If you haven’t heard the news already, I’m leaving my apartment of over 6 years and moving back to Palm Springs!
As I pack up each room for the move I’m reminded of how many faces each one has had over the years, and how we started out here with literally only an air mattress and a laptop. I worked hard to make this apartment feel like our own home and did every thing I could to personalize it within the limits allowed. In the beginning I worked with what I had and could afford, which wasn’t much, and slowly improved each room over the years and brought in new and better things to make it what it is today. I had fun doing it and I’m really proud of what I’ve done and been able to share with you all since the blog started.
I thought it would be fun to take a little look back through the years. Each rooms has looked even more different than what you’ll see below, but this is what I could find on my Instagram and photo archives.
The living room and dining room have always been the main focus. It’s where we spend the most time and really the only room people see when they come over. It started out with ugly paint and carpet (the floors were eventually changed by management) and eventually turned into a bright and spacious feeling room. It was even featured in Better Homes and Gardens!
As you can see I flipped the entire layout last year.
The dining room has had a few different lives too. 
Here are a couple of my favorites.
Even the front door got a makeover a couple of times!
And lastly, the bedroom. I went from garden grandma chic vibes to tropical resort vibes.
I’ve had a lot of fun living here and sprucing this place up, but I’m excited for something new!
Stay tuned for projects in the new place soon!
In the dining room I used large bottle brush trees from Target to decorate my shelves and then stuck in two more baby trees for good measure.
I got a little more festive on the adjacent bar, of course. I used Shiny Brite ornaments and epsom salts to dress up a cheapy $5 plain wreath and garland.
The living room is definitely the most festive place in the apartment! I spy a 
I also decorated the fireplace with my collection of bottle brush trees and
And then there’s 
I got this hat for my dog but she hates it so Frank the flamingo got a festive little makeover.
This time the decision didn’t come so easy. The reason is mostly because the latter half of last year threw some financial, emotional, and physical blows our way and some changed our lives forever. The most devastating and impactful was when our dog Pandie was attacked by another dog and subsequently traumatized and left permanently blind. That one moment changed all of our lives. 
For the past 6 months we have been dealing with numerous veterinary bills and visits, sleepless nights, and often times being stuck at home because Pandie’s trauma induced separation anxiety has prevented us from going out (dogless) for more than an hour at a time. I’ve had my dogs for 15 years, that’s half of my life, and they are like children to us. I would consider myself a pretty strong and adaptable person, but my dogs are my weak spot and going through all of this has been extremely heartbreaking. Even little things like no longer being able to watch Pandie race around the apartment with her brother like she used to, or even find her water bowl on her own, still breaks my heart. All of that along with the other crap life decided to throw at us lead me to the idea of a fresh start. We had too many memories of our old way of life here, so we thought that maybe moving to a new place to start our new way of life would help with the emotions that we were feeling at the time. Plus being cooped up here started to feel a little bit like that movie ‘Room’. “Hello, sink. Hello, door. Hello, egg snake.” I’m grateful that my husband and I are able to work from home, but it was starting to get a little maddening. Although things were finally getting better, we still wanted some new scenery and were in total reset mode. “Let’s just move!”, we said.
But, then the more we talked about it the more we started realizing that while it had all of the things that we desired, it lacked a lot of things that we required. It had a bright brand new kitchen, but there was a serious lack of storage. The bathroom was lovely and had pretty white tile and marble floors, but it had even more of a lack of storage. In-unit washer and dryer!…in the closet leaving no room for (you guessed it) STORAGE. There was also no grass in sight for our dogs’ frequent potty trips (they’re 15, this is IMPORTANT). We would also have to sacrifice location. Right now we’re located in a great area that is walking distance from everything we need. Markets, restaurants, everything is a few steps away. That was not the case at our potential new home.
Melodrama 