Home Sweet...Apartment

I'm back!  After spending what seemed like a lifetime, we're officially out of the house and settled into our little (and I mean little) apartment for the next 9 months to a year.  I hesitate putting an estimated time on how long we'll live here since years ago while we were building our house, we were in an apartment  for a year and a half.   When we moved in we thought that it would be for about 6 months.  Even though we're planning to live here for a short while, I don't want for it to feel like we are here temporarily.

I will be posting from time to time about our experiences with small space living and my attempt to resolve challenges that come with less space and apartment living.  I know that many people live in apartments.  There are great advantages like: no yard care, unlimited garbage and recycling bins, and typically there is less space to clean, just to name a few.  On a less than positive side (in our case), there is only one reserved parking spot for each apartment (and I might also mention that it is so narrow that when there are cars parked on both sides of you, you have to turn sideways and slide through, dusting both cars with your clothes while you slide out.)  For the most part, our experience has been very positive and I think this adventure will be a good one.  By the way, look how beautiful the view is when you walk out our door and onto the path around the little lake.

Let's talk about my design challenge number one.  The master bedroom.  When I viewed the model of this plan, it seemed much larger to me than it actually was.  It might be the fact that the model probably had a full size bed in it instead of a king sized one.  You would think that since I have experience with arranging furniture and working with clients, etc. that I would have considered this fact a little bit more.  Normally I take measurements of the room and furniture and draw it up on my space planning program (I'm crazy like that).   I knew that our dresser and mirror wouldn't fit but I thought that surely we would be able to place the bed with a night stand on each side and our chest directly across from our bed.  There is only one way this room can be laid out because of the sliding door that leads to the back porch.  The movers brought in the bed and after setting it up, we had exactly 32" from the foot board to the wall.  The chest is almost 20" deep.  Yeah, you do the math.  It wasn't going to work.  There was only one solution.  We had to put the chest in front of the slider.  Luckily we also have access from the living room out to the porch as well.

Because the chest was going on that side of the bed, I had to offset the bed on the wall to have enough room to walk around it.  This meant that we could only use one nightstand.  Ughhh!  This just wasn't going as planned!
I'm also not crazy about vertical blinds.  I know that they're practical and some people swear by them.  I certainly wasn't going to remove them but I did want them to be covered during the day.   I need to mention here that after sorting through all of the ridiculous things that we own and deciding what to pack away for storage and what to bring with us, I wasn't about to buy anything extra for this apartment other than things that helped with storage.  I was most definitely going to use what I had!

I decided to hang a small rod on one end of the window.  Then all I needed to cover up those vertical blinds was one of my curtain panels.  I'd used my other black and white panels in the front room so all that I had left was my white and black damask print.  I love damask, just look at my bedspread, but that would be entirely too much of it especially since they would be about 2' away from each other.  I decided to flip the panel over to the back side.  You can see the print around the edges and just a shadow of the damask print peaking through from the back side.  I can live with that!  Problem solved!  It's certainly tight in our room, but it works.

 I added my turquoise touches (I showed you some here) to give it a new punch of color.

Oh, and on the wall where my chest was going to go, I placed a very special piece of art that we bought on our 25th anniversary of one of our favorite places, Venice (notice the turquoise in the picture?  I hadn't even noticed it much until I put it in here).  I might or might not lay in bed and pretend that I'm looking out my "window" into downtown Venice.

My way of thinking about decorating and design is by working with what you have, at the time.   Whether you have a small space or a large one, or if you just consider using items that you already own, in different ways.  It's my hope that I've inspired you like so many of you inspire me.

Wall hanging transformation

I've been spending the majority of my days packing for our move this coming Monday.
As I've sorted through my things, I decided that if something needs a quick paint update that it would be best to do it now before the move.  I'm certain that I'll find a great place to set up "shop" at the apartment but I thought that I'd take advantage of the garage and driveway areas that I have now.

I've always loved this wall hanging.  It looks great over a window or above a painting.  The color just wasn't doing it for me anymore.  It looked great when when I had more gold and red in my home.  It was time for a update!

After I gave it a quick spray with Rustoleum's Heirloom White, I added an antiquing glaze like I showed you here and again here.

