Acclimating your Apartment

A new place is exciting and  fresh! It’s new, it’s clean, and it’s completely foreign. Regardless of whether you are looking forward to your move or not, it will seem like a completely foreign place to you until you can really make it a home. Making memories in the new house will make it a home, but, such big memories aren’t so easy to come by. Much like a new car scent, there are some thing syou can do to make that house “smell” more like your home.

1. Unpack your closet

Interior designer Nate Berkus advises us to start with your closet or wardrobe. "Most people start unpacking the common spaces first, but I focus my efforts on my closet because Monday's are hard enough without having to search for your favorite sweater."

2. Focus on your kids' rooms.

Your children are less equipped to deal with such a traumatic and life altering event such as a move as you are. Start off with their favorite things in their room. Give them their boxes and, assuming they’re old enough, let them unpack and design their room on their own. If they’re too young, do it together so that they can not only have your attention during this difficult transition time, but also so they can feel like part of the rebuilding process. As an added benefit, if your children are unpacking and designing, then they’re leaving you alone to deal with the rest of the house!

3. Recreate familiar sounds, sights and smells

A home is more than just your stuff, but the sounds and smells and familiar sights are what make us feel at home. Maybe it’s your grandfather clock ticking away in the living room, or maybe it’s your special recipe cookies filling the house with that at home smell. My parents house has our heights and ages chronologged on the wall. These little details are what give our brains the trigger to feel at home. 

 

4. Wait to decorate the walls

Family photos, paintings, kids drawings, etc… they all have a perfect spot in your house. You won’t find it all in a day, and hanging and re-hanging things on your walls just gives you more holes to patch. Wait until you’re really sure that’s the spot. Try leaning them against the wall where you want them to go and see how you feel about them.

5. Try to imitate your old routine

It’s hard enough adjusting to a new house. But, a new house, a new body rhythm, new timing… everything will throw your body out of whack. Try to replace as many things in your new routine with your old as possible. If you do have to make a new routine, try to make it as easy to adapt to as possible. A new key ring near the door may not be your family’s style. We have our key basket on the kitchen counter, near the phone!

Shoe Talk

Moving is a tiring process that takes your time and money. There are so many things to pack, to take care of, to pay for, to set up, to clean... sometimes you overlook the small details, like your shoes! If you have a lot of shoes, or even a few shoes you want to protect, this is for you! Here's a few tips for how to pack and safely transport your shoes! 

Packing Shoes for a Safe Move

First, let's sort the shoes into their respective types: sandals, high-heeled shoes, boots, etc. The first thing to do is to weed out all those shoes and boots you just don't wear any more. Maybe your feet grew, maybe the arch support just isn't good enough anymore. If they're no good, find a recycle shop or just toss them in the garbage. If they're still in good shape, consider donating them to charity, or, if you're in need of cash yourself, find a shop that resells used items. If you're already having a garage sale or flea market, take them there and sell them all at one go. 
For the rest, clean them up and sort them by season. Anything you don't need soon, pack them in for long storage, and put them in a properly labeled box. Things you will need soon go in a different box, again, with a proper label.

How to Properly Pack in Boxes
To prevent your shoes from molding or developing mildew, make sure to properly air and dry them before packing them away. It's best to wash them a few days before the big move so that they have time to completely dry before being packed away. Long term storage items should be packed inside airtight packaging, and then put inside strong, sturdy boxes. Things you need in the short term need less protective packing, but, you want them to be well protected from any damage they might receive in a move. So, wrap them gently, and put them in sturdy boxes. Make sure you have labeled everything
If you cannot find enough small boxes, get bigger boxes and pack more pairs in one box. Besides boxes, you will also need packing paper, a permanent marker, tape and scissors. Always wrap shoes in pairs for easier unpacking. So now how to pack your shoes for moving? Fill in shoes with crumpled packing paper (not newspaper because it could leave stains on your shoes) all the way up to keep their shape when in transit. Take a sheet of packing paper and your first pair of shoes to pack, place one pair on one of the ends of the sheet and roll it until the shoe is completely wrapped in packing paper, then add the second shoe and continue wrapping until you have made a nice bundle of this pair. This is how to pack all of your shoes besides the boots. You should wrap each boot separately in paper. After that, put in a separate box those pairs that have their own box.

Decorating together with a new flatmate

Combine Your Design Style

After you've moved into your space, with all your items carefully meshed with your new flat mate, here's where you start to enjoy life together. It’s time to develop your own combined style. After you have a sense of how you each feel your home should look, it will be much easier to patch the holes in your decor. Sometimes, you get lucky, and your flat mate will let you make all the decisions. The internet is full of places to get new ideas and find styles you like together without leaving the house. Check sites like Pinterest or Houzz to start keeping track of your ideas for your combined style. You can save room images and products, and both have something to refer back to when buying missing items. 

5.  Plan your Space

As we mentioned, there are many tools online to plan your room. However, a pencil and paper sketch is often just as effective for laying out your space plans. It's also much easier to carry around and doesn't require recharging! Once you have a basic floor plan of where your key pieces of furniture go, use professional plans or simply measure on graph paper. It's not critical to decide where each and every tiny detail goes, but you will need a plan for the bigger and key pieces of your room. Also, it's important to make shared spaces actually shared spaces. If there are some items that your flat mate just can't stand, respect their opinion, and keep those items in your personal space instead. Contrastly, your flat mate should respect your opinions as well. This will help keep the peace and set the right tone for your cohabitation.

6. Get Professional Help

So what do you do when you both have no idea? When you look at that room on Pinterest, but can't afford it or make it happen? What if your furniture just doesn't match? Online interior design services help people to mesh all their design ideas together into a matching set, for a fraction the cost of an interior designer. Simply add photos that you want to match together, write a little about your budget and what you want, a designer creates a beautiful room to fit your style and budget, all without leaving your house! They will even include a floor plan and a detailed list of what to buy! Several of these services have different levels of celebrity in their designer pool. You can get a beautiful, professional, celebrity designed space for no cost at all, all before setting foot in a DIY store!