4 Reasons Your Small Apartment Decor Isn't Working
Living Pretty Ep53 // 4 Reasons Your Small Apartment Decor Isn't Working
Wondering why your small apartment decor just doesn’t seem to be working for you? You’re trying to nail down your apartment aesthetic, but despite all the small apartment inspiration you’re finding online or when you're apartment shopping in person, you just can’t seem to fall in love with your interior styling choices.
I feel your pain! You don’t just want to know how to decorate a small apartment - you want to make it feel like YOU. You want to tap into your personal interior style and make it so your small apartment styling actually connects with you. But it’s difficult to make it all come together!
So in this video, I’m giving you 4 reasons why your apartment decorating might not be working yet, and what you can do to finally make your apartment shine!
Video Transcript ↓
I’ve made some slight edits in the transcript below so that everything makes more sense in text form. But overall, this is almost a word-for-word dictation of what I say in the video. I’m a much better writer than this, I swear, haha.
So you buy some decor, you’re super excited about it, you bring it all together into your apartment, and… you hate it.
Hate’s a strong word. Maybe you’re… less than enchanted by it. 😑
This is video number two in a series on my channel I call “Dear Moda”, where I answer an interior style question from my audience, advice column style!
And a follower of mine, Dylan, is feeling this struggle. Here’s his “Dear Moda” question he submitted to me on Instagram:
“Dear Moda,
I tend to like everything in my room but then hate it and it doesn’t feel like me!”
I feel your pain, Dylan! And nobody should have to feel that way in their apartment.
And the good news is that this is a very common problem that we all deal with at some point, and there are certain things you can do to avoid it!
So in this video, I’m going to tell you the real reasons why your apartment decor might not be working the way you want it to and what you can do to make styling decisions that you won’t regret.
And if you’re new to my channel, my name is Steffi and I’m the creator of the interior style blog Moda Misfit as well as the online course Small Apartment Styling School.
And you’re watching Living Pretty, the place for apartment styling tips. Just because you rent your space doesn’t mean you can’t own your style!
So if you want to get inspired with me every week, be sure to subscribe!
And I wanted to let you know that I have a brand new free guide that you can download today called the Apartment Styling Handbook!
It's a bite-sized roadmap for decorating your apartment so that you can create a space you love - without feeling like you're stumbling alone in the dark. Because sometimes you just want someone to tell you what to do to decorate your apartment, right? So download the FREE Apartment Styling Handbook for some extra help!
So if you’re anything like Dylan, you know how frustrating it can be to decorate your space, only to feel disappointed with the result.
We’ve all been there. And unfortunately, mistakes and disappointments are part of any creative process. There’s nothing wrong with you!
But at the same time, it’s not like we all have a bottomless bucket of money to spend on decor mistakes.
So let’s unpack some of the reasons why your apartment decor just isn’t working and what you can do to increase the likelihood that you’ll feel happy with your apartment aesthetic!
1. Buying before self-reflecting
The first possible reason why your apartment decor might not be working is you might be skipping straight to buying decor without first addressing your most valuable decorating tool: your brain!
You need to ask yourself what’s important to you. What resonates with you? What colors will make you feel good on a daily basis? What styles will compliment your personality?
It’s not about just finding pretty-looking things. There are a lot of pretty looking things out there. It’s about finding the right pretty-looking things for you!
So you might be wondering, “how do I go about figuring out what will be a good fit for me?”
There isn’t a black and white, cut and dry answer to this, but a good place to start is to ask yourself the right questions. Get your head straight before you get your home straight.
I walked you through a few of these questions in this video about the first three steps you should take when decorating your apartment.
And my free Apartment Styling Handbook that I mentioned earlier will also help you work through this inner groundwork towards discovering your personal style.
Just remember, before you buy anything, establish what you want. What’s important to you? Don’t buy anything until you’ve done this, because that’s how you end up with decor that doesn’t feel like you!
2. No plan
Another reason why your decor might not be coming together the way you want it to is you might not be going into it with a plan.
What a lot people do when decorating their apartment is they just haphazardly buy decor without establishing things like what they want their color palette to be, what specific interior styles they want to go for, how the decor items might look together…
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to eliminate spontaneity from your decorating process. Some beautiful things can happen from spontaneity!
But with something that costs you money, time, and energy, having some kind of a plan for your interior styling makes it less likely that your efforts will lead to heartbreak.
Nobody wants to feel like they wasted time and money, and more often than not, having a plan will help you make decisions that you won’t end up regretting.
