Our Apartment

We love our new area! Walnut Creek is so nice and the weather is gorgeous. We have a great ward here too and are having fun getting to know everyone and making new friends.

We also really like our apartment! The location is perfect--right next to BART which is convenient for Ryan's commute and this way we only need one car. The layout of our apartment is really open which I really like and we have a lot of privacy thanks to the Redwoods directly behind us. We love the privacy but it's definitely not good for letting in natural light--but hey--you win some you lose some. Right before we moved in, our apartment was upgraded! It was a nice surprise! The pictures online showed a dingy carpet and now we have laminate dark wood floors. We love them! We also got to choose a few accent walls to paint! We got to choose any color we wanted and they came out and painted for us. It was so nice and really fun to personalize the place we were renting.

We feel very fortunate to be this happy with a place we rented site-unseen. It's scary moving to a place you've never seen before and if you remember... that didn't work out too well last summer (Daly City). We do wish it weren't so dang expensive though. It is SOOOOO expensive in Northern CA. But that is just life in the Bay. Prrrrriiiiiiceeeeey.

Although we love our space, it is pretty small and doesn't have much storage. This has actually proved to be a blessing in a lot of ways because it has forced us to get more organized. I ended up reading (cough-cough "skimming") "The Life changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Mari Kondo. I found it terribly boring so I really couldn't bring myself to read it all the way through. However, I did get a lot of useful tips out of it. The main thing that really helped me was this:

When you are organizing and deciding what to throw out and what to keep, (or when you are purchasing something new) you should hold the item in your hand and ask yourself, "Does this spark joy?" It sounds weird and voo-doo-y but it is seriously so helpful! I always end up holding onto everything, even clothes or decor that I DON'T like just because I feel guilty getting rid of something that still has value. However, when you live in a small space, you cannot live that way without being cluttered. We ended up donating a TON of stuff to Goodwill and chose to only keep things that "sparked joy."

When we moved from Indiana we decided that rather than spend $1000 on another U-Box (to fit all of our furniture) we would just sell most of it and use that money to get some new things in California. It has been really fun! It has also been a little bit of a pain in the bootay haha--mostly because I am SO cheap and really super picky. We kinda splurged on the couch but other than that, all of our furniture has been treasure hunted and is a good deal! I'm always so proud of the deals I get haha :)

We still have some work to do but so far we are really happy with how everything has come together.

Here are some pictures of our home so far. I wish I would've done this with all of the places we have lived in before. I think someday it'll be fun to go back and remember the places where we've lived.

Our one U-Box was stuffed to the brim. Once I started Goodwilling stuff, I couldn't believe how much we had brought with us that we really didn't need and that didn't "spark joy."

Here's a pic of when we first moved in, before we had really brought anything in...You can pretty much see the whole place from this view.

Way too much stuff.

Couch shopping. This was the one item we allowed ourselves to splurge on--I mean don't get me wrong, we still got it at Sofas4Less :) but we decided to get a nice couch that will hopefully last a long time! We ordered this couch except ours has three cushions and different pillows. Ryan's first reaction when he saw this was, "Why does the couch have earrings?" haha I had a good laugh! Ry warmed up to it and he really loves it too. 

SO proud of this find! It is sold at Ikea for $389 and we got the exact one in fabulous shape on Craigslist for $70! All of our furniture had to come with good storage since we don't have a ton of storage in our apartment.

We have the best Goodwill! Our local Target makes donations all the time so you can find BRAND NEW Target stuff at Goodwill for cheap, just like this new dresser. We were pretty happy about this find. 

Obsessed with this entryway table I found at TJ Maxx. It had a couple scratches. Hardly noticeable--but I pointed them out and asked for a discount...I was expecting like 10% off. They gave it to me for 33% off!! Since TJ Maxx is already a discount store, this was a steal! I was so happy! Before I buy anything I really search the item and if I find anything I will point it out and ask for additional discounts haha. :) It's worth it because they usually give it to me :) 

Entryway (Also got a discount on the mirror at HomeGoods. I pointed out a few small scratches and asked for a discount. I'm telling you--Ask and ye shall receive.)

Right off the entryway is the kitchen with dishes in the sink. Because you know, we live here.

I have always wanted Riley to have her own nursery. This isn't exactly all hers because she has to share with the bikes and the treadmill and the storage.. haha but it is so fun to have a little space dedicated to our girl.

The other half of Riley's room. We have the rest of the bikes and storage in Riley's closet! I insisted we put as many bikes in there as possible so that Riley's room isn't COMPLETELY overtaken with bikes! It's nice that the treadmill can fold up and down to save room.

Just put in this updated picture of Riley's room because we finally got Riley a crib! It took us nine months to buy one but we are kinda in love with it. We want mucho kiddos so we decided to get a good crib that will last through all of our kids. I LOVE it. Sometimes I just stare at it haha. I have dreamed of having a crib and a nursery for Riley since I was pregnant with her. So when Ry put the crib together it was so fun! Riley really likes it too and bounces up and down on the mattress. Sometimes I put her in it and say really slowly, "Riiiiiiileeeeeey...." then shoot my hands through the slats to grab her or tickle her and she will laugh and laugh. We are having fun with it.

Guest bathroom (in Riley's room). This was supposed to be the master since the bathroom is inside of the room, but we decided we liked the other room better :)  

I love the "Be in love with your life" sign. It's a great reminder.
One reason I love to blog is because it helps me to "be in love with my life." It helps me realize all of my blessings and the good things that happen. I think that is one reason why the prophets encourage us to journal. It really helps one to recognize blessings and be grateful for the life you have been given. It's obviously also a great way to preserve memories and help future generations. 

BEFORE paint...

And AFTER the paint. I picked a light blue. Permafrost by Behr. Ryan wishes it was a bit more blue but I like how light it is!

Family Room. 

Took FOREVER to get our place together. It was so exciting to finally start getting our furniture, building it, and seeing it look more like a home. Rug and credenza from Amazon.

Got the frames for 35% off at Target and I am in love with them! 

Our bedroom BEFORE painting...

And AFTER painting! I LOVE how it turned out! I was so so nervous to pick such a bold color like this! I have personally never seen a navy room so I was really scared to do it but I decided to be bold and go for it. I'm so happy I did. It is one of my favorite parts of our apartment! 

:) 

Ry's and my bathroom. Nothin' too special. Theres a door that leads into our room on one side and a pocket door on the other that goes out into the main area.

View from the family room

Our gallery wall. Not perfect but it makes me happy and that's what matters. 

And last but not least...our balcony! We have a small one off of our room as well but not as big. Ry dreams of having a BBQ back here. We have our weights and weight bench out here to the far left but you can't really see it here. It's nice to be able to put that stuff out here so we have more room inside. Our washer and dryer are also back here (to the far right). You just can't see it in the pic.

And that wraps up a tour of our apartment. That's our little place we call home. We are very happy here and look forward to building lots of happy memories in our new home.