My new home.

Welcome to my humble abode. After three busy days of packing, moving things in, unpacking, repeat, the apartment is finally starting to feel like home. My excitement over having my own place led me to foolishly invite people over for a pre-bar NYE cocktail partay even though Nate and I were still moving boxes in yesterday morning... that being said, I would not rest until the two main rooms looked presentable. Things aren't perfect yet, but I am pretty darn happy with how it's come together thus far. So if you'll join me, let's take a little tour...

**note: We did not pay for any of the work that was done in the apartment. Our landlord had already hired a contractor, so we had no say in the decisions that were made (notably the kitchen and bath) aside from the color of the grey walls in the main living roms.

the original dining room

with new grey paint

aaaaand here it is a day after moving in. Not too shabby, eh?

We bought IKEA's Expedit shelves, turned them on their side, and attached four legs to make it a bar/buffet/storage for glassware!

The antler you see toward the right actually has a bottle opener on one end - can't even tell you how many compliments I got on that item alone!

Tucker by the entryway in the dining room - we found that great trunk table at a resale shop in DC.

I absolutely loooove this serving platter. It was a gift from the kids I've babysat for the past 10 years (wow - 10 years!!!). Clearly they know my taste! It's Nora Fleming china and the pink Happy New Year hat can be switched out with other decorative, festive "minis."

My best friend brought the fancy champagne, the bucket is on loan from my mom, and the tree nameplates were a day-after-Christmas sale purchase from Crate & Barrel.

Pretty! : )

You may notice I still have to refinish the fourth dining chair. The before and afters of this CraigsList find will be it's own post next week.

The Living Room

Original

with new paint

below is the living room a day after moving in

The tripod lamp, faux fur throw, couch & rug are West Elm (the two latter items were an amazing CraigsList find - I'm 24 and don't have a crazy budget. I buy used furniture. So sue me.) The awesome tree branch table is from Target, and the big chair is a hand-me-down from my mom.

I love sparkly things. Wow - need to clean the windows.

One day at a time, Alaina. One day at a time.

The Kitchen

Below is the original kitchen I saw when I decided to get the apartment. Black and seafoam green tile - a lot of which was cracked and chipped - surrounded the room and there were very few cabinets...

So appliances came out, tiling came down, and white beadboard went up. I prefer the look of these lighter walls and will probably go back to something like that. But for now I still have to unpack the rest of my clothes.

Below is the kitchen as it was set up last night. So yes, we still have a lot of work to do here, notably repaint the sunflower hued walls. But for having moved in a day ago, it gets the job done.

You'll notice we bought the IKEA tulip table I love so very much. And since chairs are hella expensive, we just grabbed these awesome yellow folding chairs (also from IKEA) that were on sale for $6 a piece. They'll be great on the back deck come summertime!

That's all for now, folks.

Happy New Year!!