Studio Apartment Makeover: My 500 sq ft Studio Apartment Before and After
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I transformed my 500 sq ft studio apartment into my dream space.
And in this post, I’m going to walk you through the before & after of my studio apartment decorating process, which - I’ll admit - was a pretty all-consuming journey for me. So I want to share my insight and give you some tips based on my experience!
Read on if you want to learn how you can transform your studio from an empty box to a cozy retreat. 🥰
Just because you rent your space doesn’t mean you can’t own your style!
Would you rather watch than read? Here’s the video! ↓
This is what my studio apartment looked like when I first moved in:
And this is how I decorated it:
Now let’s get into the tips I have for making a studio apartment feel like a cozy home!
1. Get your head straight
When decorating any space, your mindset should be the very first thing you address before anything else. If you’ve been keeping up with my videos for any length of time, you know that the whole Moda Misfit ethos revolves around putting YOU at the center of your decor.
I basically encourage you to be very self centered in your styling. 🙃
And at the start of my studio apartment styling process, I did some serious self-reflection. I asked myself:
What’s been inspiring me lately?
What am I passionate about that I’d love to see depicted in my styling somehow?
What attitude do I want to convey?
That’s how I ended up with this dark, moody, cozy look that showcases my love of music, anime, and the Legend of Zelda. I thought about these things ahead of time!
Looking inward like this is how you not only end up with a space that feels like a reflection of you and addresses your specific desires, but it’s also how you can avoid wasting money on things that don’t resonate with you.
Do the inner work first - and do it well - and you’ll simply save money. Because you’ll be more thoughtful and strategic about the things you spend your money on.
2. Envision & Plan Your Style Vibe
After doing the inner work, I started planning what I actually wanted the styling to look like in my studio overall. I started envisioning things like:
What I wanted my dominant style to be
What I wanted my secondary style to be
Color palette
Any little touches I wanted to add on top of the decor I already owned
Again, this is preliminary work that takes place before you buy a single piece of new decor. I personally think it’s best to come up with as much of a plan as possible, while still giving yourself some wiggle room to be spontaneous.
And to have that general plan, I needed to establish my vision.
I knew I wanted a dark, moody vibe in my studio. I’m drawn to things that have a little bit of an edge to them, yet still feel cozy. I like drama, but I still wanted my studio styling to feel approachable. I like color, but I wanted it to be in moderation.
So I ended up with a dark charcoal as my base color and pops of greens and golds as my accent colors. I opted for moody black and white wall art. I worked in moments of edginess and drama, yet I balanced them with layers and layers of softness and warmth.
All these styling decisions were premeditated, my friend. A dream apartment doesn’t happen by accident!
So by really taking the time to think these things through, I was able to make clearer decisions and spend my money more wisely on a vision I already established for this apartment.
3. Shop Your Heart Out (Within Your Budget)
After I did the inner work then established my vision for this space, I started shopping.
I shopped my heart out. I shopped my brains out. I shopped my guts out. This is basically when I descended into madness for this apartment. I shopped obsessively.
Thank goodness I had already established my vision for what I wanted my studio to look like… otherwise I would have felt like a chicken with my head cut off while shopping. I spent every spare minute shopping online for the right accessories, the right TV stand, the right coffee table, pretty wall art, the perfect headboard... All the while being super budget-conscious.
This was the first time I wasn’t splitting rent with roommates, so the question was: how could I find the right decor for the right price?
This honestly came down to spending a ton of time and energy shopping for decor. I’d get home from work and shop online. I’d spend my weekends going to Pier 1 and World Market with my mom. I was driven.
Now, I’m not saying you have to pour yourself into your decor to such an obsessive degree. Honestly, I’m just very passionate about interior styling. It’s one of my favorite things in the world, so being this obsessed came pretty naturally to me. 🙃
So don’t put pressure on yourself to lose your mind over this stuff if you don’t naturally feed off of it the way I do!
Decorating an apartment can actually be a very fun, approachable, and chill process.
Most of my decor is from pretty attainable places: Pier 1, Target, and World Market, Society6, Etsy, Amazon, Red Bubble, Ikea. My one big splurge for this studio was my couch from West Elm. And then pretty much everything else in here was carried over from past apartments.
So, as you can gather, my decor is not from fancy places, for the most part. It’s actually from very accessible stores.
…Except for Pier 1, which is no longer accessible at all because they closed all their stores down. I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just pour one out for Pier 1. 🍾😭
So, whatever your budget is, know that you don’t have to shop at high end stores to make your apartment look stylish. Honestly, a trip to Target can work wonders.
4. Arrange & Accessorize Mindfully
The final phase of decorating my apartment was accessorizing and arranging everything, which actually happened simultaneously to the shopping phase.
I personally think it can be very helpful to start arranging and accessorizing your studio while you’re still in the decor shopping process. This allows you to feel out your styling decisions as you go and course-correct when needed, as opposed to buying everything at once and crossing your fingers that it will all look good together.
This part of the process is where you piece together your furniture layout, decide how you want things to flow, and add the accessories that bring everything together.
You don’t have to rush your styling process. Take it piece by piece. Be a tortoise, not a hare.
And prioritize the important things first! When I moved into my studio, my very first priority was to buy a mattress. It’s kind of a boring first step, but at the end of the day, you just need somewhere to sleep, if nothing else. I had my mattress on the floor for weeks before I got my bedframe, because it was simply more necessary.
Then I built from there. I got the bed frame, the rugs, the couch, the TV stand, and the desk. All the while, I was adding the small accessories here and there to give the space my personality.
Piece by piece, with one styling decision effecting another, it all came together!
