hgtv makes it look easy

When you are moving out for the first time, it's totally acceptable to have a "college apartment"-- essentially an assortment of donated/unwanted furniture from your parents' house.  And since you are still broke when you start Master's, you might continue to have this same collection of mismatched shelves and storage units.  Upon signing your job offer, your funds situation is even more unfortunate, and this sad state of living moves with you halfway across the country.

In my specific case, this meant a full-size bed (on risers!), mountains of white lace bedding, and giant floral prints on the wall.  Though I had been super excited to pick this out when I was 17 and leaving for college, it doesn't have quite the same feel these days. 

Inspiration Rooms

Redoing a room on limited funds is hard; cable channels make it look so easy.  Their thrift store/TJMaxx/Target always happens to have "a great lamp with the perfect height" or "an awesome abandoned dresser that only needs a coat of paint and the knobs changed out!".  In all less than an hour!

Many PB and West Elm catalogs later, I'm slowly getting there...

I finally got a big girl bed.
Purchasing a bed might have been one of the ickiest experiences of my life.  Hey Mattress Salesman, please don't offer to lay down next to me and try out the bed. That's super creepy.  

However, because I put up with your unwelcome comments, I managed to score my fancy new queen-sized mattress and boxspring at 50% off, with a leather headboard and bed frame thrown in for free!  Score!  Too bad this means no more risers-- do grown-ups not stash junk under their bed?

I ditched the lace.
I remember walking around Macy's with my mother and picking out a very Anthropologie-esque quilt that was covered in small flowers.  Tulips and violets and roses-- dude, I loved this bedspread.  This was in addition to a lace bed skirt and pink striped sheets and floral pillows.  Honestly, upon re-reading this, it's a miracle I ever had a boy in my room.

This time, my mom and I made a beautiful bedspread from a navy and gold sari with matching throw pillows.  I don't care what age I am, I will never abandon the idea of extra unneeded, purely-for-display pillows on my bed.

I banned Ikea.
As I mentioned, I got a pretty fabulous headboard when I purchased my bed.  I also decided to ditch the Ikea tables and finally dragged some beautiful Bombay Company side tables out of storage.  Yes, it's still assemble-it-yourself, but at least I'm not worried that it's going to collapse under a stack of books.

I swapped the accessories.
Before I left for collage, my dad made some pretty stained wooden picture frames that I had hung above my bed.  The frames are still perfect, but now I've switched out the terrible watercolor, floral (shocker) prints for some more abstract ethnic-y gold patterned paper.  I also swapped out the plain white lamp and floral (stop it!) candle holders for something that was more "themed". 







10+ years later, but I guess it's finally the end of the lilies and lace era.