It was a little heartbreaking having to tear apart my first apartment upon graduation, but I’ll always have this post to remember it by! Before packing myself up into two suitcases, five boxes, and some miscellaneous bags, I took photos and video clips of my room where I spent the last half of my college experience. Sure, this apartment had its quirks, like uneven floorboards, cracking paint, a leaky fridge, and mice, but I made it into my cosy haven. My apartment gave me a place to settle in and make my own. Sometimes I wondered if I should have lived on campus for all four years of college, but that doubt went out the window when I started packing up my apartment and remembered how annoying it is to move!
This post took so long to get around to because I didn’t have enough space on my laptop to import my videos to make this vlog. I kept it to 30 seconds hoping that the music I used (“Dear Friend” by Chelsea) would be able to narrowly miss copyright infringement, but alas. Perhaps I should go for 25-29 seconds next time. Anywho, if you enjoy the video, give it a like and subscribe to my channel!
My IKEA Hemnes daybed was my pride and joy. When I first put it together, I had all my pillows and stuffed animals lined against it for ultimate floofiness and cosiness. However, when I finally got around to washing my sheets and had to strip my bed, I was reminded of how large my twin sized bed could be, so all the extraneous pillows and stuffed animals got stored in my underbed drawers. But even without all that floofiness, my bed was still the comfiest bed around town. Any unsuspecting person who sat or laid down in my bed couldn’t get back up because it was so darn comfy!
Beside my daybed was my nook, furnished with a textured accent rug, IKEA Poäng children’s armchair I bought off a fellow Mawrter (Bryn Mawr College student), guitar, and ukulele. If I sat in the chair, the daybed would block me from view, which would sometimes give my roomie a fright when she realised she wasn’t home alone.
Above all that were my photos and posters. On the far left you can see big square album covers by artists I’ve seen live; I printed those myself on fancy paper when I had extra print credits from a design class I took. On the far right you can see three small postcards I received from friends, sent from Rothenburg, Paris, and Singapore.
On the adjacent wall was my desk that I never used, fireplace that didn’t work, and clothing rack. Above my desk was a window and a sliver of wall I used as my art wall. That mask is one that I painted and decorated myself during fall break of 2015 (sophomore year) at the Philadelphia Magic Gardens. It hung on an elastic from a command hook, and the elastic got stretched out over the years until the mask hung over the illustration below, but I tied up the elastic for the photo so that it wouldn’t block the illustration! The illustration is one that I bought during Thanksgiving break of junior year from an artist I discovered at NYC’s Union Square Holiday Market. If you can’t see the title of the illustration, it reads, “Poorly-Drawn Elephant Belly Flops On Crudely-Drawn Elephants”; the caption really makes the illustration complete!
On the next wall over was a large window overlooking my daybed across from it, a whiteboard (Staples) and two square corkboards (Daiso) beside that, and a three-tiered shelf (Bed, Bath, & Beyond) under that. The corkboards had foam backs, so they were very light and only needed one command strip each to stick to the wall. On them I pinned knick-knacks like my stamp cards for Infinite Piercing (buy five get one free LOL), clothing tags off items from my favourite thrift store (Philly Aids Thrift), a lettered pennant handmade by my freshman year roomie’s mom, a candy wrapper from the Snickers peanut butter squared my professor brought to class for Halloween, and stickers from some of my favourite small businesses in Philly (United By Blue and Lokal Hotel).
The top shelf of my three-tiered shelf was the closest I ever got to creating an Instagram-worthy vanity, which didn’t get all that close. The second shelf stored tea, chocolates, and decorative mugs. The bottom shelf stored designer boxes and boxes of stationary.
Back to the wall with my desk, fireplace, and clothing rack, my fireplace mantel held my Bryn Mawr lantern, the music box I made with Grace in Shanghai, several candles from Bath & Body Works that will take me who knows how long to burn through but I still want to buy more, a photo of me taken and developed by Georgina, and a stack of my small collection of books.
On the ground in front of the fireplace were miscellaneous, mostly empty boxes I somehow accumulated.
And that’s pretty much it! My first apartment will always hold a special place in my heart, but I hope I’ll be able to settle into my next apartment just as well as I settled into this one, and I’m interested to see how I grow into my new space ♡