Come In and Stay Awhile

Seeing how my blog name and the whole reason I got started in loving decorating was to encourage people to stay a while, I figured it only appropriate to actually give you all a tour of our lovely little abode. My husband and I got married a year and a half ago and found ourselves settling into a great 3 bedroom apartment since then. While we don't see it being our permanent residence for much longer (increasing rental rates made that decision easy), we are happy to say it's been the first place we've called 'home' since starting our life together.

Here is the layout of our place, to give you a feeling of where you are in the apartment as you look through the pictures of individual rooms in this post.

Here we go:

When you walk in the front door you immediately face the dining room and kitchen area as seen here:

We love, LOVE that island counter space! I can't tell you how spoiled it has made me when I prepare dinner, am baking, or just working on something that needs a lot of table surface! It's fabulous!

Immediately to your left is this little dining nook if you will:

There's not a lot of space so when we do actually eat around the table, you have to pull it away from the corner in order to let people slide on in, but hey- it's better than no dining space at all!

As you turn immediately to your right from the front door, you can make yourself cozy in our living room.

Don't mind the ginormous TV over there in the corner- we're 'storing' it for a friend while he is traveling internationally. Not really my favorite to have in such a small room but I certainly can't complain when it comes to entertaining friends with it!

Now let's head on back to the hall and the back bedrooms.

I'm not gunna lie: I LOOOVE how much natural light comes in our apartment. It certainly helps on those cold, long winter days to have the sun flooding in, in the afternoons. As you look in this picture, the first door on the right is our bedroom. 

I apologize for the darkness of the bedroom pictures, I took these at night after having cleaned up for company and just haven't had time to take 'day light' pictures yet.

As you can see there isn't much space in the bedrooms, they're all about 11X10 which is why we had to turn our bed catty-corner in order to squeeze 2 nights stands, a full-size bed, and a dresser in the room. My husband is 6'4" and let's just say I think he's a saint to be as patient as he has been trying to squeeze both of us into that bed every night. A bigger bed will definitely be first on the wish list when we find ourselves in a bigger bedroom.  A new addition now though, is a BEAUTIFUL full length espresso framed mirror that we lean against the wall next to the closet. (Pictures to come soon.)

Now let's head over to the bathroom diagonally across the hall. 

A bit on the small size, ahem side but it lets us get the job done. One thing I do really love about our bathroom is the black and white damask print shower curtain. I love damask print (including variations of it) and actually have to try to restrain myself whenever I come across the chance to add it somewhere in our place. So far I've limited it to four places: 

(My cooking apron, the backs of our bookshelf, pin boards in the office, and the shower curtain)

Anyways, I digress. Onto the guest bedroom.

(I LOVE these silly feather, iridescent turquoise pillows!)

This bureau is a beautiful family heirloom from my great-great grandfather. Look at that wood!

And the guest bathroom:

Now last but not least: where the magic happens (well... maybe not... but maybe so), our office!

(My side, complete with a beautiful LCD monitor Josh bought me for my last birthday!)

(Josh's manly side, where he mixes music recordings both he and friends make! He's very talented!)

The Musical Side of the room:

That concludes our apartment tour! I hope you enjoyed and perhaps even felt as though you could come in a stay a while.