Our New Apartment!

As promised, here are pictures of our new place.  We love it.  It's recently renovated but still in our budget, and it's in a great part of town.  We expected Newport News to be a lot more ghetto-looking, and some parts are, but in general it's far exceeded our expectations.  We live just off of a main road with lots of nice businesses and a grocery store just across the street!

Looking left and right...

...and then straight at our building.

Here's what you see when you open the door.

Most of our furniture has come from thrift stores, and we feel like we've had some really lucky finds!  The brownish loveseat here was newer looking and cost $85 (when we brought it home we realized it reeked of dog, so over the next few days we dumped our entire box of baking soda on it and went over it again and again with our new vacuum.  Now it's not so bad.)  The bookshelves came from Walmart, $17 each - we got three, and Michael secured two on top of each other with screws 'n stuff - he's so handy.

Here's turning back around to the left.

The table and chairs were the first furniture items we purchased, at a Goodwill superstore nearby.  Another table we'd had our eyes on was suddenly purchased by someone else and we were a little bummed, but on our way out we saw them bringing this one to the floor.  They hadn't even put it down yet when we said "We'll take it!"  It was a better size and in better shape than the other one, plus it had four matching chairs.  There's even a leaf included so we can extend it when we have company over.  $80 total!

I am so grateful for our lovely kitchen.  There's plenty of storage space, and its open to the living area, which is something I was really hoping for.  We got the microwave off craigslist for $15 and the little black and wicker stand for $10!

Here's looking back at the living area.  Some things to point out: our little computer desk was generously donated to us by Michael's sister Amber and her family.  Thanks you guys!  On the coffee table is our wedding book and an enlarged copy of the Book of Mormon (if you don't know what that is, make sure to ask me about it!)  This bigger (and heavier) couch cost only $30!  It was originally $60 but we got it half off - score.  The cover wouldn't have been my top choice, but it was the only cheap option that was also the right size.  It'll work for now.  I'm glad we at least have something.

 My DVD collection (I say "my" because 98% of the movies were brought into our marriage my me) was just the right size for our new bookshelf.  Like, down to the inch.

The hallway starts in-between the kitchen and the living area.  Our favorite photo from our wedding day hangs in front of our bedroom door.

Our mattress and box springs were purchased at Costco during an awesome sale, and they were brought back to our little apartment strapped to our Honda Accord...but that's for another post.  We don't have a frame yet, but we'll get a simple metal one eventually.  Probably from Costco (*angel chorus*).

Aaaaand here's the bathroom!  I was glad to have gotten a colored shower curtain (reminds me of a rainforest waterfall) because I realized that most of the other things we have in the apartment are neutral-colored.  I absolutely love playing with color, but whenever I would buy something for the home I would get chicken and think, "Well, if I just get something neutral it will go with everything...".  Well now EVERYTHING is neutral.  Lol.  Someday we'll add some more color in, but for now at least I have this shower curtain.

Well there you have it!  That's our apartment.  We think we're really going to like it here the next three years!