Helping My Girls Move Into a New Apartment & Why I Love Firestone!

I love, love, love helping my girls fix up their new apartments when they move!  My daughter met her roommate as first year students in college...and they have since been friends.  So let's count how many apartments I've helped them plan and decorate:  2nd year, 3-4th year, first apartment out of college, second apartment out of college, third apartment out of college and their most recent apartment as of last weekend.  Six times of working on floor grids for room planning, purchasing thrift store finds, painting pieces to make them pretty, loading trucks, unloading trucks, unpacking boxes, hanging pictures, etc.  I do love it, but this last move may be my last time of being so involved....IT'S HARD WORK!  Especially when they live in tiny apartments in NYC that cost a fortune to rent, and every inch of space counts!  It's a fun challenge, but I think I'm done!  :)

The beginning of the process is the same....send me pictures of the apartment, and I'll do a floor grid layout.  That way we can figure out what they might need, and what they may need to let go.  

Then the fun begins:  The Pinterest Board of sharing ideas.  We post ideas there and then the shopping begins.

Bailey loved a gray and white geometric for her new shams and duvet.  I found this from CraneandCanopy.com:

They did a beautiful job on her order...and I loved the way it arrived...packaged so beautifully, with a small packet of lilac, adding a beautiful fragrance to the bedding.

She also needed a small chair that didn't take up much floor space.  I had this in my 'inventory':

Here it is painted, and new fabric:

I had this fabric leftover from a project from awhile back.  The gray and white look lovely with the fabric from her duvet and shams.

I also found some great pillows at Homegoods that complemented the gray, but they didn't make it up to NYC.  

She has one brick wall in her room (which is a look I personally like) and the other walls look like Linen White from Benjamin Moore...a beautifully creamy white.  I wanted to add something to the windows, but I didn't have a lot of time to sew something.  After snooping around on Pinterest, I found roller blinds with fabric:

After reading the directions, I thought, why not just stencil a vinyl blind?  So that's what I did with ASCP a mixture of ASCP French Linen and Paris Gray.

My daughter's room had no room for a night stand...and you know having your cell phone near you at all times is of utmost importance, right?  I saw this cute idea:

This black leather with white stitching file holder would work perfectly next to her bed:

A pretty black lamp with cute shade, round mirror from Hancock Fabrics and 3 tiered table for Bailey's night stand finished up the shopping...

Of course before we load up the car, I have to stage all the goodies!

We load up the car to make the journey from Southeast Virginia to The Big Apple:

Not the tidiest packing job, but we got it all in!  We picked up 3 wardrobe boxes which were really annoying to stuff in the car...They are heavy boxes!

In the meantime, the girls were busy packing:

I was hysterically laughing when I saw how my daughter labelled the boxes!  Isn't she so cute?

And now the not so fun part of this story - We got a flat tire on the New Jersey Turnpike!  I've seen bloggers have the presence of mind snapping pictures in the midst of crisis.  When we unloaded the car, and all of those beautiful pieces were sitting on the side of the New Jersey Tnpk, and cars were flying by us at 70-80mph, taking photos was not foremost on my mind!

Here she is with her "donut" on:

We hobbled down the turnpike for about 10 miles, and then a few more miles to the Firestone Station:

While we were still on the turnpike, we called ahead and the Firestone Representative talked me off the ledge!  I haven't been this scared in quite awhile....But he was great!  Thanks, Brian!

The girls had packed up most everything....We helped with a few, last minute things.  Their place is small, so we used the height of the apartment to stack boxes!  And there were boxes, upon boxes, upon boxes!  How did they accumulate so much 'stuff' at such a young age?????

The poor movers!  They lived in a 3rd floor walk up and moved to a 4th floor walk up!  But if you live in the NYC area and are in need of movers, I highly recommend this fellow.  He and his staff we responsive, prompt and some of the nicest people I've met in a long time.

Adonis W NYC Movers

Here is an "after" picture (poorly photographed, but geez, I was 9 hours into this project when it occurred to me take a photo!) of boxes stacked in their new, tiny kitchen:

These are the only pictures I took of anything completed!  

The roller blind makes a nice valance, don't you think?

Bailey's bed with her new linens...against the brick wall!  Very NYC chic!

There are so many smart ideas out there in Pinterest World.  It's fun finding an idea and turning it into something useful for yourself!

I love the planning and shopping for a move....but I think I'm going to let the girls have the pleasure of packing, unpacking, setting up and accessorizing, from here on out!  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Robin