Apartment, Stage One: Furnishing

After about of month of temporary housing situations, your girl finally moved into her first New York City apartment on Tuesday and I couldn't be more excited while also simultaneously being so, so stressed!!! I'm going to talk about the whole apartment search some other time because it was honestly not fun but there were some really great things that I learned from the whole experience. I've expressed how frustrated I was with the process on my blog...or at least at some point on my Insta Stories...I digress, it felt like a huge relief to find this space, apply, get approved, and sign the lease all in a few day period. When everyone tells you that when it finally happens, it happens quick...yeah, they're not lying.

I barely had any furniture in my old apartment and I also had three other roommates to pitch in with furniture and bring what they might have already had. Now, it's just me and my roommate Maddie (hi Maddie!!!) and damn I forgot how expensive furnishing a space was. There are not enough Wayfair discount codes in the world to lessen the blow when it comes to making sure our apartment isn't completely empty right off the bat.

I think we collectively decided that it made more sense to get the bare minimum of what we needed for both our common area as well as for our own separate rooms. Not everything has arrived yet, of course, but orders have been made and now we're just waiting patiently for the deliveries so our apartment can feel more like a home and less like a space that we just fill with boxes and bins and an arsenal of plastic bags that we have to figure out how to dispose of.

For me, I need my room set up as soon as possible so it feels like I have my shit together in life. Right now, I have my mattress on the floor, a bedside table that my roommate kindly put together for me because I have never held a tool in my entire life until I had to hammer something in the other night, and my big mirror from home so I can at least see what my outfit looks like now. My desk should arrive today and my desk chair, unfortunately, comes next Saturday, so I'm going to be doing a lot of squatting for the next week. At least my legs are gonna look hotter than hell.

My closet...is another story. I'm dreading making another order, but I fear that I'm going to need my drawers in there sooner rather than later so I can stop rifling through suitcases and bins of the items of clothing that aren't hanging up in my closet.

Wait, did I mention I have a walk-in closet?

I tell everybody. It's my pride and joy of this space, besides like, the great lighting and huge living area and location. I'm going to do an "empty" (aka undecorated) apartment tour as part of my next YouTube video, so keep an eye out for that at some point in time where you can catch an in-depth peek of the apartment before it's all set up. But for now, I'll throw in a few pictures to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with right now. They're not glamorous, they're kind of a mess, but that's what happens when you move into an apartment like, three days prior with just suitcases of clothes and shoes and then a couple of IKEA bags filled with things you might not have actually needed right away (I'm writing that white furry IKEA rug off as a blogging necessity, how else am I supposed to do flatlays?).

The living room is empty besides our TV stand, sans the TV, but we have a couch and coffee table coming soon, which will at least turn it into a livable space and give us someplace to sit besides the ground or on my mattress. We decided that it made the most sense to skip out on our mini breakfast bar for the time being to save money (a high table and two high chairs? Ain't nobody got the funds for that after paying security deposits and rent) and figured as long as we had a coffee table to eat on, we were all good in the hood. Sometimes you gotta sacrifice living large to be able to keep up with the bills. It's a hard knock life out there.

Stage Two is definitely going to be organizing and finding a place for everything in this space, especially my room. As I said, an organized room is going to keep me happy and from stressing about the part of the apartment I'll probably spend the most time in. And unfortunately, the heavy-duty decorating falls to Stage Three just because...well...it's not vital. A couch is much more important than a gallery wall or a fake plant. Look at me, prioritizing like a fauxdult!

Stage One is not yet complete, but it will be, and that's all that matters in the long run...right?

How do you go about moving? Do you do it in stages or dive in all at once?