Confessions of Studio Apartment Dweller: A Day in the Life
Living Pretty Ep18 | Studio Apartment Living: Day in the Life of an Interior Style Blogger
Studio apartment living is one thing… but what about studio apartment life in self-quarantine while balancing a day job and a creative side hustle as an interior style blogger? That’s studio living on steroids.
If you’re curious about what a day in the life of a style blogger looks like while stuck indoors during Covid-19, join me for a day in my cozy studio apartment!
In this video, I document the day before one of my interior style tips videos gets posted on YouTube, which is always a major last-minute scramble on top of working from home for my regular job!
If you’re looking for studio apartment inspiration, rustic decorating ideas, and a soothing hygge lifestyle vibe, you’ll definitely want to cozy up with me here.
Watch the video now!
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I’ve made some slight edits in the transcript below so that everything makes more sense in text form. But overall, this is almost a word-for-word dictation of what I say in the episode. I’m a much better writer than this, I swear, haha.
7:15am - 8:00am
It’s 7:15 on a Thursday, and, as usual, I was awakened by my aggressively affectionate cat, Helo. Before you say, “aw that’s so cute”, know that all that affection was a manipulation because she knows that breakfast time is coming.
Now she’s just sitting on me, waiting to feed.
My iPad is on the pillow beside me, with last night’s book still begging to be read. Strange bedfellow, right? Waking up cuddling with a good book, even when it’s of the cold, electronic variety, is not a bad way to wake up in my, well, book.
So, good morning, my dear reader. Since you just woke up with me, along with my cat and my book, why don’t you stick around and hang out with me for the day?
I’m going to walk you through a typical Thursday - or, whatever can count for a typical Thursday two months into self-quarantine during this Covid-19 pandemic.
As a result of this crazy work-from-home time, you’re gonna catch twinkling glimpses into a day in the life in my studio apartment - balancing my day job with the mad rush of getting one of my videos finished and ready to be posted on YouTube for the next morning.
And I’ll be honest, at this point as I start my day, I’m not sure if I’m going to pull it off in time.
And by the way, when I say twinkling glimpses into my day here, I mean literally twinkling at times, because of my sequined pillow here catching the sunlight and filling my apartment with sparkle fairies for a good chunk of the day.
I really just want to invite you inside. Something I’ve learned from blogging and YouTubing about studio living is that people have a lot of questions about the studio lifestyle. I get tons of DMs on Instagram and hundreds of people have downloaded my Studio Styling 101 workbook), so I figured why not invite you in for a day in my studio?
Like, let’s just hang out. Grab a faux fur blanket, a cup of coffee or tea, and get cozy with me for the day.
After getting up, I brush my teeth under the watchful eye of Fiona Apple. Who doesn’t want to brush their teeth with a scowling Fiona Apple watching over them? She just… makes me feel safe, you know?
Next stop is my 42 square foot kitchen where I fire up the the old Keurig (don’t judge my coffee game, I realize I could do so much better), and make that sweet nectar of the gods known as coffee.
Every morning I make my bed, which I can’t recommend enough. There’s a reason why studies show that making your bed in the morning has a positive impact on how your day goes - it gets my mindset in the right place, and let’s be honest, this apartment wouldn’t be nearly as pretty with an unmade bed ruining the picture.
After I make my bed do some hardcore pillow fluffing on my couch, which still has a Steffi-shaped imprint from the night before, along with my laptop which I forgot to take back to my desk. My couch is basically my second home office these days.
So with that, my apartment is now ready for my day. I grab my trusty MacBook and head to my home office area, which a lot of people seem to think should be my bedroom area, based on the comments I get on YouTube and Instagram.
They’re wrong, I tell you! Imagine if I switched my bedroom area with my office area - then every time I come home I’d be entering an office rather than a home. Who wants that?
Anyway, after a quick shirt change from my sweaty, slept-in tank top to my Led Zeppelin shirt, I open the blinds and let some light into my workspace area. She’s just so pretty.
So before I sit down and work, it’s time to set the mood in my workspace. If you watched this video I made on how to create your dream workspace, you know that I think creating a sense of romance in your home office is a great way to make it an inspiring place you’re excited to sit down and work in.
For me, the romance starts by lighting a jasmine scented candle. It really gets a girl in the mood, you know?
I grab my sweet energy elixir from the kitchen - lord knows I’m going to need it today- and finally I feel ready to get started.
8:00am - 9:00am
So I always start my day by going over my work calendar and to-do list - regular job stuff first. Then I make a Moda Misfit to-do list of the things I have to do to get tomorrow’s video together. These things can only take place during my lunch and after work, so I have to be super diligent. NO dilly dallying.
