Home Sweet Home... or something like that.

After a whirlwind weekend (and not the good kind) spent in Steel City, the City of Bridges or as I like to call it, Pittsburgh, I was ready to come home. Or at least to the place that I call home for now. Messed up lunches, tailgating baseball fans, drunken concert goers and fist fight threats will do that to you.

But truth be told, I don't really refer to my apartment as home.
Home is the farm house in the tiny town where I get my tomatoes, play with my brother and occasionally borrow the wireless internet.

I'm working on making it home though.
For now it's just my apartment.

You'll have to excuse the photos. The only thing I dislike about my apartment is the lighting and the reason why is clear here - it's never bright. I could open my blinds but they simply won't stay up. Not sure if it's me or the window fixtures at fault.

My kitchen proved to be the biggest trouble in situating and decorating. It's approximately six different shades of yellow between the table cloth, floor mats, pot holders, dishes, and cabinets. I'm slowly adjusting to it. Lord knows I searched every store in the greater York area in search of the perfectly colored table cloth. 

My favorite part of living alone is my pantry. Besides a box of Duncan Hines chocolate cupcake mix, there's nothing in my apartment that I can't eat. I'm loving cooking all my own meals, doing my own grocery shopping and sharing dinner with friends. Plus, I'm getting really good at making red skin mashed potatoes.

thanks for the noise, iPhone.

I've tried putting pictures everywhere I can imagine - it helps. I've got my favorite people plastered to my fridge amongst take out menus, a full calendar, coupons for the craft store and fun magnets. It almost makes mornings easier when I reach in the fridge for my almond milk.

My living room was much less of an issue thanks to my parents for their generous couch donation, the curtains, rugs and pictures frames I already had and because of Ikea's affordability. Seriously, I couldn't function without Ikea.

My favorite part of my apartment is probably my coffee table. I always dreamt of having somewhere to put my extensive collection of coffee table books and silly board games. While it's still a little bare, my coffee table contains my whole collection of Post Secret books, a photo album of my Paris trip, a Jackson Pollock exhibit book, quite a few issues of Glamour magazine (thanks Groupon!) and the beginnings of a novel written by a friend.

Like I said, I'm putting photos everywhere I can think. By the end of my first night at my apartment, these were already unpacked and displayed. All three of these little ones have made such an impact on my life and there's no way my apartment could be home without them.

Another, rather silly, thing I love about my apartment is having plants. While I don't have the best track record with anything green, it's going well so far. I've got a day lily in the kitchen, some strange tropical creation in my living room window and a jade plant in my bathroom. And they're all still alive.

The only thing that remains to do is to decorate my bedroom. First, I have to figure out what color my walls are exactly. They're somewhere between pink and cream, but I haven't decided which way to go with things. All I know is that my poppy printed orange and green comforter wouldn't match. Instead, it's found a new home in my best friends guest bedroom where I can still adore it. I haven't given up my green sheets yet though.

In the meantime, I have put away my books (and even started to read one!), managed to put a single pencil in my cup holder, and found a way to hang my photos all on my own. Today, my photo wall got a much needed update. Pictures of snowy days needed to come down, it's almost September after all.

& Of course, there's the bathroom. The first room I decorated and the one I love the most. Target had a terrible selection but I managed to find something cute and girly. Plus, I love having a shelf for my jade elephant bamboo plant and some Snoopy wisdom.

I apologize that it's taken me so long to show you my "new home" but it's been a few weeks of Ikea trips, furniture building, rearranging and arguing with myself over the color yellow.