Hello! Allow me to introduce myself - my name is Sarah Hasse and I'm a 20-something, Chicago based artist, maker, young professional and newly wed! I live on the north side of the city in a 450 sq ft studio apartment with my husband (and thankfully no one else!) and I absolutely love making things and connecting with others who like to make, laugh, and enjoy a good beer now and again.
These last couple of years have been full of change for me: I graduated last May with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I began working in the mortgage industry last July, got engaged in October, and got married in May of this year! Whew! Just the past year has been full of accomplishments.
I'd like to make a post talking about the wedding, since that was such a huge part of the past year, but even at two months out it's still a little too fresh to dissect just yet. At some point (hopefully this fall) I'll put together some pictures and thoughts about what worked, what didn't work, some great resources we found, and basically just how we pulled off a evening weekend wedding on a budget.
Right now though, I see this as a place where I can keep track of various projects, whether that be artistic, home improvement, craft, or travel. My husband and I have renewed our lease in our current apartment until next August at the very earliest, so while I had big dreams of moving to a bigger space this summer I'm just going to have to make this apartment work for us! I've always seen the the fall as the real beginning of the year (blame that on all my years of school), so I'm going to take this nonmove as an opportunity to make the best of what we have and make some improvements.
As a renter, I think it's so easy to put off making apartments better because any changes can't be permanent, any furniture will need to fit in another space at some point, and honestly, why change something if you're just going to have to change it back? But I've been in this apartment for 3 years now (all through grad school and this past year) and I've made only a few of the changes I would've liked! No home improvement is completely final and people move all the time even if they're not renting, so why not do some projects to make our home more enjoyable and personal.
So looking forward to this new year that'll start soon, here's the list of things I'd like to accomplish before next summer:
- make a new coffee table using this plan from Ana White
- design and make some under the bed storage drawers (we made our queen sized platform bed last summer which allows for standard plastic bins to be stored underneath, but this set up is starting to look a lot more "dorm room" than I'd like)
- paint the back splashes in our galley kitchen using this stencil from Royal Design Studio
- change the hardware in both the kitchen and the bathroom. Our basic rental is in need of a major style update in the cabinet pulls, towels rods, and toilet paper holder
- make some sort of shelving for the wall behind our TV/TV stand. I'm not sure yet whether stand alone shelves will be better (something like this) or more of a bookcase style (like this)
- change the light fixtures in both the living room and the dining room. Again, our basic rental is tricked out in only the finest (haha!) of flush mounted boob lights and there's nothing in our place that I hate more. Ideally, I'd love to change the light in the dining room to a chandelier like this but I'm not sure yet if that's within both my skill set and something that will cause minimal change (we have to change everything back once we move out after all). I'm thinking something more simple like this for the kitchen.
- make curtains for the windows in the living room and dining room. I like this tutorial from DesignSponge
- add small lights to either side of our bed (I like the look of these) and perhaps change our nightstand situation (currently we only have one on my side of the bed which isn't very convenient). I really like the idea of these.
- I'm not as excited about this project, but something desperately needs to be done to our closet. Even in our small space, we're lucky to have a large walk-in closet (the woman who had our apartment before me even used it as her bedroom!), but I didn't rearrange it much when my husband moved in with me and I don't think we're using the space as effectively as we could be.
So what is that, nine projects? That is quite the list! That should keep us busy for the next year or so (especially since I'm sure I'll have more sewing and quilting projects mixed in). We definitely have our work cut out for us!
