Living Room Update

We rearranged our living room! I was feeling the itch to do something new and so I did - well, we did. Carson had to be the one to move the couch and the dresser because they're super heavy, but I moved everything else around while he was at the store grabbing a Powerball ticket and the last couple ingredients for dinner! 

Here are some panorama shots of the room. I wish I'd taken a good before picture the same way.

The view from the kitchen opening.

Really liking the little bookshelf in here. It might make things too busy in the dining area, but oh well. It declutters the living room area.

The tv is sort of in front of the door, but it's still useable. We have a blanket there because cold air was getting in. And I think the dresser under that busy wall looks a lot less cluttered than the shelf did. 

I'm liking this corner empty again because I can open the window again! I used to have a bookshelf by the couch here and I prefer it in the dining room because it declutters a little. I decided to clutter it up a little with some workout stuff. It will probably hide when we have people over.  

Definitively just took the Christmas things out of these glass containers and left them up. I am not a great mantel-decorator so I'm still brainstorming. 

Before:

Here's a history of the living room, for those interested and those who have visited at different times during these little updates: 

This was in the summer of 2014, when we moved in:

This was at Christmas last year. We'd just gotten our tv and there wasn't a spot for it so I made us rearrange the furniture as soon as we walked in the door from our Thanksgiving trip. Carson was surprisingly game. 

Post-Christmas 2014, we painted the dresser and decided that we liked things better with something in the corner where the tree was, so we moved the tv there, where it couldn't mess up our new paint job. 

I re-did the gallery wall on one of Carson's out-of-town conferences this fall. It provides a look at how this side of the room looked with things flipped... Cozy but sort of cluttered with all the books and busy wall. 

And here's Christmas 2015, just a couple of weeks ago. I liked the tree in that corner, although it did block the back door. We moved the rocking chair into the guest room, which I was happy about because I never liked it in the living room in the first place. 

Things I Like About Where We Live

We live in a cave of an apartment. It's so dark, there's no natural light (sometimes, when it's very sunny, we get a 10x10" patch of sunlight in the middle of the living room), and all the trim and doors are brown, which doesn't help it feel lighter. That said, I don't hate this place. Other than the whole very brown and dark things, there's actually a lot to like. Here's a list:

We have a dishwasher. We have never had a dishwasher in our married life and so this is great. we sometimes forget about this wonderful contraption and wash dishes by hand. 

Because it's dark, it stays cool in the summer and we don't have to crank the air waaaay up. 

I like the flow of the kitchen, dining and living room way better than the last place we lived. This house would have been better to host community group, which we did in Cleveland but don't do here.

The kitchen has tons of cabinets, lots of counter space, AND a pantry. Win. 

We don't have to go into a creepy basement or to a laundromat to wash clothes. 

I love our fireplace. We have't used it yet, but I love the way the mantel looks

Our view in the back is just trees. No one behind us. Lots of poison ivy out there which is not a positive thing but just a view of trees. 

I've always loved stairs which we had in our little house, but I'm thankful that this is a one story. I've discovered that I like places that are cozier, so I prefer living in a smaller space that isn't really open and airy. No idea why, and my Pinterest boards don't suggest that :)

We have two bathrooms. Carson calls the guest bathroom his, and the master bathroom mine. Two bathrooms was high on my list because... well because I'm sensitive to smells and you know. 

The bathrooms don't have windows. I hate windows in bathrooms. I'm always worried that someone's out there looking in, even if it isn't on purpose. Whenever I go to someone's house and there's a window without blinds, I hate it. I can do without light in that room.

Because it's a small space, this place heats up and cools down pretty quickly, so we don't run the air or heat all the time, which seems to save money!

I'm usually at work before the sun comes up on the week days (ugh) but when I do get up after the sun, it's not because it wakes me up. The benefit of having a dark apartment is that nap time and mornings aren't blinding.

We live right near a bus stop, which is great because Carson rides the bus.

Not having a basement helped us to get rid of things! Carson's donated or sold lots of books and I may or may not have donated a few things without his knowledge (I've since told him... more on that another time). The closet in the guest bedroom is bursting at the seams, but I'd still say it's impressive that we've fit a basement into a closet! (okay, under the guest bed we have nothing but boxes of books. BUT STILL. 

All in all, I like this place. We aren't decided on whether or not we'll stick around for another year's lease or look for something closer to campus. 

Decked.

