Decorating My Studio Apartment: New Studio Layout + A Green Academia Boho Design Shift…?
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My studio apartment is in the midst of… a minor identity crisis. 😅
At this point, I've been living here for about 9 months, and I've been feeling a bit stuck in my styling process. At 9 months, it's time for this style baby to be born!
I've switched up my studio apartment layout yet again, and I may or may not by planning on painting my walls green… because I got inspired by my own green academia videos and I've been in a state of crisis ever since…
But it's the good kind of crisis. I have to remind myself that getting inspired is a good thing!
So in today, I'm showing you the changes I've made in my studio, the thought process behind them, and what I want to do next.
And hopefully by witnessing me work through my style identity crisis, (which we all go through in the decorating process!) you'll get some ideas or have some epiphanies for your own studio or small space.
Let's get through this together!
Would you rather watch than read? Here’s the video! ↓
New Kitchen Rug = Coziness + Separation
You know when one styling decision just brings everything together and suddenly an area in your space just makes sense? That's what happened with this rug. It has brought the cozy factor of my landlord-special kitchen to a whole new level. I suddenly like my kitchen like a hundred times more than I did before.
If you're ever feeling like something is a little off in your space, like something is missing or you're having trouble giving your studio a sense of separation, sometimes the answer might be as simple as a new rug. This runner not only softens up this modern kitchen, but it also helps establish my kitchen area within the studio and creates that feeling of separation from the rest of the space. Total game changer.
Never underestimate the power of a pretty rug!
My Studio Apartment Layout
Let's talk about my layout and all its iterations.
If you watched this video of mine, which I posted a few months ago, you saw three different furniture layouts, each with their own pros and cons.
Now a fourth layout has entered the building...
And here's why I was itching for this change. It really came down to how I experience my apartment every day, not just how it looks.
I spend 90% of my day on my couch. Working, watching shows, playing video games… I have a very sofa-oriented life. And in the previous layout, I started to feel displeased with the view from my couch, which include my air conditioner, builder-grade kitchen, and an ugly rooftop taking up a lot of visual real estate outside the window.
The majority of my time and experience in here was spent with less than pretty things in my line of sight. And as someone who tends to fixate on things (sometimes to a pretty weird degree, haha) I was finding myself getting more and more bothered.
And then one day, as I sat on my couch staring at the ugly air conditioner, I turned around and saw the view outside my window from this angle. Saw a wall that wasn't tainted with an air conditioner. Saw my bed and pretty wallpaper instead of a landlord special kitchen. Life looked better from this angle.
And then I said to myself, "No, Steffi. There's no way you could turn your couch away from the entrance of the studio. That's not like you. You wouldn't want your couch to turn its back on you every time you enter the space…"
But then I started to think less about how it looks when I enter the studio and more about how I experience it. Maybe the hours I spend on my sofa are more important than the seconds I spend entering the studio. So, I flipped things around .
And I mean, if I'm being honest, at face value, my favorite furniture layout for a studio apartment is the one I had in my last studio and at first in this one, strictly in terms of aesthetic and flow.
My old studio apartment.
The first layout I tried in my current studio.
But every apartment has its own needs and issues that need to be addressed. And weighing the issues of each of the four layouts I've tried, this new one feels the best just existing in, simply because of the view from here and the vibes.
To put it in professional terms, the vibes are vibing. And when the vibes are vibing, you just can't ignore that.
So, this layout is what I've landed on, at least for now. Who knows what I'll be up to in here as time goes on.
New Paint + Green Academia Inspiration
Speaking of what I'll be up to in here, let's talk about paint.
Okay. I'll just level with you. I have not really been loving my current paint color in here… 🙈
This is so embarrassing to admit, because I painted this space before I officially moved in, when it was empty. The thought process behind that was to get it done and to just make things easier without having to maneuver around furniture.
And I spent so much time contemplating various shades of black and browns. I was certain Tudor Brown was going to be the color for me. And don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful color. It really is. But there's something that has been secretly bothering me for all these months…
The redness of this paint has been driving me crazy.
I didn’t realize just how much red was in this brown. And while I wanted some warmth and plum undertones, I wasn't ready for just how much redness would come through, especially on a sunny day. On a sunny day, this paint is like aggressively brownish red.
So, here I am. I made this big bold choice before I even moved into the apartment because that's how certain I was, and… I'm not a huge fan of it. What a big bold mistake to make, right?
And then the final straw was when I made these two green academia videos:
I was so inspired by Green Academia (from my own videos about it lol) that I realized that I would really love to paint my walls a dark green. Green is my favorite color. I should have considered it in the first place. Red is far from my favorite color, so green would at least be an improvement from my current circumstances.
So here’s the lesson about painting a studio apartment - or room of any kind: there's no need to rush.
It might be tempting to paint when your apartment is empty and you won't have to deal with moving furniture around. But ultimately, I think living in a space for a little bit before deciding on paint is probably the wiser approach. Because until you spend days, weeks, or even months in your space witnessing how the light behaves, how it bounces off your particular furniture, and how it interacts with the paint swatches you have, you won’t really know what it will truly look like.
I've had these six green peel-and-stick samples up here for weeks. And I've been watching how the colors change at different times of day. I couldn't have done that before moving into this space.
Boho Decor Inspiration
On top of the Green Academia inspiration that has taken place in my brain, there's also the boho inspiration I recently underwent when I did a live stream on YouTube recently.
In this live stream, I showed five different colorful boho homes, and I started feeling even more unsatisfied with my current styling.
Not that I'm going to start doing bright colors in here. My dark soul could never. But in the hours I spent creating the slides for this stream, looking at these beautiful boho homes for hours on end, I realized that there is a really large chunk of my personality that I've been ignoring for a while now: my groovy, boho side.
Just as much as my dark, moody, witchy vibe, I'm also very much a '70s, '60s boho girly. I always have been.
I'll tell you my boho origin story real quick. I remember exactly when I knew this is my style. And it was when I was, like, in third grade. And Clarissa Explains It All was one of my favorite shows, as it was for most '90s Nickelodeon girls.
And I remember there was one episode where Clarissa dressed up as a hippie, and she was wearing black bell bottoms and a lot of jewelry. In that moment I was like, "That is me." I felt like a soul connection to that style.
I also got into the Beatles around that time. The first time I heard "Strawberry Fields Forever" it completely rewired my brain. Like, it changed me on a molecular level.
So, between Clarissa Explains It All dressed as a hippie and falling in love with the Beatles in third grade, boho has been one of my soul styles my whole life.
All this being said, I feel like I've been ignoring this part of myself and I want to address it in my studio decor!
The Vision
So, between the color palette of Green Academia and some of the style elements of boho, I feel like I have a sense of where I want to go from here. To sum it up, I'm going for a Green Academia, dark boho, Stevie-Nicks-in-apartment-form style.
Top left: @abigailahern / Top right: @goldenhourabode
Having this in my head makes me feel like I might be getting somewhere. And step one is going through the very arduous task of painting my walls and ceiling. It's definitely not something that my profoundly unathletic body is looking forward to, but life is too short to live in a red room. I won't be able to rest until I'm enveloped in green.
