5 Decor Shopping Tips For Styling Your Dream Apartment
Shopping for apartment decor can be daunting - you want to make it so your apartment aesthetic reflects your personal style, but actually making it happen can feel like… a lot.
So in this video, I’m giving you 5 decor shopping tips that will help you create the dream apartment you’ve been yearning for. 🥰
If you’re looking for small apartment decor ideas, studio apartment inspiration, and some tips for making your apartment decor shopping feel more organized and inspiring, dive into these shopping tips with me!
Video Transcript ↓
Shopping for decor can be a… chaotic experience.
You should’ve seen me when I first moved into my studio apartment. I was like a crazed decor goblin, frantically moving pieces of decor around in here, fiending over Pinterest, coming home from work to spend the rest of the evening shopping, planning, deciding, visualizing, salivating… over pieces of decor that I couldn’t afford.
But I’m also a decor nerd, and not everyone enjoys devoting every waking moment of their free time obsessing over headboards and area rugs.
In fact, I know that for a lot of you, the sheer stress and overwhelm involved with shopping for decor is enough to stop you in your tracks and keep you from decorating your apartment at all.
So in this video, let’s talk about some ways to make your decor shopping process… simply feel better. More organized, inspiring, and productive, so that you can create an apartment you love and actually enjoy doing so!
And if you’re new to my channel, my name is Steffi and I’m the creator of the interior style blog Moda Misfit as well as the online course Small Apartment Styling School.
And you’re watching Living Pretty, the place for apartment styling tips! So if you want to get inspired with me every week, be sure to subscribe!
Also, have you downloaded my free Apartment Styling Handbook yet?
It's a bite-sized roadmap for decorating your apartment so that you can create a space you love - without feeling like you're stumbling alone in the dark. Because sometimes you just want someone to tell you what to do to decorate your apartment, right?
So download the FREE Apartment Styling Handbook for some extra help!
decor shopping Tip #1:
Make It Cozy
Try to make your shopping experience feel like a calm, cozy event.
Now, this tip is going to apply to online shopping - which I think most of us are doing these days - and this is just a way to make your online decor shopping feel more relaxed, purposeful, and pleasurable.
Make it into a cozy event! Cuddle up on your couch if you have a laptop or if you’re shopping on your phone, light a candle, have some tea, put on some music.
If you want your decor shopping to feel less stressful, create an environment around you that facilitates that.
Now, if you’ve just moved in and you’re in the very beginning stages of shopping for decor, you may be a little limited on just how cozy of an environment you can create. After all, you might not physically have cozy things in your apartment yet. Hell, you might not even have a couch yet.
But even if all you have is a pillow to sit on and a moving box as your desk, you can still be intentional in creating a peaceful, cozy environment that eases the stress of shopping. A single candle, a soft blanket, and some music from your phone will do just fine.
My point is that shopping for decor doesn’t have to feel like a soul-sucking chore. Try shifting your mindset to make it feel like a nice, cozy, creatively charged experience. You’re more likely to make good purchasing decisions in that state of mind!
For my cozy decor tips, you can watch this video for inspiration:
decor shopping Tip #2:
Get Organized
My next decor shopping tip is to go about it with an organized system for yourself.
How many times have you found a piece of decor you love, didn’t save the link to it or didn’t take a photo of it in the store, and completely lost track of it?
How many pieces of beautiful decor have been lost in the abyss of your browser history?
How about creating an actual organized plan for your space instead of haphazardly buying things that end up not even looking good together in your space?
I want you to spend your money in a way that feels good, in a way that makes your space feel like your own; your creative vision, your personal retreat.
You’re more likely to be able to do this if you have an organized system!
Save the links to the decor you’re thinking about buying
Save photos from the website
Take photos of the decor you find in person and save those photos someplace that you’ll remember
Plan ahead on how it can all possibly look together before you buy.
You can do all this in a simple Google doc or spreadsheet, or you can make a mood board like I showed you how to do in this video:
I just want you to be able to keep track of everything and make inspired, informed purchasing decisions so that you end up with an apartment that actually looks the way you want it to look.
And if you want some help with this, I actually have a brand new tool I created for this exact purpose...
It’s called the Living Pretty Organizer, and I created it to give you a seamless, organized, and pleasant shopping experience!
The Living Pretty Organizer is a plug-and-play decor shopping list template in a pretty Trello board that maps out everything you’ll need for your apartment.
All you have to do is drag and drop photos, copy and paste links to the decor pieces you’re interested in, and type out any notes you might have.
And if you have a significant other or roommate, you can easily share this with them and collaborate on what to buy together!
If Trello isn’t really your thing, there’s also a Google Doc version of the Living Pretty Organizer that you’ll get when you buy it. Both are great ways to stay organized as you shop, and it just depends on what works best for your specific brain!
So if you find that shopping for decor is a totally daunting process in which you seem to keep getting stuck wondering where to start or what to buy next, or what you have found so far, the Living Pretty Organizer will be your new best friend.
Click here to grab the Living Pretty Organizer and change the way you shop for decor!
decor shopping Tip #3:
Big to Small
My next tip is to start big, then zero in on smaller details as you progress.
So what do I mean by this?
Basically, I recommend, if possible, starting with the large pieces of furniture - your bed, your couch, your desk, your armchair, your TV stand, etc.
