First Look At My New Apartment

 Sweater // Jeans // Booties (similar)

Oh hey! Didn’t see you there, too busy whispering sweet nothings into the ear of my imaginary best friend/loving on my brand new couch which FINALLY CAME!!!!

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that my boyfriend Francis and I recently moved into a beautiful new high rise building in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood. We’ve been here for about a month now, and our living room furniture is finally, finally starting to arrive. Well, everything we’ve ordered has arrived at least haha.

I have been and will be especially picky throughout this decorating journey. I ended up feeling like I rushed things when it came to picking pieces for my studio apartment; ultimately, I felt like certain elements could have been more cohesive, and I probably would have invested in more long term furniture pieces. That said, it was the perfect little girlie pad, and I had THE best time living there; it was my first very own apartment and it will always hold a very special place in my heart. Velvet grey sofa, lots of fur, blush pink bar stools, fuschia runner… It was fun, whimsical, and it made me happy.

This time around, the goal was to invest in high quality pieces that would last, maintain their shape, stay in style, etc. Nothing too trendy or too fussy. Of course, another huge factor was creating a gender neutral space that both Francis and I would love. I’ve seen so many bloggers go crazy on the pink and leopard and gold in their homes and knew that would not fly with my beeb lol.

The key to putting together a space is definitely having a strong and clear vision of what you want— you gotta know what kind of aesthetic/theme buzzwords that come to mind when you try and describe it—  and we spent a ton of time looking at different decor websites, Pinterest, Like To Know It Home, etc, to narrow down exactly what that was, and what we were setting out to do.

We ended up going for something very natural, earthy, very heavy on the neutrals and textures…  We fell in love with this wood Yukon Coffee table from Crate and Barrel online, and had already decided on our Sisal rug and Lounge II sofa after seeing them in the store; we knew they were a match made in heaven.

The wood table is super soft to the touch, has these amazing smooth, uneven ridges, and a black matte base (which definitely helps anchor everything together). The couches (here’s a link to the Lounge ll chair and a half), are SO comfy. Like unbelievably so. They are very deep, so you can recline, and Francis and I can even both lie down comfortably on the couch when we watch TV. We ordered the “Cement” color, which is the perfect beige-y neutral. It has strands of cream and grey in the thread, so it’s super versatile and you could take it in a ton of directions. The fabric is also stain resistant, which believe me, we needed haha. The carpet, I will say, is NOT cozy on feet! It’s sisal, which I’ve grown up having, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. I know this might not be the case for all, so keep that in mind if you’re interested in it 🙂 It is an absolutely beautiful carpet, goes with everything, and I personally just think it’s so sophisticated and grown up!

My mom and I had found these throw pillows from Bed, Bath, and Beyond (they’re from the Joanna Gaines Magnolia Home line), before we had found the couch… But I instantly fell in love with them, and kept my fingers crossed that they would work. Which they did!! They’re easily one of my favorite parts of the room. They really help bring everything together and add a pop from the woven texture.

We also got the leather bar stools of our dreams, which look perfect paired against our all white kitchen if I do say so myself. I also found a similar looking style for about 50% off!

We want to eventually get a tall, leafy plant in the corner by our TV (which will end up being our one and only pop of color lol) a wicker basket to keep blankets in, a cool chrome floor lamp… Still trying to figure out what kind of media console to get, and we definitely want to get a retro record player and maybe a bar cabinet. The living room is far from completion, but I could not be happier with how everything has turned out thus far. We are focusing on one room at a time for now, so the goal is to finish picking out pieces for the living room, and then move onto figuring out what we want to do for the bedroom. We also will plan on getting some funky art or a photograph to hang in our bathroom, and we have an awesome little front hall entry way that will need a console table, mirror, runner, etc.

Thanks for stopping by to take a little peek at our living room and kitchen! I will be documenting our decorating journey as we get more pieces in and just a little tip, you can always see more behind the scenes on my Instagram and my Insta Stories!

You can find EVERYTHING you see in this post below!