I’m not sure that I could have picked a worse time to show everyone our living room. We have been working from home for 11 weeks now, so we have computer monitors everywhere and so many boxes filled with everything that will soon go to our new office. This is real life though, so here we go!
This is what you see when you walk in our apartment. When we moved to San Francisco, we left all our furniture (except our mattress, the TV stand, and the cat tree) in Michigan. We had house-sized furniture. Think six-piece sectionals and a large dining room table. None of that would fit in any SF apartment, so we took this as a sign it was time to redecorate.
This room is actually pretty large, considering it’s an apartment. We wanted to keep the furniture light and modern, but still functional.
Our sofa and love seat both came from Living Spaces. We didn’t want to spend a fortune because our style will change, and the next place we live might call for different living room furniture. We were determined to make space for guests, if we had any, so the love seat has a pull-out. The ottoman is also a pull-out bed, so we can sleep three additional adults if we use the couch.
The rug is from Target (no longer in stock). We looked for a long time before we settled on this one. One of the easiest ways to completely change the look of a room is by changing the rug, so we didn’t splurge on this either. We want the option to change it out when we get bored.
We have a bench in front of the windows that I originally wanted to use for extra seating, but it didn’t work with the furniture we bought. We could always move things around if we thought we needed it.
We need every inch of storage space we can get, so I bought these storage bins for under the couch. We have the most random things stored under there, but it still looks clean and organized.
You can see next to the couch are most of our boxes of office things. Our office is moving, and we had to get our belongings out of the old building before the new building was complete, so they are stacked in a corner. Usually all that is over there are two small bins with cat toys and extra blankets.
We also brought the TV stand from Michigan, we bought it at Big Lot’s a few years ago. We needed something to mount the TV to after Bishop jumped on our TV and knocked it to the ground. We bought this on a whim and ended up really liking it.
This shelving unit came from Ikea. We needed a place to store games, books, random decor, and alcohol. The bottom door close with a magnet, so the cats can’t open them. This was much more organized before we started working from home. Some awards, books, photos, and candles that were on the desk and table are now shoved over here until we can move our office stuff out.
Yes, there is a bike in our living room. What you can’t see next to the bike is Aaron’s golf bag. You learn to take advantage of every piece of available “storage” in a tiny apartment. Storage is so expensive here, especially for bikes. We have never taken the bike out of the apartment, but it is here if we need it.
I bought this cat tree on cyber Monday right before we found out we were moving from Chewy.com. I would have never put it together in Michigan had I known we would be moving. When we went back to pack our stuff, Aaron kept saying it wasn’t sturdy enough to make the trip, and it was too big. I was determined to bring it to SF, so my mom and I took it apart piece by piece, packed it in a box with shoes and blankets, and loaded it in the cube. When we started unpacking in SF, that was the first thing I unpacked and put together. The cats play on it every single day, so it was totally worth it.
This is real life right here. The other side of our living room is our “office and dining room”. This side of the room is a mess and cluttered right now. With us both working from home we have extra computers, extra boxes, and papers everywhere.
The dining room table was a great apartment find. Aaron found this table at Target shortly after we moved in. It expands to three times the width it is here. When folded up it is only about a foot wide, perfect for our small space.
The chairs, lamp, desk, and desk chair are all from Ikea. Aaron picked out the blue chairs. I have now sat in one every day for 11 weeks, and I can say they are pretty comfortable. We bought two of those floor lamps and put the other one in our bedroom. I liked that we could direct the individual lamps in different directions. As far as the desk and desk chair go, had we known how much time we would spend in them we would have bought a bigger desk. It is a little cramped, but we are making it work. Aaron said the chair is “comfortable enough”.
We tried to save money on pieces we may not use forever. We won’t live in this downtown apartment forever, and every apartment we looked at had completely different spacing. We may not need a dining table if we have an island, or we may have to put the desk in our bedroom.
I don’t think I will ever be completely done decorating. I move things around and buy new decor all the time. Since I can’t really move the furniture around, I switch out the prints on the wall, or the fake plants to give this room a fresh look.
Aaron does photography on the side, and we are planning to get some of his photos of Flint and San Francisco printed and design a gallery wall over the book shelf. That wall feels bare, and I would love to hang photos that he has taken of our homes.