Home decorating

Like most of my friends, I spent the majority of my preteen and teen years designing and decorating my future dream home. I've got an entire Pinterest board to prove that I still do spend a good deal of my time on the task. So when we moved into our first "home" (a small apartment with basically two rooms) I was surprised to find myself struggling to pull it all together like I'd imagined. I couldn't seem to find a common thread among the collection of hand me downs and college leftovers, surprise.

Now we are moving into a slightly bigger apartment (a whopping fifteen extra square feet, yo) and I'm hoping that I have learned some things from my early decorating attempts here.  I've already started researching color palettes and guess what? I actually found one with a majority of the colors of our belongings! Check it out:

I'm also hoping that with more space it will feel less like a storage unit and we will be able to spread our belongings sufficiently to create  the illusion of simplicity and intentionality. I have learned that less is in fact more when it comes to small spaces. I am no longer afraid not to hang every piece of artwork or display every photo.  In the words of William Morris, if it is not both aesthetically pleasing and useful it doesn't make the cut (I paraphrased a little). 

Here are a few other inspirational images, all found on Pinterest, of course.

Organization and functionality are pretty key. I just love that closet up there. It makes me smile to see everything so neat and accessible. I also cannot get away from this mantle. I've looked at hundreds of fireplace mantles that I think look overcrowded or too minimalist, but this one displays just the right number of photographs and reflects light during the day with the mirror to make the space seem larger and brighter. Now we just have to see if I can stick to my guns and keep it simple.