This post has been a long time coming, but I am excited to finally share a tour of our newlywed apartment with you! While we aren’t quite newlyweds anymore, it was the first place that Jody and I lived together, which holds so many sweet memories. It’s the first place we picked out together, just weeks before our wedding, it’s the home we came back from our honeymoon to (and where Jody carried me up the stairs for our first night together in our new home!), and it is where we have created new traditions that we are anxious to continue with our future family. While we always knew we would move one day, it was the perfect place to begin our lives together.

The apartment building we live in is an older home, which has been converted to three separate apartments, located right in the center of town. We enjoy being able to stroll around town, or walk to local restaurants, including where we had our rehearsal dinner! We can see the steeple of the church where we were married from our home, which makes the location of our home so special to be able to relive those special memories everyday.

So, welcome! When you first arrive at our home, you’ll enter through the stairwell to our second-floor apartment. I’ve hung my framed sketch of the Eiffel Tower on one wall, and the welcome sign from our wedding on the other. There is also a dresser (which used to be in my baby nursery!), that displays photos and seasonal decor, and holds all of our candles and doormats.

This is the view when you first walk into our actual living space. The left side of the room is our living room and our dining room is on the right. One of the first things that you see when you walk in is our bar cart, which was one of the first purchases we made for our apartment. While we change out what hangs above our bar throughout the year (ahem, Christmas Vacation quotes during the month of December), most of the year, it is the original copy of the wedding map that my sister painted for our wedding welcome bags. I love that this is one of the first things you see when you enter!

The other early purchase we made for our apartment was a TV and Entertainment stand for our living space. Our original set up showed all of the cord as the TV was propped up on an end table that we had acquired somewhere along the line, which gave me major “frat house” vibes (sorry, Jody!). We picked out the Ikea Brusali stand to keep everything organized. While I loved our set up before we purchased our TV stand, which provided a little more room for seating, I do love the decor we have added over the past year an a half, which makes it feel more like home. My mom built me a blanket ladder, which holds our Llama blanket that we brought back from Peru, along with another few blankets that I love using when we watch tv together in the evenings. We kept the basket with all of our cards from our wedding on the TV stand, so we can flip through them whenever we’d like. The pillows we were gifted when we thought we’d be living states apart and my patch blanket are on the chair and our favorite pictures from our wedding are on our walls.

On the other side of the room is what we turned into our dining room. We love open-concept designs, and felt like the place where we eat should be near where we spend most of our time, rather than tucked away in a room towards the back of the house. Conveniently, our table is right next to the bar cart, which makes hosting guests a breeze!

The room towards the front of our house is our bedroom. When we first looked at this apartment, we were shocked by the sheer size of the room. Even now, there is still plenty of space for more furniture, if we wanted. We have our full-size bed, matching dresser and nightstand, plus Jody’s dresser which also serves as our TV stand. My favorite thing about our bedroom is all of the natural light — there are more windows in this room than any other room in the house! A few highlights: the shadow box I made full of our favorite wedding memories including my garter, Jody’s boutonniere, and the letter he wrote on our wedding day, and a dried bridesmaid bouquet on our nightstand and one of my favorite pictures I took a few days after we got engaged.

Off of our bedroom is the bathroom. While it isn’t one of my favorite rooms in the house, it isn’t the worst bathroom I’ve ever lived in either. I love our shower curtain from Target, toothbrush holder from Crate & Barrel, and the bible verse wall decor makes our little bathroom seem a bit homier.

I would be amiss if I didn’t mention one of my favorite feature in our house — the cutout shelving in the doorway between the living room and our bedroom. My inner Joanna Gaines died and went to heaven when I first saw this, and admittedly, my heart still skips a beat every time I notice it. Due to its location, I do often walk past it without noticing, but it definitely adds to the appeal of our little home.

On the opposing side of the living and dining room is the entrance to the other two rooms. There are two steps that you take down to what I call the lower level of our apartment, which is where the kitchen and our office is located. One of my biggest complaints about the kitchen is how small it is. Just a small galley kitchen, there is not a ton of counter space, which makes cooking or baking a challenge on a regular basis. However, there are a lot more cabinets than my previous apartment, and we do have a walk-in pantry, which makes me not hate it quite as much.

Off of the kitchen is a small room, which we believe was designed as a dining room. Since we decided to have our dining and living areas in the same space, we chose to use this room as our office. We anticipated that Jody would need a separate place to study and work on a project for grad school, and I landed a job that requires me to work from home from time to time. Having a separate room for work has been such a nice way to keep our work and social lives separate.

Last, but certainly not least, is arguably my favorite room in our apartment– our screened-in back porch. While it is not huge, it has become the perfect little oasis. I love to drink my coffee on our loveseat bench that I found from Wayfair, and having dinner at the table set we bought from Ikea. Whether watching the sunrise or fall from the porch, it has become such a wonderful place to slow down and relax.