Here is finally a tour of our old apartment. For some of the rooms I have before and afters, for some of the rooms I don't.
Ready?
When you open the door to our apartment, you walk right into our living room that is also open to dining room and kitchen. Altogether this space is tiny, especially when you consider that we downsized and have too many pieces of furniture.
Here is our living room and the view you get right when you walk in. So far I painted the walls a neutral tan color. I added a small mirror and hooks to our book shelf to create something of an entry way where we can leave the dog leash and keys. We purchased a slipcover for the sofa, because our lab nicely ate half of the cushions while still a puppy.
Before:
So Far:
If you turn around, you will see the attached dining room space, which is painted the same tan color as the living-room. Working with the items I already had, I tried to incorporate mainly dark red and turquoise/blue accents in this space. I added the shelves on the back wall to add some interest to the wall. We got the set of side tables from a distant friend a few years ago. I hate the color, so at some point I plan to paint them maybe white. So far I have frosted the glass inserts with spray paint. The large picture on the back wall has now a white frame is hung in the hallway.
Before (sorry the mess):
Here is our kitchen, which has decent cabinets but a layout that wasn't put much thought into. About half of our cabinets can't be opened all the way, because the refrigerator is in the way. I really didn't do anything with this space.
Between the kitchen and the dining room is the hallway towards bedrooms.
So far I have painted this are with a very light blue-greenish color called Lime Light. I also hang some cheap artwork that my husband picked up a few years ago. I never liked the gold color of the frame (seen in the dining room before picture), so last summer I spray-painted it white. I added the ottoman (from the living room, which is too brown anyway), and pillows.
The first door to the right goes to the Laundry Room, which I updated a little bit a few months ago. Besides adding shelves, I added some fun green and wicker baskets to store supplies and some fun DIY-wall-art.
The first door to the left goes to the guest bed room which is being used by my brother-in-law. It's tiny and I haven't really done a thing to it. Since it's his room, I'll consider this as off-limits for now.
Then the second door to the right opens to the guest bathroom.
(I will post pictures soon!)
The second door to the left opens to the second bedroom. This is our son's nursery, which still needs to be transformed to a big-boy-room. Two years ago I painted half the walls in blue and the other half in a sandy-beige. We added furniture, a bed, shelves and some wall art.
At the end of the hallway is the door to our master suite. We don't really have furniture for the bed-room yet. I painted a dresser we found on the street in white. I tried to make everything look more cohesive by adding a navy and green color scheme. I "covered" the Ikea chair in a blanket to make it fit into the room. So far the rooms still looks a lot like a dorm room, but I am working on it.
Our master bathroom has been painted, I added a DIY roman shade, art work, a fun new shower curtain and a bath mat in the same teal color as the shower curtain.
Before:
Finally, off the living room in the front of the house is located our balcony. I have made a few updates so far, just to make it look a little cuter. Our balcony turned from nothing-going-on on there to a place you can sit a have a glass of wine:
Obviously, a lot of these rooms are still a work in progress. Many of our furniture pieces are hand-me-downs which therefore don't go together too well.
I have a few goals for our space:
1) Dining room: I realized that with the collection of hand-me-downs and the type of colors and curtains we were using our dining room was turning into something far too ornate for my taste. A little ornate is fine. Ornate-overload is what we had. Adding the contemporary wall shelves, removing that gold-frame picture and adding contemporary curtains and blinds helped out a lot. The side tables will go white or cream soon, and I might actually move the smaller ones into the master bedroom and use as bedside tables.
2) Living room: This is easy. Brown on brown on brown is going on in there. There are also too many pieces of furniture in the room (which is by the way an issue repeated all throughout the apartment due to our downsizing).
3) Master bedroom: Getting the dorm out of there is the plan. I am working on incorporating a color-scheme and on updating the furniture in there little by little. We need a bed, or at least a headboard and nightstands.
I'll post pictures as I make small and budget-friendly updates to any of the rooms.
