If you’ve been a reader of Mailbox Journey since just about the beginning, you might remember what our living room looked like when we first moved into our apartment in November. We had minimal furniture and it just looked cold. It definitely screamed basement apartment and a lack of windows.

For all of my new readers (yay!) and a refresher for my original readers,
here is what the living room looked like in November:

See what I mean by cold?
We warmed the space up a little bit before Christmas by purchasing our first “grown-up” furniture. A living room set in chocolate suede and leather. (Which will transition into Travis’ man cave down the road.)

That definitely helped warm the space up a bit. But those curtains/windows just drove me nuts. So, last Thursday I stayed home from work (car issues) and cleaned the apartment, hung up more art, and found some curtains from our old apartment. They were 3 satin red curtains, and I know Travis asked me before to hang them up in the living room, but I really was not feeling red + brown. I’m a grey, blue and white kinda girl, not a brown, red and beige. I decided to hang them up anyways, to see how they looked.

Here is a horrible Instagram photo of the results:
(I have a better one a little later in this post, promise.)

It looks like a movie theater to me. Which Travis loves, he said it’s exactly what he wanted in his man cave. Which I replied to saying this is a living room, not your man-cave. He said, “We’re in the basement aren’t we“. Picture me face-palming myself. I simply said that it should be an easy transition to his actual man-cave then, when we do purchase a house. Even though it looks like a movie theater now with the brown and silk red curtains, it still looks so much better than it did before. The extra long curtains give the illusion of long windows, which I love. Plus, it makes the entire space look cozy. So, I guess I can live with them for now since there is no way I’m buying curtains anytime soon.

Here is a different angle of the living room, with a better Before & After:
(I pulled these from the apartment tour page, which is still under construction.)

Looks better right?
It’s still not eye candy, but it’s looking cozier. & to celebrate the coziness, I drew a big house on our chalkboard this morning, you know, in case Travis forgets that we’re saving for a house.

Any plans for the 4th of July tomorrow? Travis & I both have the day off of work, but we don’t really have anything planned besides going to see fireworks at night.

Posted on June 20, 2013 - 25 comments
 Filed Under: Second Apartment