We decorated for Christmas the Sunday before Thanksgiving because we wanted to enjoy the pretty Christmas lights and decorations for as long as possible, and because we knew we didn't want to get home from South Carolina and immediately set things up. 

We purchased a TV on Black Friday, and with the living room set-up that we had, there wasn't a good spot for it. So while we didn't get home and begin decorating the house, we did get home and immediately begin rearranging the living room. This set-up is different for us, but we're liking it so far, and you can see the glow of the Christmas tree from the kitchen now too!

The only problem we have is that we're the only ones to enjoy this set-up. Anyone want to come visit and see our Christmassy apartment?

Remember when I made this wreath a couple of years ago? Here's a tip if you make one: glue the ornaments balls to the tops. It will take you longer, but if you don't, it will somehow break every year and you'll find yourself performing wreath surgery approximately every 365 days. Were I to make this again, I'd not only take the extra glue step, I'd also use E6000 glue instead of just hot glue.

Just some house stuff

Just a post about some house updates. 

While we were living in Spokane, I made some state outlines with little hearts to show where we'd met and married, and those have moved with us twice and are currently hanging on our bedroom wall. I liked those a lot, but thought since we've moved actually quite a lot in our four years of marriage, that I could update the project. So I gathered a couple of cracker boxes (yep. they're just cardboard), acrylic paints I had, and two sets of these little two-in-a-pack frames. I cut out and traced the states onto the cardboard, painted, and made pink hearts. 

I hung them in our guest bedroom and really like them. 

Beaufort, South Carolina - where we were married

Naches and Spokane, Washington, where we first lived when we were married, and where we met and lived for our first two years of marriage, respectively (green, because it's the Evergreen state)

Cleveland, Ohio - 22 months of life were lived here (in Cleveland Indians colors)

Tallahassee, Florida - 5ish years here to come? (in Seminoles colors)

I mentioned in a previous post that Jillian and I were sent on a mission to find bedding and that we were successful, so here's that story and pictures. We made our first stop Goodwill, and had success there. I went over to the bedding and noticed this brown polka dot quilt and shams there for $13. I didn't want brown in my room again, but thought for $13 it would do the job in the interim and then could be used in the guest room, so I bought it.

We then headed to Target, where there were several bedspreads on sale. I couldn't decide between a navy blue one with chambray blue patterns on it, or a colorful one. The colorful one was cheaper though both were under my budget. I went with that one, but held on to the receipt and it turned out that Carson LOVED it, so I threw the receipt away. Here it is, on my poorly-made bed. It came with shams and things too, but I didn't put those on until after the picture.

I've been looking for a nightstand for some time, and was at Ross (love that store) one day when I saw these fun tray tables, meant for TV dinners. I thought to myself that it could work, and it DOES! And yes, there's a bit of pattern competition, but in my defense I bought it when we had a blue bedspread and thought I was going to choose something neutral. I still don't hate it and it's really sturdy and works. It was also much cheaper than the options I'd seen.

Home Sweet Apartment

Now that we've been here for a month, it's high time that you get a little tour of our new place. It's an apartment, which was a little sad for us because we loved the freedom of a house (i.e. you can nail pictures in the wall at midnight and no one cares). It's a bottom floor though, which I prefer, because yes, you might get someone loud above you, but at least YOU aren't the loud one.

Finding our apartment

We found our apartment on Craigslist, which despite all the "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?" comments we got did not bother us. It's how we found our last house, our car, and quite a lot of our furniture. We looked (online) at lots of places before we came to this one. Many of them had pools, gyms and other amenities, but they were either out of our price range or "fixed income" and we weren't sure what that would look like, since many of them were also clearly marketed to students. Our place is part of a four-plex, so there are only three other apartments, not a huge complex, which is nice. In the past we've sort of just hoped for the best in our homes, but this time we had a few things we were looking for: washer and dryer included, far enough from campus to not be in "party central" every single night, two bedrooms, and, if possible, two bathrooms. The latter one was my personal hope. While there were houses available in our price range, we decided pretty early in the hunt that we didn't really want to have to keep up with a yard. It didn't take THAT much time out of our lives, but with where we are in life, it was an added hassle. I'm looking forward to one day buying a house, something that could potentially happen while we're still here, but right now, it's pretty nice letting school and work be our priorities.

