/or recreate it with your own personal flair. If you share on Instagram, don't forget to tag me. For more home inspiration, check out previous posts under the AT HOME tab. Lastly, you can keep up with my everyday home updates by following me on Instagram!
Until next time,
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