Making A House, A Home

Or an apartment, a home. Whatever!

While I'm home, I'm working on transforming our place to make it feel more "homey". Of course any place that Jay, myself, and the dogs are at is home, it always helps to have some pretty things to look at and fall in love with.

Moving in was a disaster. We have so much stuff (which we're so thankful to have) but organizing it is chaos! Our handy dogs were of NO use, obviously. 

After unpacking (mostly) we made our first big purchase as a married couple, some decent living room furniture. We originally were just going to buy a couch, but we were able to catch the end of an Ashley Furniture Sale and got a 14 piece room set for an AMAZING price! Ahhh, we're such grown-ups!

The dogs own this place, they loved our new furniture. We can't keep them off the couches or bed.

So here's our "before" pictures (excuse the mess, unpacking remember?).

Kitchen:

 Dining Area:

Bedroom:

 Bathroom:

So, I set off on the bedroom next. I gained some inspiration from here & here. I had visions of a white serene bedroom with gold accents. Of course in an apartment I can't paint the walls (I could, but changing it back would be a hassel) and I'm slightly limited but I'm doing what I can.

I first got a new duvet and comforter. We've never needed a down comforter before in AZ so this was so exciting! My pictures aren't great (waiting on that new camera!) but this is the duvet cover. I'll work on the camera skills, promise. I also sewed these gold pillows with some fabric from JoAnns.

Next, I needed to paint our furniture white. I began with the side tables. I got some Pantone Bright White paint (it has primer and low VOC) and some metallic gold spray paint. After sanding them down it took just a few coats and I was good to go! I also added some wording to a canvas I already had. It's my handwriting so it's not fabulous, but it'll do for now.

Notice how Uley doesn't bother to move for the camera, this is HIS bed.

For the bathroom I wanted some mint green with gold accents. Inspiration from here.

I can't really paint in here either so it'll always be kind of bare and boring until we buy. 

 We finally got a few pictures up, and now we have some curtains on that huge window. It's a sloooowww work in progress, but it's starting to feel more US everyday. 

If you'll notice there is an upstairs loft space. It's basically Jay's game room, it's got a lot of work to do!

In the future I hope to:

-Finish painting the bedroom furniture (dresser and possibly bed frame)

-Put up a wall of pictures from the wedding in the bedroom

-Paint the dining room table

-Transform the upstairs space

This apartment will never truly be what I hope for it because of the lack of alterations I can do in an apartment, but everything I do I will be able to bring along to a future house!

This apartment will also never be clean to my standards, these dogs do NOT like cleanliness. Le sigh.