Post-Grad Adventures- Tour My Apartment

I recently graduated from Grove City with a degree and everything! Since graduating, I have moved to Pittsburgh with my roomie Jess, gotten a pretty awesome job as a nanny and have begun exploring all that city living has to offer me.

One of my biggest time investments since moving in has been to work on our apartment. When we first moved in, it was pretty grimy and in need of a lot of TLC. But Jess and I saw potential, and we were pretty excited to make some changes.

This is 35 Waldorf, our perfect little home. :)

Before we moved in, we spent over 2 weeks of hard work cleaning and painting the whole apartment. It was really gross, so it took a lot of man power to get things done. 

Luckily we recruited some of my favorite manpower to help us. ;)

We painted the whole apartment using the world's cheapest rollers from the dollar store. Rookie mistake for sure. Although Jess still looks pretty happy!

For awhile all of our belongs sat in lovely little piles in the middle of all of our rooms.

So after getting all of the hard work done, and moving so many carloads of belongings and furniture from three different states, we graduated!

I don't think this picture even captures the level of excitement we felt. ;)

So after a month of hard work, countless trips up the two narrow flights of stairs, many late nights of Pinteresting, and a newfound love and appreciation of the power drill, Jess and I are pretty happy with how our apartment has turned out. 

This is my bedroom. I have wanted a white iron bedframe for as long as I can remember, so I jumped at the chance to get this one from Ikea. I also got the worlds nicest memory foam mattress topper, so basically I am glad I am gainfully employed, or I might never have a good enough reason to get out of bed in the morning. I got my bedspread for a steal at Marshalls. And the lights were $2 at an after-Christmas sale at Target. I may or may not have had to fight a lady for them. But that's an alleged story for another time. 

I put together this little "get ready station" with a mirror my mom bought me (which I love), a $2 Ikea shelf and this stool from Ikea as well, because if there is any hope of me being a pleasant person in the morning, I need a little time to get ready and collect my thoughts for the day. And as my mother would tell you, I might have a bit of a love of reflective surfaces. ;)

This is my desk, which I refinished myself, and my gallery wall, which I am rather proud of. It was quite the Pinterest project, but I made almost everything on it myself, with the exception of that really cool wooden map, which was a find at Michael's I couldn't refuse. 

My walk-in closet is almost as big as the rest of my room! So I took advantage with a lot of storage bins, and hanging closet organizers as well. Ikea, Target and Walmart were my best friends and I kept an eye out anytime clear plastic bins and drawers were on discount. 

Instead of buying a dresser to keep all of my clothes in, I used a bookshelf I already had combined with some of these collapsible storage bins from the dollar store. It actually works really well, and it keeps all of my clothes much more organized than they've ever been in a dresser. 

This is our living room. Jess is the master of thrifting furniture and getting great items from Goodwill. So the coffee table, and the side table were both purchases from Goodwill that Jess refurbished to match our entertainment center from Walmart. The loveseat was a hand-me-down from some family friends and the futon was a college purchase. The chair in the corner? IKEA of course! My favorite part of the room are the floating shelves that we store our glassware and wine on! It only took us 2 hours and 4 tries to hang them up, but they look pretty fabulous, in my opinion. 

This is Jess' room! If you look closely into her "corner" at the back of the room, you can see lots of great furniture she picked up from Goodwill and re-finished. She has a cool gold bookcase, and a white wicker hamper that goes perfectly in the room. Even her rug was a Goodwill find, she is such a great thrift shopper. If you look closely you can also see a really cool blue rolling cart she got at IKEA. 

This is her gallery wall! She especially loves her big clothespins, and I think the burlap with pictures on it is a great touch in the room.

My favorite part of Jess' room is her palette bed. We may or may not have allegedly stolen these palettes from an undisclosed location, but again, a story for a another time. She cleaned and sealed them and actually turned them into the base for her bed, which is pretty fabulous. She also painted the ocean painting above her bed. She's the artistic one for sure. :)

Here is our bathroom, pretty standard, but I do love the lamp and the shelves for extra storage that we picked up at (you guessed it!) IKEA. It adds so much storage to the room and fits pretty perfectly into the space. 

The last room I have to share is our kitchen! When we first saw the space, it was grimy and looked so small, but after we moved all of our furniture in, we discovered it was deceptively large! 