Things like creating mood boards, Pinterest boards, shopping lists, a budget spreadsheet… these will help you feel more confident and clear on what you’re spending your money on!
I have lessons and templates for all of these things in my online course Small Apartment Styling School (which reopens for enrollment on June 29th!) so my students already have a built-in framework for how to plan and organize their interior styling. And it makes it so they can just hit the ground running without spending the time trying to figure out a plan on their own!
But if you want to create a styling plan on your own, I recommend creating a budget in Google Sheets, creating a mindful Pinterest board of decor images that resonate with you, (I explain my mindful pinning approach is in this video), and also using Canva to create mood boards.
My boyfriend Kobee and I used Canva simply to decide which decorative pillows we wanted to buy for his bed. We just grabbed the images of the pillows we were considering, put them in Canva, and being able to visually see the options and compare them helped us choose!
If you want to see how the pillows we went with ended up looking in his space, watch his studio apartment tour video!
And look at this moodboard my Small Apartment Styling School student Ella made in Canva after watching my lesson about making moodboards in the course!
Making this beautiful moodboard gave her a sense of what might look good together and it helped her feel more confident about what she was wanting to buy - because she had this visual to help!
My point is that taking the time to do something like this increases your chances of buying decor you end up loving, rather than regretting.
3. Not prioritizing your personality
Another possible reason why your decor isn’t feeling right might be that you’re not putting your personality front and center. Your apartment might not feel like you because you’re not prioritizing YOU when shopping for decor!
I did a whole video on how to incorporate your personality, interests, and passions into your decor, so I definitely recommend you check that out.
But I really want to stress that if you want to create a space that feels authentically you, you need to look for decor through a very specific lens - a lens that focuses on the things you love, the things that light you up.
I want you to try seeing the world through you-colored glasses as you shop for decor! Because if you’re frustrated that your decor doesn’t feel like you, it means you need to put you into focus here.
Make sure you’re buying things you feel connected to - not just because they’re a trend or you think it looks nice enough or you’re in a rush just to get something.
If you want your space to feel like you, you have to be intentional about expressing your personality through your decor.
What are your hobbies? What are your interests? What colors speak to you? Are there any time periods you love the aesthetic of? For example, I love the 60’s and 70’s aesthetics, and they inform my style choices on some level - often in ways that aren’t obvious.
That’s another thing to consider - I’m not saying you have to beat your decor over the head with your personality in super obvious ways.
What I want is for your interests and passions to always be simmering under the surface as you decorate.
The idea is to keep yourself at the center of all your decorating decisions. Be self-centered in your styling!
4. Maybe you’re not finished yet!
And finally, we’re going to wrap this up with a quick reason why your apartment decor might not be working, which is… maybe it’s just not finished!
It’s like I always say, every stylish space has to look shitty before it can be pretty. Your decor might be disappointing you right now because it’s just not done.
This is a process! And it takes time. And for most of the process, your apartment will look not-so-great. Or at least it’ll feel underwhelming, like it’s just not popping.
I mean, look at the evolution of my apartment before it finally got to a place I was happy with. It took months of mistakes to get there!
But somewhere in the interior styling process, there’s kind of a magical moment where things just click together. One piece of decor can be the thing that ties it all together and allows the whole picture of your space to shine. You might be one area rug away from your dream space!
Just keep going. Be patient with yourself.
When I end every one of my videos saying that your apartment is destined to be pretty and you’re pretty powerful, I really mean it. You have the power to make it happen! You just have to keep going.
If your apartment isn’t looking the way you want it to right now, you’re probably just not done with it yet. 😊
I hope this was helpful to anyone who’s dealing with the struggle of not really loving their decor!
It’s a very common problem and there isn’t a black and white solution, but I’m here to make it as approachable as possible so you don’t have to feel lost in the dark.
If you want to dive deeper into my step-by-step approach to the apartment styling process, and you would also like my feedback on your specific apartment, you might want to check out my online course Small Apartment Styling School!
Like I mentioned, enrollment is reopening on June 29th, and I’m so excited to help a new batch of students decorate their apartments. 🥰
Special shout out to my SASS students Keiko and Ella, who have been loving the course and have already seen the benefits of it reflected in their apartment styling. I’m so proud of them!
If you join the Small Apartment Styling School waitlist, by the way, you’ll get a special 25% discount code delivered to your inbox as we get closer to the course opening, so definitely take advantage of that!
For daily glimpses into my studio apartment life, you can follow me on Instagram @moda.misfit.
And for regular doses of apartment styling tips and small space decor inspiration, subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell to be notified when a new video goes up every week.