We had an apartment sort of lined up, but mailing our application to the landlord took a long time and someone got to it before we did. But this one happened to be on Craigslist on the day we got turned down for the first one, maybe two weeks before we moved. Carson called on it that day and by that afternoon, we had a lease. The other one was a top floor, which I didn't want, and looks to be in full sun (it's about five houses down, actually), with a driveway that's at the bottom of a hill. I'm not sure how we'd have gotten that huge moving van down there, and I'm betting that our bills would have been much higher for air, since right now our apartment is pretty much a cave. It's REALLY dark in here, but I think of all the money we're saving on keeping it cool and I don't care about having to turn on a light anytime I enter a room.

Okay, enough writing; PICTURES!

We'll begin with the exterior. It's not pretty but who cares?

And here's how it looks as you're coming up the stairs (the light is generally not on and the door typically stays closed).

And the view from our front door... I fixed our garbage can lid moments after taking this.

Here's our front door. This wreath hung unadorned on our last door and I never got around to doing anything to it so this little paper banner spices it up a little.

You enter in a little dark hallway with the guest bedroom to your immediate right, the pantry (WE HAVE A PANTRY) right next to that, and the water heater or something ugly next to that. To the left is the kitchen. Straight ahead is the living room/dining room combo, and the other two doors on the right are the laundry area and then our bedroom.

Most of the places we saw had these pass through areas in the kitchens, which I didn't really care for. Carson LOVED them though, which was good because there weren't many other options. It's grown on me a lot, and I think it will be great for setting food on, or just keeping tabs on what's going on in the living room.

This kitchen has so much more counter space than any place we've lived. It's almost overwhelming and I haven't measured but I'd be willing to bet that it tripled our counter space from the Cleveland place. There are more cabinets too, and since we have our great little pantry to put food in, we have even MORE space to put things. I really like the layout of this kitchen too. I think it was planned way better than our house's kitchen.

Across the hall is the guest bedroom/office/library. The bedroom set was my graduation gift from my parents and I'm happy to finally have it in my own house. It makes the guest room seem more like a functional room, whereas an air mattress on the floor with random bookshelves wasn't so welcoming. I like this little room.

Over the bed is a poster of colorful tickets that I found at IKEA in May, which Morgan graciously stored until I actually moved to Florida. It was always my plan to put it in this room, and I like it there. Also on the wall is a picture of Jesus that Carson loves. Over the desk is our message board, which we've never really used functionally but it works here. My craft stuff is in the closed cabinet, Carson's books are on the big shelves (he got rid of SO many of them when he was going through boxes - so proud) and the little white shelf holds our DVDs.

 This house was advertised as having two master suites, which I didn't really get at first, but I guess it just means that both bathrooms are connected to the bedrooms. This one seems to be "hotel style" to me, since there isn't a door separating the bedroom from the sink part. The shower and toilet are in their own little space, and there's plenty of room under the sink for storing towels and extra toiletries.

The guest bathroom has what I like to call "country kitchen" wallpaper, which is fairly subtle for wallpaper and doesn't bother me too much (but I would rip it out in a heartbeat if we owned this place). We're using our old orange shower curtain in this bathroom, partially because when we moved in this was the only bathroom with a shower rod, and partially because after four years of living with it, I was tired of how dark and not my style it was. Sorry, guests. 

The guest closet is its own special little thing. It's a big mess. For the last four years, we've had some form of extra storage, and with this place of course, that didn't happen. So to go from a full sized basement to a closet isn't THAT bad. It needs organization, but that will come (and you're not going to get a closer picture until that's done).

Along the same wall you walk in on is the laundry... area. I'm not sure if it's fair to call it a room because it's basically a closet with a washer and dryer in it. It's a far cry from the scary basement and really convenient to have it in the middle of everything. Our Christmas tree somehow fits next to the dryer, and as you can see, we've stored an exercise ball and coolers in addition to actual laundry stuff. Can I also say how great it is to have a shelf? In our scary basement, there wasn't a shelf, so I stored the detergent and dryer sheets on top of the washer, which was slanted toward the ground because everything was angled toward the drain. This is way better, and isn't likely to be as frozen in the winter. 

