In our 670 square foot apartment, we don’t really have a dining room. It’s more like a nook where we can stash a table and chairs. But it’s ours, and we love it. We especially love the pukey-beige paneling, the attractive and functional faux wood ledge, and the expansive size.
Well, not those things, so much, but it does work function quite well for the two of us. We’ve even entertained people several times, and it works well for now at this point in our lives. Our philosophy when finding an apartment was to find the cheapest 1-bedroom we could stand; this one is it. Now our mission is to make it cozy and feel like home. Oh, and here are the posts on our bedroom and our bathroom if you’d like to snoop some more.
Here’s what the room looked like before we moved in:
and here it is with our stuff in it, minus one attractive man. An improvement? Well, it’s got to get worse before it gets better, I guess.
Huh. This apartment has posed some design challenges.
I really really don’t like that ledge (it goes through the whole apartment! invading my space!), so my goal was to make it way less obvious. I think we succeeded, to some extent, by covering it up with some Ikea curtains. Kind of like makeup for the wall…on that same subject, I asked Kenny last night if there would be any situation in his life that would ever warrant him wearing makeup. Apparently there is not, which is good for all of us to know.
Here you go. Ta da!
There’s our dining room table, which we just refinished. We also put a gallery wall in this room to draw the attention away from the beige-painted paneling. Let’s just say…it’s a work in progress. As is the whole apartment. As is my life. And I’m okay with that.
Some of the items in our gallery wall have special meaning behind them, like the Star Wars cross stitch sampler I made Kenny and gave to him the day before he proposed, or the map of Boston we got on our honeymoon, but a lot of it is just items we like. I wanted the gallery wall to have a bunch of texture and warmth with different surfaces, like the wood and metal frames, the chunk of wood, and the wrought iron cross.
Oh, and you want a closer look at the flowers? Those are from a work function. Love my job. 🙂
So, who wants to come over? Last night I hosted 8 girls and Kenny in our tiny space. Let’s just say that it’s a good thing we all like each other. 🙂
Planting Sequoias 