Every once in a while, usually while I’m watching The Bachelor on my pink couch, I have to remind myself to look around my apartment and remember how much I love living here! I still remember getting a few twenty dollar bills when I was in elementary school and deciding to save it for “my future apartment”, and I have to remind myself how special my first postgrad apartment is when I take it for granted. I’ve lived here for a few years, but in the last few months I’ve found a few apartment decorating tips and tricks that make it feel even more adult and put-together!
1. Keeping a candle lit whenever I’m home
This truly immediately makes me feel like an adult, even if it’s just my $3 Trader Joe’s candle! I’ve always been a fan of lighting candles when I read, but in the last few weeks, I’ve gotten in the habit of lighting one in my kitchen when I get home from work. Candles are such great gifts to give and receive, and I feel like I always have a few that I can burn.
2. Gallery walls
If you visit my home, you will see gallery walls on almost every wall! I love gallery walls with lots of dimension and interest, so I’ve got quite a variety of objects hanging, from your typical framed prints and postcards to my Metro card from my first trip to New York and a beautiful plate I grabbed at an estate sale. I pick up art on almost every trip, and I love thrifting interesting frames. I love homes that feel like a museum of the people who live there, and it’s so fun to look at each piece and remember where I got it or what day it’s from!
Truly, one of my favorite apartment decorating tips is to just choose pieces that make you happy and the rest will fall into place. You don’t have to have a set style, you don’t have to buy all of your pieces at once and you don’t have to know exactly what you want each room to look like. As long as you keep choosing pieces that make you smile when you see them, they’ll all end up complementing each other.
3. One of my favorite apartment decorating tips: stacks of beautiful books
I don’t have a coffee table, but I love having stacks of books throughout my apartment! They provide so much color and character, and they’re a quick hit of inspiration when you need to flip through the pages. If you’re looking for beautiful books, head to a local thrift store for photography books that don’t break the bank.
I also am so lucky to receive PR (aka products from a brand to incorporate into my content) from a book publishing company that releases some of the most gorgeous titles, Chronicle Books. They release nonfiction books, cookbooks, journals and more, and I love them! I’ve given a few as gifts but if you come to my apartment, you will truly find them everywhere because I think they’re so beautiful and have amazing content. Some of my favorites are the gilded One Line a Day journal, the illustrated Secret Garden and Museum Bums!
4. Fresh flowers + greenery
One of my favorite apartment decorating tips is to keep fresh flowers everywhere when you can! The best thing is this can be so inexpensive. Just grab a few $5 bouquets from Trader Joe’s or Publix and separate them into vases or mason jars. I love to buy two or three types of flowers so I can make my own bouquets, but even just one bouquet will spread into different rooms.
You can also buy greenery like eucalyptus and it’ll last so long. I have a few cacti that are barely hanging on for dear life but my jars of eucalyptus add some nice “life” even when I don’t have fresh flowers!
5. Clusters of your favorite pieces
Another thing that feels so adult to me are little “clusters” of decor. By that, I mean groupings of a few pieces: a stack of books, a candle and a vase. A framed picture and a few pieces of pottery or candlestick holders. They feel really intentional but also add a lot of personality. Plus, those groupings help answer the question of what to do with the cute little tchotchkes you may get on a trip but have no idea what to do with. I always buy tiny objects when I travel that have no real place in my home or true function, so adding them to groupings of things makes them feel like they belong.
6. The five-minute rule
Okay, so this isn’t necessarily as fun as the other apartment decorating tips, but it is one of the most important things! I’ll be honest, it’s a newer habit for me but I think it’s really important. The five-minute rule means that if you can do something in less than five minutes, you have to do it immediately.
Just walked in the door and changing into comfy clothes? It’ll take less than five minutes to put your other clothes where they belong, so do it instead of throwing them on the floor.
Finished making dinner and ready to binge watch Girls? (AKA me… right now). Rinse and put your dishes in the dishwasher before you settle onto the couch.
It’s so much easier to pick things up for a few minutes rather than waiting and having a huge pile of things to clean (which I am usually guilty of…). Definitely easier said than done if you can be messier like me, but it’s a game-changer and helps you just keep up good habits.
I hope these apartment decorating tips are helpful, especially if you’re a fellow 20something who’s always trying to feel more adult! I graduated five years ago, but I still sometimes find myself surprised by the fact that I’m a legitimate grown-up, haha, and this apartment is part of that!
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