If you haven't done a glaze before, I show you  the different steps in the photo above.  I like to use a 1" paintbrush and cover a small section at a time.  It dries really quickly so don't try to cover too much at a time.  In this picture, the far left side is after I applied the glaze and wiped it off with a clean cloth.  The center is before any glaze is applied, and the right side is after I brushed on the glaze.  When you're glazing a piece with a lot of texture, such as this one, be sure to apply the glaze down into all the "pockets" and then simply wipe off the rest.  Turn your cloth over and "buff" it some more.  It's simple to add more but it can difficult to wipe off once it dries.  If it does begin to dry and it's too dark, try using a damp cloth to remove more.   Just do this until you achieve the look that you like.  It's pretty difficult to mess it up!

Here's the finished product!  It looks like a brand new piece to me now.   I'm looking forward to finding the perfect place for it in my apartment.

Adding a new color to my life...

I've been busy packing up the house, sorting, having a garage sale, selling things on craigslist, and packing some more.  I hate packing!  Each day I see a bit more progress...  I'm so looking forward to having this move over with.  I actually enjoy the unpacking.  It's during that time that I can decorate and find new places for my treasures.

It's been so good for me to sort through my things and decide what to keep, what to sell, and what to donate.  I've always told my family,  friends and clients that "if you don't LOVE it - don't keep it!"  It's become obvious to me that I haven't always practiced what I preached.  It's amazing how easy it is to accumulate stuff!  The saying is true that less is more, and I plan to begin living that way!

I showed you my black and cream damask bedspread here.  I wanted to add a new and exciting accent color, one that I've never decorated with before.  I've decided on turquoise.  I've become such a fan of this color!  As I was packing items, I found a couple of things to paint in my new color so that I could add them to my bedroom after the move.  Rustoleum has a beautiful spray paint color called Lagoon.  I bought a $3.00 can, and transformed these items...

Into these ...

I didn't paint the pillow!  I had every intention of recovering another pillow when I found this beauty at a discount store for $10.99!    I couldn't believe how perfectly it matched my painted items.  I added a glaze to the frame to make it slightly different than the vase.  

So ... for the cost of the pillow and a can of spray paint, I'll have a whole new look to my room.  I'll show you how it all looks together when I get settled in after the move.

I won't be blogging for the next couple of weeks while we move and get settled.  I'm hoping that I'll have plenty of helpful hints on living simply and small space living for you very soon after.

Until then, on with our adventure!

Living simply while simply living...

This is my new motto.  It feels good, clean and ....simple.
If you know me personally or have read my about me section then you know a little bit about our journey to simplicity.  Many people our age get to the place in life where they want to own less and scale down.  Some people, like us, do it out of necessity.  I have to admit that it feels amazing!  Of course it doesn't feel great to be in a position where our financial circumstances are stressful, but I do love the feeling of owning less.  There's less to clean, less to care about and less to leave on this earth some day  for our poor kids to sort through.  Not that I'm planning for that to happen any time soon, but I still think about it.

After much discussion, my husband and I have decided to scale down AGAIN and move into a 1,000 sf, 2 bedroom apartment for the next 9 months to a year.  The idea is that we can pay less rent each month and watch our savings account grow, putting us into a position to purchase our own home again.  We're storing  much of our stuff in my parents garage (free storage - thanks Mom and Dad) and continue to purge STUFF!

We've lived in apartments at different times over the years when we were building a house.  I don't love the idea of the noise involved in apartments.  We wanted a ground level (getting old!) and so I know there will be footsteps and vacuum cleaners and such going on above us.  This is, however, the first time that it has only been my husband and me.   I'm trying to look at this as an adventure.  I'm going to sound really spoiled here but I'm not looking forward to having all white walls!  The purpose for this post is to tell you that while I'll still post about my design projects and crafty-type things, I will be writing about my journey to make my white - walled apartment warm and homey.  I'll focus on small-space living ideas and ways to make it feel like ours.  Follow me and I'll share what I know, how I feel, and how I will attempt to make this the best experience possible.

If you live in an apartment, a rental or even a small home, I hope that I'll inspire you.  Look for an update on my blog toward the end of July on getting settled (We're moving on the 18th.)  Oh, and if I start complaining about apartment life, you may need to remind me that I'm on an adventure!

Thanks for listening!