How to Have a Romantic Dinner Date in a Studio Apartment
Living Pretty Ep35 // Studio Apartment Living: How to Have a Romantic Date in a Small Space
Looking for quarantine date night ideas that fit with your studio apartment living? If you’re wondering how to have a romantic date in a small space, look no further!
In this video, my boyfriend and I have a dinner date at home in which we show you that just because you live in a small studio apartment doesn’t mean you can’t have a sweet, romantic experience at home. We even show you how to make our pumpkin pasta recipe!
So if you’re looking for easy date night recipes, small apartment tips, studio apartment hacks, and ideas for dining in a studio apartment, get comfy with us for our cozy night in!
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.
There are two things that are especially challenging when it comes to living in a studio apartment: the dining situation and the having-people-over situation.
And when it comes to having your significant other over for a dinner date, that may just seem like something you just can’t do in a studio apartment, at least not comfortably.
But in this video, I’m going to show you how to have a sweet, simple, romantic dinner date in a studio apartment, despite the lack of space and the lack of a dining room altogether.
And for that, I’m gonna need some help. So I’m going to summon my boyfriend and together we’ll show you that just because you live in a tiny space does not mean that you can’t create a fun, romantic time at home.
So, to be honest, Kobee and I usually just eat our meals on my couch because we like to binge watch our shows and just get cozy with each other. But ever since Covid, we haven’t been out on a dinner date for how long…? Uh, forever. It’s been forever. Exactly forever.
And so we decided we wanted to create a nice little dinner date experience in my studio.
We’re gonna bring you along for our at-home dinner date and show you that you don’t have to do much to create a nice, romantic ambiance for yourself in a studio apartment.
And if you’re new to my channel, my name is Steffi and I’m the creator of the style blog Moda Misfit, and you’re watching Living Pretty, the place for apartment styling tips and small space decor inspiration. So if you’re into that kind of thing, then subscribe to this channel and hit the bell to be notified when a new episode goes up every week!
1. Create a flexible dining room
So, if you live in a studio apartment or any small space in which you don't have a dining room, I must stress how handy it is to create a flexible dining situation in your space. I talked about this in my studio apartment hacks video, but this tip is especially useful for dinner dates.
Basically, I recommend buying a small round bistro table like the one I have here, which you'll use as an accent table for the majority of the time, just kind of pushed to the side as decor. Then when you want to have a dinner date, you can simply bring it out, set some chairs with it, and voila! You have a dining table.
2. Create your tablescape
So, what’s something that a nice restaurant does to create the mood for a dining experience with them? To make you feel like your dinner is a special event and that a high level of care and attention was placed on your experience?
They create beauty, an ambience. They add little visual touches that make you feel special.
So if you want to replicate the nice restaurant experience at home, try creating your own tablescape that visually communicates to you and your partner that this is a special dining experience.
For our dinner date, Kobee got us some pretty autumnal sprigs, with which I created a little arrangement to adorn our table. And of course, no tablescape is complete without lighting a candle to set the mood.
3. Cook together
Tonight we’re going to be making a really wonderful pumpkin pasta - perfect for fall!
Here’s the pumpkin pasta recipe:
8 oz penne pasta
1 lb ground Italian sausage
Olive oil (coat the pan)
1/2 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup chicken broth
1 can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tbsp pepper flakes
1 pinch ground cinnamon
Grated parmesan cheese to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
4. Have a mystery movie night
So we have finished dinner and I am now in comfy clothes and de-makeuped, and we are on to the movie portion of our dinner date night.
Something Kobee and I started doing a few months ago is what we like to call our Movie Mystery Madness.
We watch a movie together pretty much every weekend, but here's how we do it: we have a list of movies that we want to watch together, which we continue to build upon, and then we put the movie names into a random name picker online and have it our movie for us.
I’m not gonna lie, this weekly act of planned spontaneity thrills us to no end, and if you’re tired of spending more time trying to decide on a movie than actually watching it, I recommend you start your own mystery movie night!
Kobee and I keep a running list of movies and TV shows we want to watch together on a Trello board, and then we go to this random name picker site and just have it pick our movie for us from the list for us.
It’s a dangerous way to live, but what can I say… we’re thrill seekers.