Back out into the hallway, we come to the dining, and then living room. When I first walked inside the apartment, this space was the biggest disappointment to me. For some reason (probably seeing tons of pictures of different places, and then they all mashed into my head to form a new house), I thought that there would be a little dining room. Of course there isn't, and when I first walked in, I didn't think we were going to have enough room. I was soon convinced that I was wrong, and actually NOT having a separate room for the table was great because we were able to put the leaves in the table. I didn't even know we had leaves for the table until this point. We haven't eaten in here yet, as we prefer to eat on the couch, but we've done lots of studying and projects here.

The living room is part of the the dining room, but I wanted to make them seem separate. The couch turned the way it is helped with that, even thought it is still very open. Since it's dark in here, the mirror on the mantel was my favorite option, in hopes of reflecting some light. The gallery wall is fun, and I'm glad Mom and I spent hours (felt like hours) working on it. Before we moved, I decided that I wanted a dresser to go in the living room, and I'm glad that I did. It gives us space to put things like wrapping paper and chargers, and is another piece of living room furniture that fills the space but isn't overwhelming.

Just over the bar seemed like the perfect place to hang our "Bay" sign that we love. Over the couch are big pictures of us (it was going to be something neutral, like places we lived, but I have almost none that are portrait orientation), one from last year's visit to Old Sheldon Church and the other from a wedding we attended in Spokane in 2012 a week before we moved and never blogged about. The lamp is "new", from a thrift store. Everything else I think you'll recognize from our other homes, though isn't it funny to see things in a new space? 

The door goes to our little porch, which gets no sun, but does allow you to be protected from rain. It's a great place to go outside and read because it's cool out there and really private (it faces some trees). We will likely invest in an outdoor chair or two for here, but we're fine dragging our dining room chairs out for now.

The sliding door on the porch goes to our room, and we really don't use it. It's sort of a hassle to move those blinds to go out there, and it's not like you can watch amazing sunsets or anything from there, so we just go around to the back door and treat this sliding door as a window (and this is also how light it gets in our room... yikes!).

Our room is a little bit strange because you go through the bathroom to get there. I imagine that if we have guests over this will be nice, so that we can close our door and let them use this one, but I think it's strange.  Also, check out the wallpaper. It's special.
So you enter into the little sink area, which has the toilet and shower straight ahead, and the closet to the right. I leave the closet door open with my shoe holder (which I've owned since I first went to college for some reason).

The bathroom part of the bathroom is the lightest part of the whole apartment. It's the only place that doesn't have lots of dark wood or weird wallpaper and that's so nice. I found the shower curtain at Big Lots for $8. Somehow in planning to move I'd forgotten that two bathrooms meant double the bathroom stuff, like shower curtains. I've had the orange one for so long that this light colored one is great. The art on the wall is a painting by a Beaufort artist, Nancy Rhett. I felt a little bad about putting art of any kind in a bathroom, but the colors worked and it was nice and light.

Back in the entry bathroom, we have a couple of frames on the walls. Whoever lived here before put holes in the walls there, so I just stuck my own nails right where those were. Nice. I keep my tank tops on that over the door hanger, a Pinterest hack.

And here's our bedroom. It's also SUPER dark in here, even during the day. It's GREAT for taking naps or sleeping in, since additionally, it's really quiet.

In the past, our room was one of the last places where we hung things. Part of this is due to the fact that we don't have a headboard, and I don't own anything big enough to fill up a huge wall behind the bed. When we were making the gallery wall for the living room, making a little "collage" on the wall occurred to me, and I made my dad put nails in the right places there. We also hung a full-length mirror, our wedding vows, and the collage of wedding pictures that have previously hung in our dining and living rooms. It feels more like a room with things on the walls.

Forgive the curtains. I don't love that they are a foot off the ground (which you conveniently can't see) or that they are cream when everything is white, but you win some you lose some. They're hung on a piece of PVC pipe that we bought when Mom and Dad were here for a LOT less than we were seeing for a curtain rod.
The blue thing on the wall in this picture is a frame with our wedding vows written on it. I loved the idea, and still do, but can't seem to get it right, so a couple days after I took this picture, I replaced it with a new piece of art.

Now that we have my furniture from my room in South Carolina, we each have our own dresser! I'm using this one with a mirror over the top, and Carson is using the tall one. The one in our Cleveland house is the one that's out in the living room.

Whew. I knew that would be wordy and picture heavy, and I'm sorry that it is so that way, but I'm clearly not THAT sorry. Thanks for reading, or perhaps just looking at pictures, or perhaps scrolling past and saying "NEXT!" We like our little Florida home, despite its cave-like attributes.