Sometimes I feel like I live in an episode of the suite Life of Zack and Cody (shout out Cody, I still love you) because my apartment complex is extremely hotel vibey. Nice lobby with giant mirrors, cool couches, a TV bigger than my car and someone who works security at the front desk…Mr. Mosby, if you will….

Zack and Cody aside (sorry Sprouse twins)- can we please address the glow up that is my living situation???? Do I need to give you a lesson regarding the evolution of my bed situation? Did you say yes? I don’t really care either way cause I’m about to. You should have seen that coming.

2008- I had a SUUUUUPER sick loft bed with a desk underneath it for the longest time. I thought I was the absolute coolest human in the entire world. My parents let me have the master bedroom at our old place in Pella, and that thing was MASSIVE. It was supposed to be two bedrooms but the builders knocked out the wall between them because everyone who toured the home bitched about how there wasn’t a master bedroom. Viola! The birth of a master-master bedroom. We painted the walls a mix of purple, pink and green, a color scheme I had decided on based off of a dress Paris Hilton wore (WHICH I FOR THE LIFE OF ME CANNOT FIND ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET). Yes, I was a big fan and you are lying if you think “Stars are Blind” isn’t an absolute bop.

Anyway. I remember getting sent to my room a time or two (or more than that) and just being so jazzed cause my tween brain loved my room. So much room for cartwheels and to throw clothes all over the place! I even had a futon in one corner and like 3 of those weird circle foldy chairs that used to be a thing.

2012- By this time I was even cooler and super sad on Twitter cause I thought I was in love with this guy that I was too scared to hang out with in person but we texted all the time and they were pretty long messages most of the time and so that sounded like a relationship to me!!! I was SUPER mature and #overit (in terms of the pink walls not the guy, cause that was a thing for far too long). I decided to paint it brown like my soul!!!! Actually, no. That’s not why. I started shopping at Anthropologie and thought the BoHo life and style was pretty dang cool and super opposite of what I had been up until that point. And that was pretty cool to me. I was really into drawing and painting so on the parts of the wall that were left tan, I painted abstract flowers all over. I remember ditching plans with friends so that I could stay home and keep painting. This is starting to sound slightly more like the me I know. We even put in hard wood floors which I completely forgot about until just now. Hands down the coolest part about my room was the vintage furniture that was in it. My parents had inherited a bunch of my grandmas old stuff from dressers, to chairs and even a lamp. 

Then there was the bed. I had ditched the desk and the loft and traded it in for this guy. Take a look at the purple lamp in the background (and my dogs!!!!!). That thing was about the only part of the Paris Hilton room that stuck around.

2013- Fast forward to college and I have now regressed back to a loft with a desk beneath it. And this time the mattress wasn’t a full, it was a twin. Whomp whaaaa. Funny how that works. My roommate was from China and one of her first times being in the USA was to move in with me. So while I had dreamed of color coordinating with my college roommate, that just was plain and simple not a thing. We had a sink in our dorm room and enough space to literally walk from our beds to the door and that’s about it. Definitely less than ideal, but I was barely ever there between dance team, school and my sorority. In fact, pretty much the only time I was there was when I skipped class…..which was like only a fewwww times.

 

2014- And the regression continues!!!!! I moved into Kappa with a roommate I literally did not know from Adam (who might I add turned out to be one of my favorite people and you can tell in the photo to the right that she feels the same way).  Our room was the size of a shoebox and I missed the fist 2 weeks of sophomore year because I had strep throat so I didn’t even get to meet Erin (my roommate) during move in, my parents did instead. Nice!!! I remember this living arrangement being so funny cause I would have to wake up so early for dance team shit and spray hairspray all over the place while simultaneously eating breakfast and also getting dress while trying to head out the door and not be late. Yes, it was typically as frantic as it sounds. Weirdest part of our room: I had no where to put my National Geographic brand suitcases so they became my bedside table and I thought I was super artsy and resourceful. Cringe. Erin if you’re reading this, I love you forever for putting up with me in our little shoebox room.

2015- FINALLY. My own apartment with my own room. I bought a bunch of frames, wall lights and a bedspread from Urban and that started my obsession with their home line. I actually still have a lot of that stuff in my apartment currently. Except for now the frames aren’t blank. My friends would always make fun of me in college cause I literally never put photos in them. They stayed how they look in this photo for pretty much the whole year. Not because I didn’t have any pictures with friends to fill the frame with…I totally had friends. Really. Another piece of this room that came with me was my grandmas dresser and desk (which were all but falling apart).

 

My favorite thing about having my own room in college: being able to be an actual hermit when I wanted to. Which was hard because I lived right downtown Iowa City aka where all the bars are aka where I ALWAYS had a friend in some circle or another who was trying to get me to partaaaaaaay. Which was also a fun part of living over there.

