I GET TO DECORATE AN APARTMENT

Ahem. I can hardly contain myself.

I am day dreaming about colors and couches and fabrics and headboards.

I had so much fun tackling things with my house. I really did. But. It was a lot to tackle by myself. It's a whole lot of house--3 bedrooms and an enormous dining room. Other than painting the walls and trim, my living room went untouched. I was trying to take a family home (a fixer-upper, no less) and personalize it for one person... a person with a lot of crazy ideas.

I love so much about what I put into those rooms, and I will zap the security deposit of anyone who tries to paint over that navy dining room. But a lot of the time I found myself with my hands tied because I wasn't sure if I'd like something down the road, or I wasn't sure if it would be practical if I wanted to sell or if I started a family there. And then when I realized I shouldn't make today's decisions based on an undetermined future, I just felt stuck. Stuck, as in the synonym of uninspired.

I recently secured a beautiful, huge apartment for September 1, when I will move out of my sublet, say goodbye to living with someone else's things, and finally settle into Chicago living. (Giving an obscene amount of money to someone I met on Craigslist inflicted such a panic that I called my mom and had a good cry, but I forked it over. And I'm never moving again, at least not without a Xanax and a vodka-soda.)

In this apartment, I'm excited to create something that is more fitting for my life as it is right now, instead of making choices for a day and a life that isn't here yet. Expect to see more pink-closet-esque choices, not that I'm allowed to paint the walls or anything.

I love my house, and since we can't predict the future, it's possible that I'm just putting the pause button on it, but right now it's an investment in my future, one mortgage-payment-paid-by-college-students at a time. My new apartment, however, is going to be a celebration of life, right here, right now.

It's the sweet spot between the roots and the wings.

Three cheers for the present! Hip, hip, hooray!

With that, here are a few of my hopes for this space:

• Work in this quote:

Didn't like the movie, but I like the concept.

• On second thought, work in a lot of quotes. After I bought the house, I stopped doing what had become my trademark in all my previous apartments: scrawling down quotes on post-its. I didn't even run out of post-its. I think I just ran out of inspiration. (See: stuck.) Well, 3M, order up. Project Quote Revival is under way.

• Take a nod from William Morris's decorating philosophy: 

"Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

This actually started when my mom was helping me figure out what to store, sell and bring right away and it made packing a lot easier. There's no sense in packing things you don't want or don't need just to pay people to carry them up a bunch of stairs so that you can decide that you don't want or don't need them, and then try to find a way to get rid of them in the middle of a city. This was incredibly liberating, and I got rid of all but two pieces of furniture.

• Use color, but embrace white. There will be dreaded white walls, and the downside of renting is that it's not always practical (or, you know, permitted) to paint. So I aim to get creative with my use of color (tapestries! 3M sticky tape!) but I'm also going to make peace with our old friend Mrs. White (<--best movie ever! "So......much."), and learn to use it to my advantage. 

This tapestry is going to become my shower curtain.

I love this "headboard". "So... much."

All in all, things are feeling more aligned. I feel like I am living a life that is more in line with what I truly want. And, that, my friends, is inspired.