Hi Waterloo, it’s us, we’re back! We moved all of a block down from our last place and added a new roommate – hi Hannah! The apartment hunting process itself was a headache and a half and it did not help that all three of us were working in Toronto during the spring term and couldn’t physically be around to do viewing and scope things out. There were envoys, countless photos and videos, a revival of the house hunt Trello board, and a truly bizarre leasing signing situation but ultimately we were not living in the SLC this year and for that, we are truly grateful.

THE KITCHEN

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Unfortunately, the kitchen in this apartment is pretty tiny especially for three people so we had to add some additional storage. The first picture is what the kitchen looks like in the mornings with the light coming in, which is pretty and moody if you enjoy that kind of ambience with your eggs. They actually renovated our unit right before we moved in so we got brand new appliances which is amazing. The lack of counter space is not.

We rebranded Jill’s bar cart to be our kitchen cart and put down some plastic cutting material so we can use it as prep space. I also bought us a metal shelf for the pots and pans and appliances. If you zoom in, you can see that one of the only two outlets in this kitchen is just casually floating in the middle of the wall so it would’ve been useless to us without putting in these units.

THE DINING ROOM

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There was a perfect little corner right at the front of the living room that seemed to be made for my giant mirror. There’s nothing special about our dining room since we made no changes to the furniture. I actually do more of my studying out here than in my room where there is an actual desk but I digress. There’s also a balcony but we primarily use it to dry our recycling and garbage bins.

(Actually, if anyone knows where we can get more brown wooden chairs that would be great because we literally just have the 4 chairs but often need more seating like when all three boys are over.)

THE LIVING ROOM

Most of what is in our living room is the same as last year; coffee table, armchairs, couch. We actually did a good job of finding furniture that would fit really well in that apartment, except this one is bigger and now everything is a little too spread out so we added some new pieces.

The bar cart had been sacrificed to the tiny kitchen for utility but we also had a lot of booze that needed to be put somewhere. Also plants. Booze and plants and a lot of knick-knacks. This shelf was sitting in Jill’s Wayfair cart for a couple weeks and I think we actually forgot about it until I went to go check measurements and found out that it was on sale.

The balloons were leftover from Orientation and it was convenient that all we had to do was find an ‘H’ so it could be repurposed for Hannah’s birthday and also so we can spell out something other than “ARTS”. If you’re looking for the cheapest way to get helium foil balloons I recommend buying them online and then getting helium tanks from Michael’s or Walmart, it’s so much cheaper if you need more than 2 balloons.

When the letterboard Mike got me isn’t propped up on the top of the shelf and the balloons aren’t where they are, we actually use the wall above for the projector. Everything on the top shelf has been carefully selected for the ideal height of the projected image. There was some science involved. Top to bottom:

Top: Plants, letterboard, tiny booze, candles, decorative and edible gourds, Freud
1st shelf: Books, red wine, shakers, shot glasses, white wine (yes we separate them)
2nd shelf: Booze, a wayward candle, cookbooks

Highkey all our booze doesn’t fit on the shelves. There are two overflow sides.

The height of the shelves also doesn’t allow for a lot of the larger bottles to be stored on the shelf so they have overflowed to both sides. We recognize that this makes us look like we have a problem but we just really enjoy the nice things, like drinking cocktails on our fluffy rug.

Jill also got us a larger and fluffier carpet than the last one and we collectively spend a lot of our time just lying on it and putting off real work. The colour is the same as the cat’s fur which means that you can’t tell when she’s fluffing all over the place until you sit down in black leggings and you are reminded that there is a cat and she’s a fluffy asshole. We love her a lot.

Reading nook #1

Reading nook #2

Why do living rooms never have overhead lighting?

Also, why do living rooms never have overhead lighting? It’s pretty rude and unnecessary. Luckily that switch on the wall under the bulb kit from UO is a demand switch so it can work as a regular light but we’re still rattled by the fact that we always have to find workarounds for living room lighting.

THE HALL

Probably one of our favourite things about this place is the fact that there are closets galore. The entire hall consists of closets, it’s pretty magical. What we don’t love is the fact that it’s not really the most well-lit so it makes for some spooky nighttime treks to and from my room which is the last one at the end.

(MY) BEDROOM

I know, it’s huge. It also has a walk-in closet and a two-piece ensuite which is really really lovely. I’m not going to lie, I actually don’t have enough furniture to outfit this room so it doesn’t feel like it’s all a little too spread out but I suspect that’s what furniture companies want you to think so that you’ll buy stuff just for the sake of buying it. And honestly, I’m pretty susceptible to that kind of logic so someone please keep an eye on me and my Wayfair cart.

Actually less shoes than last year!

Gratuitous mirror selfie.

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I packed fewer shoes than I did last time but the size of the rack seems to scare people off. My little mirror hangs out in the corner by the window on a stack of coffee table books that are very much not on our coffee table. And I am finally able to sort all my clothes by colour because I have so much room to hang it up! Barely visible in the 3rd photo in that set is my new dresser. After going 4 years without one, I finally asked for one for my birthday along with a matching nightstand. In true basic Ikea fashion, they are both Malm. Actual blood, sweat, and tears went into the process (thanks for bleeding on my white furniture, Mike).

I actually bought this bed back in the spring. Someone in Oakville was selling an Ikea Hemnes bed frame as well as the queen-sized box spring and pillowtop mattress as a package and she ended up dropping the price to $300 which was pretty insane. One of my friends helped me move it but we potentially overestimated the width of an SUV and then had to have a fun rope-tying adventure while driving about 15 km/hr to get back to my place in one piece.

I bought a new duvet cover and amazingly Amazon came through for the team. The one I have is currently out of stock but it was on sale for $44 at the time which is pretty decent for duvet covers. Also, duvet covers are just sheets of fabric that goes over more fabric why are they so much money?? The grey rug that used to be out in the living room got moved back to my room because I have a lot of floor space to cover now. It’s also from Ikea. This post is not sponsored by Ikea except I totally wish that it was.

The desk that I only occasionally use for schoolwork.

Cable holders for days.

I don’t think you can tell from the pictures but because of the box spring and the huge mattress, my bed is pretty lofty. When I drop my cables onto the ground, reaching down for them is actually a little terrifying and why wouldn’t you just want to keep your cables held where you need them? I finally just bought the cable holders that I’d had on my Amazon wishlist for forever because one time while leaning down I almost fell out of my bed. This probably could be solved with me just leaving my bed entirely to fetch the cables but nah.

But it’s not all fun and games in this apartment. We didn’t realize that the building was mostly families with young children so while we don’t have loud student parties to deal with, we have the upstairs neighbours whose kids seem to be some kind of parkour athletes practising their sport all day and all night. Do you think I’m kidding? Not even a little. Sometimes they wake up at 8am and make noise until 1am and it’s pretty ridiculous. Why do you think we have so much alcohol in the house?