Moving out on your own for the first time can be scary. Lucky for me, I moved in with my boyfriend and our new puppy so I’m not completely alone, but as for making our new place feel like our home, I did most of the decorating and home-making. Alex (my boyfriend) already had a lot of the kitchen supplies and a bed and everything due to having an apartment before this one, but he didn’t necessarily have a style of his own that he wanted our apartment to have.
I kind of knew what I wanted as far as a style; minimalist yet colourful and floral/plant filled with a type of organized chaos style, thanks to my OCD. My first twinge of inspiration was art. I decided to purchase a bunch of huge canvases and some new acrylic paints and create my own art for our place. I used these paintings to serve as the aspect of colour that I’d wanted so much.
After creating my art, I knew I wanted greenery and flowers included in the layout, so I did some yard saling before I moved back to NYC in my home state of PA. I found white floral bouquets of fake flowers for quarters, catch-all dishes for earrings and hair clips and some vintage planters/mugs/glassware for the design scheme. Alex already had a few plants and I had a few to bring with me too, and then we got a plant as a housewarming gift and we are still on the search for some more.
We kept our bedroom pretty simple with mostly white features to match the walls and closet colour. A white comforter, beige sheets, white dressers, and a white sheet over our puppies crate for her to be able to sleep without the light bugging her. The stand-out piece in the room is Alex’s darker wood desk and some more colourful art.
We got some extra storage with a small oval table that I got at a yard sale and painted white and a cheap shoe rack and bathroom cart. We have lots of natural light in the apartment, which is super nice for our aesthetic feel. We don’t have to turn on the lights very often and even when we do, we have a cute floor lamp and the overhead lights are pretty soft.
Overall, my advice is to thrift, yard sale, online shop (Home Goods, World Market, Depop, Facebook Marketplace), and try to keep it minimal.
