Moving Time!

[Luvnlife]

Hi Everyone!

My BF and I are getting ready to move to a new apartment with a 3rd roommate who is also an FO out of DCA. We're all very excited, but as the only female (and non-pilot) in the group, I want to make sure that I really see this new place as "home", even when the guys are out working and I'm alone.

So 3 questions to you: 1) How do you even begin to decorate a new place (color schemes, themes, etc) from scratch, and without making it too girlie for the guys to handle? 2) Any moving tips to help save money or to make the transition more smooth? We are moving ourselves and renting a truck. And 3) What can I do to make the new place seem less empty and a place I enjoy spending time when no one else is around?

Thanks in advance for your help! I look forward to hearing from all of you.

[TheWife]

Well it's hard to say how to decorate because I don't know your tastes or budget, but basically, I started w/ the couches and worked around that. My couches are different shades of brown/tan and burgandy and green. I then picked out some cheap prints of artwork that I liked by Cheri Blum, then found the frames to match, then sort of just add things here and there to suit my needs. For bedrooms I started with the bedding and then got matching decor. I think you could do some very classy decorating w/o it being girly. My house is very neutral, I like that. Other people are very bold or very trendy. Kind of depends on you. As long as you don't put flowers and candles in every cranny you won't end up too girly lol.

As far as moving tips, well, I think the easiest thing to do of course is to start w/ what you don't need daily, that's first on the truck which makes it last off the truck. I box things according to how they are in the home. Like everything in the silverware drawer is one box, everything in the next drawer is another, etc. Labeling is by far the most important thing IMO. You just won't have the time to get everything unpacked as qucik as you want and nothing sucks more than opening 20 boxes looking for one thing. Take the time to protect the corners of your furniture, we ended up w/ a lot of scratches on desks and beds and things cause we got too rushed. That's about all I can think of. Good luck-it sounds like an adventure!

[Kristie]

shoot, i'm still working on decor in the house! sometimes I like to go by theme...but luckily, our walls were painted when we moved in, so we just matched them with the right furniture.. but i can never figure out how to match in plants or artwork (actual decor items)....for us, we like seeing as much wall as possible. less is more!!

for moving, if you have the option of going to the new place early, take as many boxes with you as you can and use movers for ONLY the heavy things...it's great to be able to move it all yourself, but the heavy stuff can really break your back if you don't do it right.. I spent months and MONTHS having back cramps after moving all of our furniture from one apartment to the other

HTH!