I got married in June of 2014 and my husband and I moved into an 800 square foot apartment (one bedroom, one bath, serious lack of storage space and beige everything). It wasn’t my first apartment since I spent four years away at college getting a degree in English, but it was the first apartment where I got to pick every decoration out myself. And by myself I mean with my husband, because he actually has great taste and works at a furniture store that receives overstock items from places like Pottery Barn and West Elm.
The apartment is far from my “dream home,” but I love that we have a place of our own and that we’ve been able to make so many memories and make our first big decisions as a couple here. It’s not magazine-worthy or professionally decorated, but I’d love to get some feedback and be able to share our space here.
The navy pillows are made from Dwell Studio’s Ming Dragon fabric and they required a lot of patience on the part of my grandma because I’m not anywhere even close to being a seamstress. The black-and-white prints above the couch were my solution for decorating a big empty wall on a small budget. I bought poster frames for $10 a piece and tried to artistically crop a couple of wedding photos. The third photo was taken at my husband’s great-grandparents’ old farm in Idaho, so it has sentimental value.
I would have loved to paint the walls white or light gray since they’re north-facing and we don’t get a lot of sun, but since we’re renting we would have had to re-paint everything the original color when we moved out and it wouldn’t have been worth it.
The large decorative jars, along with the trio of masks hanging on the wall, were purchased by my husband while he was living in Guatemala on a two-year church mission.
This is an old photo taken shortly after we moved in and we’ve replaced some things since then (namely the “coffee table” that I bought at a thrift store and re-painted and the “rug” that was actually a blanket we bought in Mexico on our honeymoon), but it does show our “tv stand.” My husband found a dresser on an amazing clearance sale and drilled holes in the back for cords to run through. He also removed the back of one of the drawers so our cable box could fit inside.
The kitchen is one of my favorite spaces. It’s small, so we picked out this counter-height table and my parents gave it to us as our wedding gift. The canvas on the wall is by Lindsay Letters and the runner is from Guatemala.
I’ve done my best to decorate with things we already have. The blue jar was made by my grandmom and is a nice sentimental piece since she passed away before I was born, the gold letters are from our wedding reception, the silhouette is from a trip to Disneyland with my family right before we got engaged, and I did the oil painting in an art class in high school.
The bathroom is definitely the hardest space of our apartment to decorate/photograph. I painted the ombre and gold leaf canvas in about 5 minutes to add a little color and the botanical prints visible in the mirror were free art I found online.
The bedroom is the least-finished of all our spaces (probably because nobody ever really sees it and it also corrals all the stuff we don’t have storage space for anywhere else). This was before we had nightstands.
This is obviously from Christmas . . . but it shows our new throw pillows.
And this is definitely the worst photo of all since I snapped it on my phone at night . . . but here’s our balcony. I found the table at a thrift store and painted it green. The rug and chairs were on a huge clearance at Target. I put everything together quickly one night before my husband got home from work to surprise him. Not perfect or elegant, but we love it.
We’re so excited to have our own house at some point (and are actually moving out of our apartment next month and in the process of searching for one), but I’m so happy with what we’ve been able to do in this little space.