2016- The couch phase. So my parents moved to Hampton, Iowa, at the beginning of my sophomore year of college so not having an actual room never really bugged me because I lived in Iowa City for a pretty much both summers because I was there so much. But once I moved back home after finishing up my degree after my junior year, aside from the guest room, I didn’t really have a place that felt like mine. I didn’t know any one in Hampton and I knew it was a temporary ‘home’ so I didn’t really care to take the time to go on a friend hunt. Not that I have to hunt to find friends, geez. But yeah, I spent pretty much every day living there figuring out how I could get to California and what my living situation would be. As to why I crashed on the couch instead of the guest room more often than not, I have absolutely no idea. I think cause my mom didn’t like it and that was literally the only way I could rebel in Hampton. That sounds about right.

2017- Hello twin bed, nice to see you again!!! NOT. As I’m sure all of you know by now, I had the pleasure of sharing another small room with another human. Kelly and I had two twin beds shoved into that little space like an L. Which is kind of what we took when it came to personal space. For us though, it worked. Seriously don’t think there are too many people out there in this world that I could stand to do #TwinBedz with. But OUCHmy back was not in great shape after being able to move a full 0% when I slept in that thing. I am a MOVER in my sleep. Or at least I used to be before I was confined to a twin bed. Honestly, I’m surprised I never fell off any of the lofts or small beds. Truly a miracle.

Moving on. Needless to say, I was ready to have my own space from kitchen to bathroom to bedroom by the time our lease was up. The decision was pretty easy since two of my current roommates were leaving LA and the other one was a guy who had fallen in love with our neighbor across the street. And then there was one, ME!!! So I started looking around for a studio apartment which brings me to the current situation……

2018- I’m extremely particular about a few things: what I’m about to eat, what my Instagram caption is going to be, who is going to be stuck with me for the rest of my life and the space I spend most of my time in. Which is why I landed myself in the complex that I’m in right now. It feels good to live in a place that I’m proud to call home and isn’t much shy from my dream apartment. Well yeah, was all fun and games until the movers packed up all my shit from my old place , and just stuck it in the new place. Which made it feel less…new. I had my tiny little twin bed in the corner and a bunch of boxes full of kitchen stuff for a while. Then I picked up a couch, then a chair, and now I have officially said goodbye (also good riddance) to my twin, replaced it with a queen and GOT A MF TABLE that I could marry if that was legal. Woof did that escalate quickly or what?

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about the mattress and the table so I’m just gonna link to everything here.

• TUFT AND NEEDLE Apparently this brand is all over the internet?? I hadn’t heard of it until someone recommended it to me at work. But I’m not sure if its because I was coming from a hard twin bed mattress to a queen ($585) or if this one is actually a cloud but DAMN. It feels so much like a hotel bed that I had a hard time figuring out where I was the first few times I woke up on it….that might be more of a me problem though. Either way, I’m sleeping so much better and have space to not be curled up like a freaking dog in a kennel the entire night. I also threw in the pillow cause I have never spent more than $15 on a pillow and it was about damn time. No complaints there either.

• URBAN OUTFITTERS haul.
  • Chair– Which I assembled myself, thank you very much.
  • Couch– It folds out into a little pull out bed. It’s pretty small but it’s perfect for my place and I think it was in the ballpark of $250 when I got it.
  • Frames- Still going strong from my college days!
  • Key hanger– Which says Late AF because well….
  • Table– ISN’T SHE LOVELYYYYYY. Pretty proud of this one. Especially since I built it in under 2 hours. I’ve had my eye on it for so long and it was finally 20% ($300ish) off so I pulled le trigger. My one complaint is that a part of it came broken. There are two hanging racks underneath the table that you can store the stools in. BUT of course the screws that had been drilled into the table (the only part of it that came put together) were broken and the hanging things were unattached. Something I chose to ignore for the time being. I also don’t have a drill to fix it with so if you know a guy hmu.

• AMAZON came all the way through with my Duvet insert ($25) and bed frame. I found a whole bunch at Urban but they were all at least $500. I can’t tell you how many times I had it in my cart and then took it out again, but I decided since it’s not really the focal point of my bedroom, it’s not really necessary to get a super elaborate one. Plus I spent about $650 on my mattress and pillow so I gotta find the balance somewhere.

And then I got two pet “dogs” at Trader Joe’s named Spot and Rover (pictured) and am extremely content with this place. I say “dogs” because I have puppy fever SO bad and I thought buying plants would help. And wine. I also bought wine. Obviously I still have a list of about 25 other things I want to throw in my bachelorette pad at some point but for now, it’s good. Six months in and it finally feels like me. Which, as you can see, the definition of me has definitely changed over the years. And thank god cause I really would have to go on a friend hunt if I still had Paris Hilton walls.