This is my home | Kitchen

My favorite thing about our apartment is how much of it Mike and I have made ourselves. Last summer, Mike revamped the furniture that was rotting on our old back porch, and he even built a new bench out of the spare wood. I got some cushion on sale at JoAnn's, some fabric, and made a cushion for the top.

Our kitchen is full of bright greens and yellows. We spend a lot of time in there, so it was important that it feel like a happy place, even in the endless night of winter. 

Mike and I bought this bread box at a thrift store in Vermont around our first year anniversary. We were already anticipating our September move into our very own place, and buying this first piece for our apartment felt so very romantic. Even now, stuffed with bagels and leftover banana bread, piled with Oreos, it feels like the first bit of a home we're building.

As convenient as it is to use Pinterest as a cookbook, I like the meditative nature of working from a stained and floury cookbook every now and then. 

Yes, that is a Megatouch. As in those table top games you see at bars. Mike won it at a Boys & Girls Club auction in Western Mass last year, and now it sits on a little bar in our kitchen, entertaining guests without fail.

One of my best friends Nabila painted that painting. She and I used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen when we lived together, so it's kind of nice having a bit of her there all the time. 

Where all the magic happens.

Mike's sister made this out of paint swatches. It's part of a really great series she did, and it matches perfectly with the colors in our kitchen. 

And here's our makeshift wine rack. It's not as impressive anymore; the holidays have drained us of our reserve. Guess it's time for another trip to Trader Joe's!

What parts of your house make it a home?

This is my home | living room.

There is not much better than a cozy place to come home to, is there? I've always been a bit of a homebody, so I tend to make my home—whether that means a room I'm renting or a whole apartment I'm sharing with M—a place that feels like a big hug. In my last two years of college I lived in the tiniest room I have ever seen. I could barely fit my twin bed and my desk in there, but with the right lighting and by shoving everything into my closet, I managed to make it a little cove. I loved writing and reading in there, waking up and falling asleep in there, and despite its size, I was proud to show it off when people came over. Look what I did with this space, I thought. I made it a space I belonged. So that was our goal when we moved into our apartment. My first impression was that it was too small. I had grown so used to sharing three bedroom apartments with roommates, the thought of downsizing that much and paying more seemed unfair. I'm glad I came around. This place is the perfect size for the both of us, and even when we entertained about 20 people a couple of weekends ago, sleeping 5 people here overnight, it was comfortable and cozy.

Our living room is where we spend the most of our time. Isn't that funny how that changes? I went from working from home at a desk in my room, from stuffing everything to my name in one room in an apartment of three, to having an entire living room to do my living! And a bedroom that primarily serves as a place to sleep! Such novelty! Such luxury!

My favorite part about our living room is our vintage camera wall, hands down. But there are other little details that I love, like these prints from Etsy that I got M for his birthday our first year together. Or his collection of View Masters on the windowsill. The crates we bought at Brimfield (one of them has the name of M's hometown on it!) that now serve as a bookshelf. I love every little bit of this room because we spend so much time in it, but also because it's ours. It's a perfect mixture of our tastes and personalities, and I'm proud to show it off when people come over. Look at this space we made.