Then I switch gears back to my job and come up with a photo theme of the day for my co-workers to share in our Teams channel. It’s one of the things I do on a daily basis to keep us all connected during this Covid time. Today’s theme is “what are you watching?”, so I want people to share what they’ve been binging during self isolation.
That’s basically my job - coming up with fun things to keep our company culture alive and thriving. It’s pretty awesome. I’m gonna make myself a gourmet breakfast of English muffin with peanut butter on it, and I’ll tell you what I do.
I’m the Office Experience Manager for a digital marketing and design consulting company here in Seattle, and with this Covid-19 situation I gave myself the fancy promotion Virtual Experience Manager. So it’s up to me to keep people engaged and connected even though we’re not physically in an office right now.
It’s interesting being an office manager without an actual office to manage. I feel like I’m the office manager for the Matrix now or something.
By the way, I’m not going to go too in depth on my regular job tasks here. I like my job and everything, but I wouldn’t read a blog post about it. Just wanted to give you a little taste of what I do to give you some context as we go through the day.
So, every meal I eat is an epic battle between human and feline, in which I must defend my food from the beast with whom I live. I prove victorious… most of the time.
9:00am - 10:45am
Now I buckle down and do some work. Like I said, I’m just gonna leave it at that in an effort to not completely bore you - if you’re not already?
10:45am - 12:00pm
At 10:45, it’s time to take a quick shower break because I’m disgusting - I could use a good scrub-down - then I have a diversity and inclusion call at 11am. What’s nice about that is I only have to listen in on that call, so I can do my makeup and look at least vaguely pretty for the rest of this video.
Because let’s be honest, I don’t want to look like a greasy swamp witch for an entire video.
Apparently it’s time for Helo to get clean too, which she does in a very ladylike fashion.
My walk to the bathroom feels like a mystical quest with all these effing fairies everywhere. I feel like a damn elven princess on my way to the rejuvenating springs of my shower.
How do you like that for a before and after?
12:00pm - 1:00pm
After my dazzling transformation, it’s lunch time! Which means I can do some Moda Misfit work, after a quick meal. It also means that it’s time to move my ass to the couch, which becomes my office each afternoon. Working from home definitely has its perks.
So remember how I said I wasn’t sure if I was going to get the video ready in time to post on YouTube tomorrow? Well this is where I start my cramming.
Being a blogger/YouTuber on top of having a full-time job basically means frantically switching gears between productive member of society with a job and rogue creator dead set on making something people will enjoy. I’m living a double life, I tell ya!
Moda Misfit is like the Superman to my Clark Kent day job, and time is my Kryptonite.
So I get down to putting the final editing touches on the video and soak in a moment of humility after pausing on a particularly attractive moment of mine. I’m telling you, editing video of yourself means seeing your face in every possible way you could see it, from the gorgeous to the downright hideous.
I finish editing, then I move on to designing the thumbnail for the video:
Damn, it feels good filling a checkbox on a to-do list.
As usual, my lunch goes by too fast and I have to get back to normal job work for the next few hours. Let’s fastforward to 5:00, shall we?
5:00pm - 7:30pm
It’s 5:00 now, which means my work day is officially done, and now I can spend the rest of the evening focusing on Moda Misfit stuff!
Instead of curling up into the fetal position over how tired I am, I turn to the next best thing: a childhood food staple for dinner. Progresso lentil soup was one of my favorites growing up, and nowadays I add sausage to it, which is a stroke of genius in my opinion.
After I eat my canned soup creation, it’s time to upload the video to YouTube, which has a lot more to it than you’d think. And I have Helo here as my assistant through it all.
I have to write the description, add links, upload the thumbnail I designed, add tags, correct the automatic subtitles that YouTube always seems to get wrong, add end screens and the little card links that come up. It’s like, a whole thing.
Okay, I think it’s time for me to move to the couch because now the sun is beaming into my eyes and I’m a vampire who cannot tolerate such a thing.
After moving back to the couch and obsessing over Helo a little bit more, I take on my final task for the day: creating the newsletter email I send out to all my email subscribers every Friday morning.
If you want to sign up to get a pretty little email every week, click here!
I love putting these emails together - they feel more personal than anything else I create for Moda Misfit, probably because there’s something a bit more intimate about being in someone’s inbox compared to their social feed. It really does feel like we’re slipping into something a bit more comfortable, you know?
7:30pm
So, it’s the end of the day for me, and I’m going to finish off my day with a little treat. I’m gonna pour some brandy, and I’m going to take you with me to a very special place. Come with me.
Pour myself some brandy…
So, there you have it - my Thursday summed up in a blog post!
For more glimpses into my studio apartment life, follow me on Instagram @moda.misfit. And if you want more interior decor and apartment lifestyle inspiration, subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell to be notified when a new Living Pretty video goes up every week!
And remember, your apartment is destined to be pretty, and you are pretty powerful.