apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I wish I had done this, but I am such a pre-planner. I signed the initial docs for my condo at the end of March, but it was a foreclosure and it took an extra six months to close.

Finally at the end of September it became official, but by then I had already bought so much stuff, I'm still shuffling through boxes, and most of the stuff is past the return date so I'm stuck with it. Time for a yard sale!

one month and that's 'taking time'? yipes. Apart from buying curtains (which were necessary as there weren't any), we're not making design decisions for at least a year...when we really have a sense of what we want, what works and what doesn't...

This is a great approach. I do the same with one additional strategy: when I see a great piece that is really deeply discounted (70& or more), I often will go ahead and buy it. It always discovers where it belongs in the new space, often in a location I would not have immediately picked.

I recently moved, and I'm a planner, but in a different way. We visited our new house a few times before bringing out things. I looked around and visualized all of our belongings, at least the large pieces, and pictured where everything would go. We moved our things to the new space in a few days, but the day we officially moved in, I have everything put where I wanted it and looking good and feeling homey in one full day's time. Feeling out the space before hand really helped me to plan, but in a good way.

Check out our move here:
http://www.makemineeclectic.wordpress.com

Completely off-topic, but I'm really getting a kick out of your AA coffee table.

ROFL! I saw that table at Ikea and emailed it to an AA friend of mine awhile back for the sober house he runs.

Congrats on getting a proper-sized rug!

It's too bad the sectional blocks the fireplace tho - perhaps if you'd taken more time...

Thanks, btoddster, I didn't know it was Ikea! Yeah, I think I need to buy one of those to donate to my local Alano Club.

Planner, here. Recently moved into a new house which we partially designed. We decided to get rid of the pieces of furniture that we considered junk, and not worth paying to put into storage, and we had some of the new stuff delivered to the new house even before we closed -- with the permission of the builders.

I have always had a good spatial sense, and for every previous move, knew exactly where every piece of funiture needed to go before moving in, so this was no exception. (I also had a good handle on exactly what furniture needed to be purchased -- no mistakes so far.) Due to logistical issues and illness, we didn't actually get every little thing where it went from the start, and unfortunately I am still working on some parts of it (like squashing my plentiful craft materials into less storage space than I used to have) while my "domestic partner" finishes recovering from surgery, but overall things went where they needed to go and will stay there a long time.

I spent too much money on getting just the right things, but I can enjoy them while I pay off the credit card, and it's worth it to me this time around.

Oh god, it takes me a month just to finish unpacking.

I am about to move in 2 weeks! And I've already got a new sofa and a chair. I need more discipline!

This was a pretty enlightening post for me as I'm planning to move in the spring and I'm already picking everything out. That's terrible because I don't even know what size apartment I will have!

um... what are these AA jokes about the coffee table? I'm missing something here.

RESIST THE URGE TO PRE-BUY!!! I was excited about my new place, but I'm glad I waited because visiting a space and living in it are two different things. Chill out for a while and think about how you actually use the space and design around that, instead designing around that really cool couldn't-pass-this-up-for-the-world sofa. I promise, it will be worth the wait.

You could go into debt buying up a bunch of stuff you don't need or eventually can't use.

It's been taking me months.. I am still not done. I moved in in September, lost a sofa on the move (didn't fit through a very narrow hall/corner!), have no car and very little money... but step by step I am getting what I need according to priority list. Guest room is still waiting, but at least now I have a living room and dining room looking decent. I still need a lot... but I am glad I didn't buy too much before - now that I've been living here for a few months, my concept of how i want it to look has changed significantly!

Every time i moved, I made a little plan of the new place, cut little pieces of paper to the scale for the furniture I had or the one I thought about buying... Never had a mistake. When we bought our house, we did buy a living-room cabinet and a dining table a little bit at random, but than again we have so much space in our living room it's hard to do anything wrong, and they were really, really cheap. We don't regret those either, although we're still on the look-out for a dining table that can sit more than 15 people and doesn't cost half the house...