Becks and the Cities

Living Room

I’m so excited to finally upload this post! If you didn’t know before, Tristan and I moved to Baltimore after we graduated from Wake Forest University this past May. I’ve been looking forward to a change in scenery and living some place new. I’m originally from the mountains, so living in the city is a new experience for me. Even with the pandemic, we’ve managed to take some really nice (socially-distanced) walks around the area.

One of my favorite hobbies is designing new spaces (hello, I grew up watching HGTV), so I was excited to tackle another apartment (this is our fourth apartment together!). Before we moved, Tristan and I agreed that we would keep our old furniture and wait a few months before we started swapping things out to fit our new apartment. Unfortunately, all I could think about was changing up the style to fit the modern finishes in our apartment. That’s where Facebook Marketplace comes in!

I was able to use Marketplace to sell most of our furniture and snag a few steals along the way to style our new space (let me tell you, Marketplace in the city opens several doors!!).

My first Marketplace find was a marble Pottery Barn end table. It was funny because I had just finished designing the living room vision and had actually selected this exact item as my dream side table. Then boom! It popped up online for sale and I knew it was a sign! I actually found two of them in Bel Air so my mom bought the other one for her house! You could say finding this piece started it all. I was hooked and excited to find the next piece to fit my space.

My second Marketplace find was a Crate and Barrel sofa. The taft, cement color was a perfect fit in our new space! I was shocked to find the exact couch style I wanted to get one day (seriously – what luck!). Since I found the listing on my birthday, I felt like I could treat myself! $150 later (and $80 for the UHaul), I had a new couch! It needed a little TLC, so I washed the cushions and de-pilled the fuzzies, which took me an entire afternoon! If you haven’t used an electric fabric shaver to take care of those pesky pills, then you are MISSING OUT. Best $11 I’ve ever spent. After I was done working on it, the couch looked as good as new!

Next to come was a new rug! We had a jute, indoor-outdoor rug before and it wasn’t as soft as the new one! I love the subtle turquoise color, as it compliments the other blues in the room (if you couldn’t tell, that’s my favorite color).

I lucked out again on Marketplace and found a $50 Crate and Barrel coffee table (similar here). Although I worry about having a glass table (finger prints and fragile), I thought this was the only time in my life where it made the most sense to have one. Our apartment is 740 sq. ft. – AKA small. But, having a table that’s functional and practically transparent, makes the space slightly bigger.

For graduation and birthday presents, we were gifted a TV cabinet from my dad. It’s perfect for the space and the wood pattern goes well with the other woods in the apartment. Eventually, I’d like to mount the TV, but we’ll take this one step at a time. The cabinet sits next to a faux olive tree from Studio McGee’s collection at Target, which is taller than me! On the other side, a chest sits with 3 velvet pillows. No surprise here- I found the chest on Marketplace, too! It holds all of extra linens, blankets, and pillows incase anyone comes to visit!

When it came to decor for the living room, I fell in love with Pottery Barn’s acrylic frames, but I wasn’t about to spend $500 on a gallery wall! Instead, I went to Lowes, picked up acrylic sheets, had them cut to size, and made my own! They weren’t too hard to DIY and I think it turned out well for the price! Currently, I have the frames filled with items I’ve painted, photos, and Society6 prints.

Kitchen

We didn’t have enough room for a dining room table, but we did have space for barstools at the kitchen counter. I love the look of Serena and Lily’s Rivieria barstools, but I’m not crazy about the price! These are the stools I ended up going with off of Amazon! I think they look really similar to Serena and Lilly and are a great dupe if you’re looking for French bistro/Hampton’s style living spaces. Even Deacon’s feeding station got a makeover! I noticed he felt more comfortable eating and drinking out of taller bowls so we upgraded. Check out the acrylic dog bowls we got him!

The front door has a few art pieces I love! First, this awesome art print Tristan’s sister gifted him of a dog that looks just like baby Deacon! The other image is a canvas I painted and would like to hang in this space (still needs to be mounted).

Terrace

Although it’s tiny, our terrace is another space in the apartment I absolutely love! During the summer, we spent every day out there, and now I couldn’t imagine not having it! We had a porch in Winston-Salem, but did not use it nearly enough! We have a few plants, chairs, and a table- not to mention- look at that view! Love it! As the lockdown restrictions increase going into the winter months, I’m extremely blessed to have this outdoor space to go outside.

Bedroom

We managed to fit an entire dresser into the closet, which really helped with the lack of storage in the apartment. Stacked shoe organizers and storage bins help hide the clutter and work well for the space we have. I have a beautiful, heavy mirror, gifted by my grandma, that we placed over the fireplace in Winston-Salem. Since we haven’t picked the right spot for it yet, I currently have it in the closet. Although it’s there temporarily, I like how it looks reflecting light in such a small space!

I really liked the bed we had before, but we weren’t able to maximize the storage underneath. I fell in love with this Pottery Barn headboard, ordered it, and ended up waiting 10 weeks to finally put it together (backordered X1000). It was well worth the wait and I love the style of the new bed (modern French provincial?) ! I went ahead and ordered the matching nightstands to complete the set! Sadly, they are also backordered, so they could arrive as early as December 18th or as late as next year! Guess we’ll have to wait and see! Also, you can see that Deacon has the best spot in the apartment! He loves it!

Check out the design for the bedroom below once the new nightstands are in!

So 5 months later and I’ve pretty much replaced all of the major furniture we originally brought with us from North Carolina. Sorry, Tristan- I didn’t stick to the plan! But when you’re home all day, with no plans to return to office in sight, you kinda want it to look nice!! Next up- I’ll be updating our office space!