Decorating Your First Apartment - 25 Cents at a Time

Last month I moved into my first apartment and it's been a long month of sweating without any AC, building up trash in the kitchen corner because the dumpsters are four flights of stairs away, and obsessively turning off lights and anything else that isn't in immediate use to try and shrink our electricity bill. There's a lot to learn when you're on your own with your two other complete clueless roommates, but making your apartment your own can be a fun process.

This weekend was really the first weekend my roommates and I finally got to have fun with some of the details of decorating. We had a while to rearrange furniture and find spots for the essentials, but all that isn't particularly exciting. On Friday night, we hit all the home good stores and we've spruced up our home a little bit.

If I'm being honest, it wasn't until very recently that I began to fully appreciate thrift stores. This is probably because I'm anticipating a lot of student loan debt, and I can't find good reasons to pay for brand new items when the used ones are so amazingly cheap. There's a resale shop a few blocks from my apartment that donates all the proceeds to a Woman's Hospital, so my shopping was for a good cause.

The thing about resale shops is that you have to be ready to really hunt for what you want. I knew I wanted a small table for my apartment's entryway and I had seen a nice one in the store's window. By the time I actually went shopping for it, however, it was gone. I was a little discouraged, but I scoured the store in hopes of finding a better one. In the very back, I found a nice table that hadn't even been priced yet. It was light enough for me to carry home and up all those stairs, so I fell in love. And at only 15 dollars, I was ecstatic.

So, I had a table for the entryway but I needed stuff to put on the table. I'm a firm believer that holidays feel more real the more you decorate for them, so I found a bunch of pumpkin decorations for less than 50 cents each. The resale shop was ridden with baskets, so I picked up one of those for our keys. After ringing up all of that, a DVD and a Ralph Lauren sweater, I had spent less than 30 dollars.

Another aspect of the entryway I think is essential is putting something above your small table, like a mirror or even some framed art. I was on the hunt for a mirror, but I couldn't find any that I liked that were also in my tiny budget. After searching TJ Maxx, we found a little chalk board that I pictured fitting perfectly over our little table.

Here's our table now - we haven't hung the chalk board up yet, and we're also lacking some chalk, but this alone has given our apartment a little more character than before.

Also pictured is a rug I bought from Marshall's that stretches along our narrow hallway. I've learned to never underestimate the power of a rug to change the way a room feels.

Our apartment is no where near the level of decorated I'd like it to be, but it really just takes one step at a time. Especially when we have college student budgets instead of Ikea Interior Designer budgets, it can be difficult to turn your apartment into showcase level material overnight.

We've got Chicago signs, Batman paraphernalia, comfy blankets and little pumpkins in our apartment now. My Pinterest board for apartment inspirations is up and running, so you can expect to see more decoration posts soon. Personally, I don't think it'll be complete until I have a tiny dog running around it, but I still have to convince my mom I'm ready for that.