Update-y Apartment Things

I was sitting at the kitchen table the other day, typing away at a blog post, when I caught myself looking around our apartment, kind of in awe that it's... you know... ours.

It's not an exceptionally fancy apartment... our furniture is pretty simple, and the transition hasn't been flawless (or easy, to be honest), but it's our apartment. There are days where I still can't believe that we actually made it to this point. There were a lot of tears and a lot of "only ___ more months" along the way, and there were times where I was sure it was never going to happen, because living together always seemed so far off in the distance.

But we made it, and we're in, and now we have a pretty freakin' adorable little apartment with nice neighbors and friends close by, and that's awesome, because you know what? We earned it. Being in a long distance relationship is the worst and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

This wasn't supposed to be THAT sentimental, I was really only going to show you a few pictures. Honestly, I was going to wait till we were a little more "finished" (are you ever really finished decorating a home? no.) but I love it so much in here, so I thought I'd share.

I know I've talked about this couch ad nauseam at this point, but I love it. I wasn't completely sure how it was going to look, and I definitely wasn't sure if Garrett was going to like it (he's very traditional in his decor choices) but I think it looks really cute in the room. Our living room isn't huge, so the bold print makes it fill up the room a bit more. I also love how the blue and yellow go well with it without being too obnoxious. And of course, if you follow me on Instagram, you know how much I love that Relax pillow.

I know it's probably silly to love a bookshelf so much, but I seriously love this bookshelf. We had a hard time arranging everything on there that we wanted, but I think it looks awesome in our little office nook.

I actually turned down this console table when we originally came into this furniture (I'm sure you remember we got it from my grandparents house) but I'm so glad I changed my mind. It fits perfectly in this area beside the window, and it looks awesome with my Birchbox tray and all of our wine corks and a few other little knick-knack type things.

Garrett surprised me while I was gone last week and put up these mirror tiles I'd had my eye on at Target . Originally, the plan was to put a mirror (or six) back there because the living room/office area doesn't have any overhead lighting, and we were thinking that the mirrors would bounce a bit more light through the apartment. I don't think it's really done that, but I think they look awesome back there regardless.

Also, I took two or three pictures of this area before I realized hellooooo, those are mirrors and you are in all these pictures, so there's me looking ridiculous. You're welcome.

 

This isn't a great picture because of the sun coming in through the window (we still haven't bought curtains), but I wanted to include one picture of the (working!) fireplace and the living room all together. I've never had a fireplace/mantel in an apartment before, and I think it's so great.
(The carpet looks really stained here for some reason, and it isn't. It was actually installed right before we moved in, which is both awesome and terrifying.)

We found out we can actually paint, but I'm not sure we will. For one, it's a lot of work, and two, what color would we do? Gray would be the only color that would really go with everything we have in there, and most of the time, going from one neutral to another neutral just seems kinda silly. So we'll see.

Overall, we're really fortunate that we already had most of the stuff we put in here and only had to spend money on updating some of it, and we were able to pull together an apartment that is cohesive and honestly, pretty stinkin' cute. (I may be biased.)