Moving In - Part I

It's been a month since I last blogged and it's because I'm currently held up with my new apartment. Sounds posh, doesn't it? Believe me, it's not. In fact, I can confidently say that the past month has probably been the most stressful period of my life so far.

As you might have gathered from my Twitter and Instagram, you would probably know that I'm moving into a place of my own. Sadly, I didn't single-handedly buy the place, my parents did. But before you start to think that I'm one of those kids from MTV that gets a BMW on their birthday, I'm really not. My parents bought that apartment as an investment and to put it simply, I'm sort of renting it from them.

Except instead of moving into a furnished home, this place was pretty much an empty white box and I had the responsibility to turn it into a home.

I have to say, at the beginning of this "project", I felt both excited and lost. Excited because I couldn't wait to have my own place that I can decorate and live in, lost because I had no idea where to begin.

Having only just moved here ten months ago, I was still clueless about many things. Things like how do I pay bills, or how do I set up wifi and where do I buy a TV? But before I get to that, let's start from the very beginning.

Some time in May, a wonderful lady called Paula who was in-charge of the new apartment emailed me to come for an inspection. At the time, I had no idea what I was supposed to do during an inspection. My parents, who guided me along the way, gave me a list of defects to look at. Stuff like scratched walls, loose cupboards etc. Forgetful Kimmy obviously did not bring that list with her and went completely unprepared to this inspection.

What I did end up doing was opening cupboards and looking at empty ceilings and taking pictures. In all honesty, I really did not know what I had to be looking for either, I just pretended to know what I was doing.

Super cute kitchen

The living room with a balcony!!!

My room. Look how tiny that window is. 

I never understood why the second bedroom had a much larger window. 

This is where I'll be if I don't respond to texts, hiding away from life. 

A couple of days later, Paula emailed me to say that I could collect the keys and move in as soon as possible. After hearing this, I was so so so happy because everything was going smoothly... or so I thought. I signed the handover form, got the keys and went up to see my new home. What I saw truly disappointed me because all the defects were unfixed, the door was broken, and for some reason the place was dustier than before.

I didn't really know what that meant or what to do so I left it as it is. My mom found out that the defects were still there and had a go at me for being so careless because what I should have done was to check the place before even signing anything. Once you sign the handover form, any broken items or cracks in the walls will become your responsibility and you'll have to fix it on your own. To think about it now, it seems like common sense but my brain was too slow to figure that out.

I feel like because I'm severely under-qualified to manage my own place, adults kind of take advantage of my innocence and cut corners sometimes. I didn't know any better and almost had to be fixing door knobs on my own if my mom didn't warn me beforehand. I remember receiving a text from her saying that I was too inexperienced to handle these situations in which I angrily replied, "Yes I AM TOO YOUNG. What the hell were you expecting from an eighteen-year old??!!"

In the end, everything was done properly and I got the keys to a defect-free apartment, all thanks to my mother's persistent effort in forcing me to check every inch of every wall. Haha.

The next thing to do after getting the keys was to buy furniture. God, even saying it sounds so mature. Anyway, I thought it was going to be fun. I mean every kid loves IKEA and dreams of having one of the showrooms as their own bedroom. Plus, who doesn't love Swedish meatballs?

It turns out that furniture shopping can be a bit of a nightmare for someone who loves black and wants every piece of furniture she sees. And also, because I have lunch before I shop, I am always too tired and too full of meatballs to properly concentrate. Hahaha.

448 pieces of furniture that I want

Felt so old taking notes in IKEA. Hahah

In the last month, I have been to IKEA five times and stayed up for days trying to figure out colour schemes and what not. The thing about me is that I don't have a specific style or aesthetic because I love everything and anything that is nice. I love prints and glitter and rich colours and black and cereal and Beyonce. Trying to combine all that in one small space is literally hell for any interior designer. At one point, I even had about 7 different sofas on my shopping list because I was so indecisive. My lack of colour coordination was so bad but luckily I had artsy friends who helped out tremendously (thank you Alp and Jolene <3)

And because I'm a student, ALL my furniture was from IKEA and I must admit, the final price came out to be a lot less than what I expected. (IKEA ftw!)

The next day, most of my furniture arrived and the delivery guys had such a hard time moving everything, which I obviously felt bad for but hey they're being paid. One of them even joked that my house was like an IKEA showroom, which I admit is quite true haha. Apparently in the UK, IKEA delivery doesn't assemble the furniture for you, which was another problem because A, I'm not exactly fit and B, I'm terrible with instructions.

This was only half of the furniture. The rest of them were in another room. 

I remember one of the delivery guys, before he left, asked me who the lucky guy was. And I laughed and said, "there's no guy, it's just me doing all this." He sort of looked at me half surprised and half confused because he didn't know if I was being serious. For some reason after he said that, I was really motivated to do it all on my own, just to see if I could. And I thought to myself, if I really could manage all this, I can pretty much do anything.

So after they left, it was just me with all these boxes and a handful of tools and I got cracking.

There's two things I discovered that day which were 1. Assembling IKEA furniture is a piece of cake. Sure, they were bumps along the way, but that was because I didn't read the instructions properly. Pfft. 2. The reason women don't carry furniture is not because we don't have the strength to but because our boobs get in the way. WHY BOOBS WHY.

Coffee table and study table, check.

After assembling the TV bench and the armchair I was sitting on. ⌗Proud

Besides the beds and the wardrobe, I can proudly declare that everything else was done by me with a little help from Lori on the sofa. The point is, I FELT INVINCIBLE and badass and I will not be shy about it. 

I finally went with a dark blue sofa.

Lori being shy.

The living room slowly coming together. 

My bedroom in it's glorious mess, just like my life.

The second bedroom that is filled with boxes at the moment. 

Selfie with my new bedding that I really love. 

Oops. Moving on... 

Anyway, I'll probably upload the final "look" after everything's completed but for now, that's all I have.  I have less than a day left at Bramall before they kick me out and I still need to pack which is why I'm going to stop blogging now and actually get some work done.

So that's all for today's post and if you've read up till here, I'm really thankful that you're interested in my life. And because my place is still a mess right now, I will be writing Part II on another day.

(Also, do excuse my crappy writing, I had no time to properly blog about this so I just wrote it in a rush. )

Ciao for now.

Love,
Kimmy x