Then once you have those heavy duty items, get smaller and smaller. Next may be your side tables, coffee table, area rugs, nightstands, etc.
Then your next smaller tier may be your decorative accents - candles, plants and florals, wall art, throw pillows.
Wherever you are in your decorating process (maybe you already have your large items, maybe you’ve already started getting some of the smaller things, maybe you need to go backwards a little bit) this is just a way to prioritize your shopping; a framework to keep you on track.
Because a big thing that tends to get in peoples’ way is the overwhelming feeling of “what am I doing? What am I supposed to buy first, what am I supposed to buy next??” So here it is: start big, then gradually get smaller and smaller.
Think of it like a coloring book. Placing your larger items in your apartment first is like creating the lines that you’ll be coloring in with your smaller items. Allow your larger items to be those lines, then color from there!
Need some advice on saving money on decor as you shop? Watch this video! ↓
decor shopping Tip #4:
Express Your Personality
My next decor shopping tip is for when you’re in that coloring in the lines phase; the accessorizing of your apartment. And that’s to put an emphasis on your personality as you shop!
We all want an apartment that feels like our own, right? A place that reflects our personality, that makes us feel at home, and that truly feels like ours.
And your personality will only shine through your interior styling if you consciously work it into the things you buy.
Now, of course, I would also argue that your personality is present in every creative decision you make on some level, whether you’re conscious of it or not. But I’m also a firm believer in being intentional in incorporating your personality through your decor.
There’s stylish decor for every interest.
And I have proof! I recently did an Instagram post in which I asked my followers to tell me something they geek out about in the comments, and I’d find a piece of stylish decor that embodies it.
For example, my follower, Chloe, said that she loves Harry Potter, so then I found this on Etsy:
And it's not even super obvious that it's Harry Potter-themed until you look closely, right? At first you think that it’s just a pretty piece of decor and then it becomes even more meaningful when you realize that it’s also a cool Harry Potter thing.
Or another follower, @ai.amigurumis, who mentioned they love Studio Ghibli. So then I found these super cute Totoro and Spirited Away succulent planters:
There's also @themoonwitch61, who said that she loves cats and moons, so I found this piece of wall art that literally has a cat and moon in it:
So as you can see, it’s totally possible to find stylish decor that represents something you love!
And if you want pieces of you to be visually represented in your apartment, you have to intentionally search for it in your shopping process.
Otherwise, you might find yourself looking around your space, wondering “where am I in here?”
It can be as subtle or not so subtle as you want - the important thing is for you to make your space feel like you, and that must be done with purpose in the shopping process.
For more on expressing your personality through your decor, watch this video! ↓
decor shopping Tip #5:
Overwhelmed? Stop & Rest
My final decor shopping tip is what you should do when you feel utterly overwhelmed.
And I’m talking when you hit that wall of frustration over the prices of things, over your lack of inspiration, over the exasperation that things just don’t seem to be coming together in your apartment.
And that tip is to stop. Stop shopping. Close the laptop, walk away from the computer or walk out of the shopping mall, and disconnect completely from shopping for decor.
You need a break! There’s no rush. Your apartment will not come together overnight anyway.
It took me months before my studio apartment felt pretty. It took me months before I stopped feeling like that frantic decor goblin.
This is a process. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Take your time. Only buy things that light you up inside, that make you swoon.
This should be a fun creative expression! Not an obligation. When you feel burnt out on your decor shopping, just stop for a bit.
You know how they say revenge is a dish best served cold? Well, a beautifully decorated apartment is a dish best served cold too. Take your time. And then you’ll be able to really savor that dish.
So those were my 5 decor shopping tips that will give you a more pleasant, seamless, and inspiring shopping experience!
And if you’re still not sure how to create your dream apartment and you're wondering things like:
“How do I discover my personal style so that I can make these good choices for my decorating?”
“How do I become more confident in my interior styling choices?”
“How do I mix styles?”
“How do I actually arrange things in my apartment?”
Then I got you covered…
If you're wanting to dive deeper into learning about how to style your apartment step by step, that's where my online course Small Apartment Styling School comes in!
Small Apartment Styling School basically holds your hand through your styling process and tells you exactly what to do step-by-step, so by the end of the course you feel like you know your style, you know what to buy, and you know how to place it in your apartment with confidence.
Imagine living in an apartment that actually boosts your mood everyday and makes you feel welcome, and makes you feel a sense of belonging and being at home.
Just because you rent your space doesn't mean you can't own your style, and Small Apartment Styling School helps you do that!
My current students have been a raving about how helpful the course was for decorating their apartments and I am so proud of what they've achieved just after the couple months of being enrolled in the course!
Small Apartment Styling School will help you decorate your apartment step by step, including:
Figuring out your personal style
Choosing a color palette
Mixing different interior styles
Learning about the different interior styles that are out there and which ones might be a good fit for you
Arranging and accessorizing your apartment room by room - living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom.
All of this and more is in Small Apartment Styling School, so if you want to learn more and join the waitlist for the next time it opens for enrollment, click here!
For daily glimpses into my studio apartment life, you can follow me on Instagram @moda.misfit.
And for regular doses of apartment styling tips and small space decor inspiration, subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell to be notified when a new video goes up every week.