Five Ways to Make an Apartment Feel like Home

Moving out of your parents house is a huge step in a young adults life.  There are no longer the sounds of siblings echoing from the basement or the smells of delicious steak wafting from the kitchen.  Moving out is exciting, no doubt, but once you've packed and left it finally becomes clear: living on your own can get a little lonely at times! 

Sure, being on your own is exciting, ballsy, and fresh, but a new apartment can feel like a jail cell.  A new apartment is empty.  And very white.  Decorating your apartment is an important step for sanity's sake.  Your new apartment needs to feel like a home before you go crazy from the bare walls and empty space.

This seems like a no brainer, but you'd be surprised how many friends I have that don't furnish their apartments. "Why do I need a couch? It's only me, I can sit on the floor."

Wrong. Furniture is meant to make you comfortable, to make your place feel like home. A couch is made so you don't have to sit on the floor. You sit on a couch for back support and comfort. Sitting on the floor can give you back and neck pain, and a huge longing for your old home full of comfy couches (not to mention the couch pillows!)

If your wallet doesn't allow the purchase of a couch, get yourself a back rest pillow. Nothing has you longing for Momma more than the headaches you'll get from a sore back.

Also furnish your apartment with room dividers. I live in a studio apartment, also known as an extra large hotel room with no room service. The room divider I have is a large shelving unit, five feet by five feet, connected to a small desk. The cranny it makes in the corner of my room makes me feel like I have a writing room right in my ant sized apartment. Ikea sells tons of fairly priced room dividers. Look up, that's my fabulous room divider. It holds a hell of a lot of books!

Nothing makes an empty apartment feel more like home than pictures of the ones you love.  Sure, picture frames can do the trick, but making a collage of your favorite photos is much more fun!  What you'll need: a cork board, thumb tacks, pictures, scissors.  Snip, snip, snip, a little creative thinking and you've got yourself a piece of great wall decor.

Okay, so this one might pertain more to the ladies, but nothing brightens up a room more than flowers.  It's nice to have fresh flowers, but whose got the cash to buy fresh flowers every week?  Fake flowers make the apartment bright without depleting your wallet.

Besides, as wonderful as fresh flowers smell, decaying flowers give off a putrid stench.  No one wants that in their small apartment.  The smell will stick for days.

In an effort to save money, sometimes a young adult whose recently fled the nest will skimp on the necesseties (much like the furniture).  A bathroom mat is necessary to the bathroom.  Without it you're trudging water throughout the apartment and making a mess.  You might as well wear shower shoes like you did in college.  That's certainly not a step into the adult world, it's more like a step back into the beer soaked world of adolescence.  Your apartment is your HOME, not your dorm room.  Keep it clean!

Nothing is more frustrating than needing to get out of your apartment in the morning and not being able to locate your keys!  If you were home they'd be hanging right next to the door on a key holder that says 'Home Sweet Home.'

Cut yourself a break and buy a key holder.  Your job will thank you.