Moving on Up! - Our New Apartment

These past couple of weeks have been a pretty crazy for Nick and I. After going through the entire application process for 3 different buildings, we finally found a new apartment to live in!

In our search, we saw some pretty crazy things. There was one unit that was the first floor of a house and it had 3 HUGE friendly dogs that lived there with the other tenants (yay!). Buuut, the caveat was that the washer and dryer were, get this, outside….No, I am not kidding. They were literally outside under the porch behind shutters. Apparently, they didn’t work once it got to be about -20 outside (nay).

We also saw some gorgeous buildings, with a view so beautiful that you could just sit and stare out the window - you wouldn’t even need a TV. However, they were so tiny, we would have had to cut all of our living room furniture in half.

We ended up finding a place close to where we are now that had literally everything we wanted, aside from the “ideal” location. I wanted to be closer to downtown Toronto, but we do have all the necessities (aka the art store) within a 2 minute walking radius.

After the stress of finding an apartment was over, we had to do all the work of organizing and packing. We ended up doing most of it the Friday night before the move, but we were also able to donate or get rid of a TON of stuff, which felt great!

Last Saturday, we finally got the keys to our new apartment and started our move! I say started, because we only had Nick’s work truck available to us, so we had to go back and forth with a couple loads of things. Also, it was mostly Nick and his friend Erik who moved a lot of the heavy stuff. I went back and forth on the subway a couple times with the lighter stuff, and of course, the cat.

The first time I got on the subway to go over, I actually went West instead of East, thinking I was going to work. Oops. The second time, the three of us drove over together to get another load and when I went to come back on the subway, I realized that I forgot my metro pass. Sooo Nick and Erik had to bring it when they came for another load. Clearly, we should just hire movers next time.

By 6pm on Saturday, we had moved the majority of our stuff and gotten the bed together, but there were still SO many boxes. As someone who is a neat freak, it was kind of eating at me to not have everything put away and tidy. I’ve since put away nearly everything and moved some of the boxes to our storage locker, so the majority of my sanity has been returned to me 🙂

When we woke up on Sunday morning, I can’t even tell you how nice it was to see the sun! The last place that we were in was a basement, so it was very dark all the time. I never really liked it, and the lack of light really bothered me, but I didn’t realize just how much until we moved into this new place. So if you’re considering moving into a basement, stop and ask yourself how picky you are about never being able to see the sun, or know what the weather is like, or feeling like you live in a cave all the time. Seriously though, it was the worst.

This is our old view from our bedroom window:

When I look back at this photo now, I just shudder and think “HOW?!” How did I live in such a dark small space?! Thank God, we’ve left!

And this is the view in the new apartment!:

It’s not even that sunny out today, and still, SO much brighter!!

We both love it so so much and just relish in all of the natural light that comes in through the floor to ceiling windows. The living room is a little bit tight for now, so we’re looking into getting a new slimmer TV stand and hopefully mounting the TV on the wall.

We were also really lucky because our bed, nigh tables and dresser literally JUST fit on the wall of our room. Plus, we have a ton of storage space in our walk in closet that I think will actually be able to fit everything quite well! Surprisingly, I didn’t even have to touch the front closet, so Nick will be able to use that for all his Army things

The kitchen also has a ton of storage and came with granite counter tops. It also has a dish washer, which is, quite possibly, Nick’s favourite part of the entire apartment.

For now, it’s still just got the bare bones of our possessions in it. I can’t wait until I’ve finally had some time to put things up on the walls and add some decorative finishing touches! For now, have a peek at a little of what we’ve done so far:

Sev really seems to like the new space! I was really worried that she would be depressed, because the last time we moved, she hid under the bed for about 4 days. I think that may have been because Nick and I were moving in together for the first time, so she wasn’t used to the smells of all his things. She does do this weird thing now though where I’ll be getting ready in the living room and she’ll be in the bedroom and just whine (aka meow) SO loud that it sounds like something is wrong, but when I get to the bedroom she’s usually just up on the dresser staring at me. Little bugger just wants attention.

This is the closet, and I know it looks small, but it actually goes back farther than you can see in the picture, and there is still a bunch of space on the floor for all my shoe racks. hehe. It still looks messy, but has come a long way since last weekend. The shoes are currently in a huge pile just behind the suitcase, so when I go to pick up more stuff from our old place today, the shoe racks are definitely high on my priority list - I need organization! I’m also thinking that I might frame some of the shoes that I’ve painted and hang them in the closet!

This is the living room if you’re standing in the kitchen area. It’s pretty tight right now, so over the next few weeks I’m planning on harassing Nick into letting us get a smaller TV stand. This one was fine for the last place, but it’s way too wide for this space, and I want one with doors so that we can hide all the cords and video games to keep things looking more minimal and in the colour scheme that I want. 

The kitchen area is probably the closest to being done since there is just some glassware that I need to bring over from the old apartment, as well as my Kitchen aid mixer (aka my baby). To finish it off, we just want to find some bar stools and we’ll have a nice little setup!

This is our room so far, and as you can see, we JUST managed to squeeze the furniture along the one wall. Because I painted all the furniture black a while back, it got pretty scratched up during the move, so touching up the paint is on my to-do list this weekend. I’m also still debating what to put above the bed! I’m not sure that I want the old book page headboard anymore, so I’ve been thinking about possibly doing a very large abstract watercolour over the bed. We also have to get rid of our current duvet cover, so I’m actually kind of leaning in a more mint coloured direction, if I can get Nick on board with that 😉

This is the very large wall that goes from the living room to the entrance way. I’m definitely going to be doing a gallery wall over the couch - just have to decide what exactly I want to hang! I think I’m going to try to break up the space a little by getting a taller plant, or maybe tree to go beside the vanity. My friend Tash is also giving me a tree stump that she’s painted white, so I’m thinking that I’ll use that as a stand for our future tree to sit on to give it even more height. I’ll also end up hanging my mirror above the vanity, and then hopefully making a set of three hexagon or triangle shelves for the entryway. Currently, Nick is leaving all of his keys and things on my vanity, which looks a bit messy, so I’m working on giving him a space where he can put that stuff when he comes home.

Overall, I’m happy with how the apartment has turned out so far and I’ll hopefully be sharing more of our progress later this week!

xo, tess.