We have room for this table and four chairs, a gift from a family friend, and lots of natural light from these big windows. Jess is also particularly proud of her basil and cilantro plants on the windowsill which are coming along strong!

Some of my other favorite features in the room are the handmade mug wall Jess created, and this great kitchen cart from IKEA that provides lots of extra storage and cooking space. 

There wasn't a lot of storage in the built-in cabinets so the extra cart and shelving have been a life-saver for all of our dishes and supplies. 

We created our own pantry with shelving from IKEA and a laundry basket for all of our food storage containers. Our pantry shelves are organized with great wooden crates from Walmart. 

All in all, with our tight budgets we are pretty thrilled with how the space turned out and how we used all of the resources we had to save money while furnishing and decorating the space. I lucked out by having a very artistic roommate and an abundance of Pinterest ideas at my disposal. IKEA is definitely the MVP of our apartment, but we got lots of great finds from Walmart and Target as well.

The start of my post-grad life has been pretty great so far and I am really happy with my first little apartment all on my own. Stay tuned for (hopefully) more posts that are as totally riveting as this one. 

xx Megan 

Skinny > Kind

When did calling someone fat become more of an insult than calling someone a bitch? When did insulting someone's weight become more hurtful than calling someone selfish? Or greedy? Or vain? Why is it socially acceptable for people to be rude and self-serving, but God forbid they not look good in a bathing suit?

I have never been a "skinny" person. In fact, for a lot of my middle and high school years I was considerably overweight. But in the family I grew up in, being "fat" was never a reason to lose confidence, and being overweight wasn't an obstacle to reaching your full potential. So I grew up blissfully unaware that being smart, driven, independent, kind, loving, selfless, or hardworking wasn't as valuable in society as being "skinny."

All that changed when I went to college, and for the first time people around me didn't tiptoe around the fact I was overweight. In fact, for many of the girls I was around, talking about their bodily flaws was an all-consuming hobby, that they needed to devote more time to than classes. So with my eyes finally opened to what was really important- that is, being skinny- I realized just how far from bodily perfection I really was. When I looked in the mirror I didn't see my bright blue eyes anymore, I saw my fat thighs and my flabby arms. A confident smile could no longer distract from the love handles or the round belly. Being the overachiever that I was, I knew that meant I needed to change. So I worked my ass off (literally!) and lost 50 pounds my first year of college.

When I went home for breaks, everyone was astounded at how different I looked. People poured on the compliments. "Wow, you look so good! Does it feel nice to lose so much weight?" "Oh, Megan you're skinny now, how wonderful." "You look so different. It's great. You're so pretty now." But at that point it was too late. I didn't feel skinny, or pretty or better. I felt deluded. All these people I had trusted growing up were now affirming what I had learned to be true. It doesn't matter what's on the inside, unless you are pretty on the outside. I thought my confidence, and intelligence and hard work had been what mattered most, but when all we could talk about was my weight, those things didn't seem to matter.

All of these people were lovely and encouraging, but unfortunately it was not what I needed to hear. I needed to be pulled from the trap I had fallen in; the trap that made me reduce my entire self-worth to my dress size.

I hope if you're reading this, you're identifying with me. I hope you can see what society does, through marketing and media, how it feeds our deepest insecurities to get us to buy into the lie that what's on the outside is more important than what is on the inside. But mostly I hope that you wish this would change. I hope you desire a culture where being "fat" does not become the tragic flaw that being selfish or arrogant or rude should. I hope that when you look in the mirror you no longer stare at your outward flaws and wish to change them, but instead meditate on how your inward flaws can be changed. How you can use your unique personality to change a culture that is ruining a person's self-image before they're even fully developed.

There is nothing wrong with taking care of your body and making healthy choices. Those things are important too. But don't let that become your identity. If you're spending more time looking in the mirror than you are serving others, then it's time to re-evaluate. Love your body and focus on your soul. It's what's going to last, and it's what you're going to want to invest in. Don't be so worried about being "pretty" that you forget to be pretty kind, pretty smart, pretty funny, and pretty strong. In the end, that's the kind of person I want to spend time around, even if you're so "fat" and "ugly" we have to keep the lights dimmed. :)