Our First Overseas Apartment
Posted 21 April 2012 at 3:41 PM | Comments (0)
You’ve already seen pictures of our first apartment in Chicago (2002-2003), and our first condo, also in Chicago (2003-2007), so now I want to show you our first apartment since living abroad.
We moved to the Mediterranean coast as a young couple in 2007 to do volunteer work. The one-bedroom apartment pictured below was provided for us, fully-furnished. After owning a home for four years, where we did things our way, it certainly was an adjustment to go back to apartment-living, especially one that was already furnished and considering we wouldn’t have done it this way ourselves.
But we’ve learned to make the best of what we have here, not just in our living space but in everything. Our life out here is definitely not the same as it was in the U.S., but we continue to adapt to the changes, just as we do in parenthood.
So…! Onto the pictures.
The furniture and area rug were there when we arrived, but we added the accessories. Hard to tell, but the walls are off-white.
I was looking for a color to complement all the navy blue in the room, and the autumnal-orange drapes were the best option I found; they even worked with the rug. So that was our starting point.
The orange drapes led to orange pillows and throws.
Which further led to orange floor pillows and an African table runner.
The new color palette inspired the artwork on the far wall. They were simple tree prints that I created in Photoshop and then framed in eight, cheap IKEA RIBBA frames.
It’s obvious that none of these accessories cost us much, but we were still pleased with the way everything came together in that place. It was simple, cozy, and the best we could do on our small budget.
To the far left was the kitchen; the middle was the W.C. and bathroom, and the door on the right was to the bedroom. We hung the (too-short) curtain in the doorway to avoid having to watch our guests walk between the W.C. and the bathroom.
And there you have it. We’ve since moved to a different, but still fully-furnished, apartment to accommodate our now-family-of-four— you’ve seen hints of it here and here. One of these days I’ll get around to taking pictures!
