I used to have a studio apartment. Long term readers of the blog will know this. Apparently, as these photos attest, I was pledging Tri Delt while I lived there. I mean, wow, it's pretty and all, but looking back it's just like—where did all these flowers and colors and baubles and shit come from?
I'd say half of it was being surrounded by the stridently preppy trappings of a Southern college town and the other half was operating under the influence of a certain type of lady blog. Honestly, I think the environment you create for yourself is equal parts what you see around you, what you put in front of yourself and what you have access to/the skills to make for yourself—and I don't have the skills to make anything, except paint choices.
The biggest lesson learned has to be about furniture. In my old place it was much harder to source great pieces, so I ended up with a lot of hand-me-downs and stuff I just settled for. I'd then work some D.I.Y. magic to make it all look fancier than it really was. (My green bench [below] was actually a featured before and after on Design*Sponge, not to humblebrag or anything.) My M.O. in the new apartment has been to go for "great bones" pieces—furniture that doesn't need any work or zhushing, maybe just some polishing now and then.
After furniture, my taste in art and home accessories seems to have changed most dramatically. I mean...a disco ball (from Target)? A Keroppi lunchbox? I had a framed portrait of ballerinas on my desk. I can't even explain that one. I had nothing from the seventies, no abstract nudes and not even one succulent. What?! That's crazy talk. A few of my old "decorative accents" are being used in my new room, but I'm bringing them together in very different ways. Another décor carry-over is the chinoiserie/Orientalism thing (see foo dog, cherry blossom print [above]) I feel like I inherited from my dad. And, of course, I still love books and having tons of them just hanging around everywhere.
