Studio Apartment Tour: Cozy Style With a Dash of Rock n Roll, 450 sq ft
Living Pretty Ep52 // Studio Apartment Tour: Cozy Style With a Dash of Rock n Roll, 450 sq ft
Time for another cozy studio apartment tour! This time, I’m taking you through my boyfriend’s 450 sq ft studio apartment, which I helped him style from top to bottom.
We went for kind of a cozy style, Scandinavian decor vibe, while also incorporating a little bit of a rock n roll style edge, and I’m so excited to share what we’ve done with the place! And of course, I also share my small apartment tips with you throughout the video so that you walk away with some nice studio apartment inspiration.
If you’re looking for studio apartment decorating ideas, want to improve your apartment lifestyle, and need some cozy apartment decor inspo, join me and my boyfriend for his Seattle studio apartment tour 2021!
Video Transcript ↓
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 video. I’m a much better writer than this, I swear, haha.
Welcome to Kobee’s studio apartment tour!
For those of you who haven't met my boyfriend Kobee after watching this video we did together, this is my boyfriend Kobee, and this is his studio apartment. And we’re going to take you on a little tour!
So this studio has been a work-in-progress styling-wise for the last couple years, and now we're going to reveal what we've done!
And we are finally giving you a tour of Kobee’s apartment just in the nick of time, because Kobee is going to be moving in with me in about a month from now. And we realized “oh shit, we still want to do a studio apartment tour - we got to do it right now”. Because in a month's time, Kobee will officially be a part of House Moda Misfit. 🥰
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!
And if you want a free or resource that'll help you decorate your apartment, be sure to download my Apartment Styling Handbook!
It's basically a roadmap that will help you get started on your apartment decorating and create a space you love, just like we did with Kobee's apartment, and like I did with mine.
Overall, we were going for a cozy vibe that feels homey and comfortable, yet also has a little bit of an edge.
Kobee is an artist and he wanted his space to feel like a creative space, where he could feel inspired.
It’s all about starting with how you want your space to make you feel. And that’s something I tell my Small Apartment Styling School students and anyone who asks me for interior styling advice.
Really, step one for creating a space that feels like you, is to ask yourself “how do you want your space to make you feel?”
So basically, Kobee’s answer to the question “how do you want your space to make you feel” is he wants to feel creative and inspired.
So we’re going to start here in the bedroom, which is simple and cozy but still captures Kobee’s design preferences.
We love the pillows because they feel designy but not too designy, and there’s some nice contrast here in color and texture. They’re simple yet bold, with some cool graphic elements.
And we arranged his throw pillows using my bird method, which is my easy formula for arranging pillows on a bed.
You can watch this video for a full explanation along with my other bed styling tips, but basically, my bird method is where you have one big pillow in the middle as the bird’s body, two identical pillows on either side are the wings, and the pillow in the front is the beak!
And Kobee’s bed styling is made up entirely of pillows and bedding from Target - except for the two black pillows on either side, which are from Amazon.
Really, it just goes to show that if you’re on a budget, you can shop at places like Target and Amazon (or Home Goods, TJ Maxx, and so on) and still create a stylish space!
The wall art above his bed is from Amazon.
These 3 pieces came as a set, and they were $80 altogether. And we really love how they turned out! They’re nice and simple, yet striking, and I love how you can’t really tell what this is a picture of!
It’s almost like a Rorschach inkblot test, where what you see maybe says something about you psychologically.
Comment below and tell us what you think this is a picture of. And then we’ll psychoanalyze you… 🙃
Really, I love wall art that kind of embraces ambiguity like this because you can fill in your own story. It’s like a “create your own adventure” in wall art form.
I made a video full of wall decor tips, by the way, so if you’re stumped on choosing art for your apartment, check that out!
Then there’s the dresser and a nightstand, with some little styling moments on top.
We’re using this Arcade Fire record as a piece of decor along with a candle, faux plant, and a cute little box - forming a triangle, of course, which is one of the interior styling concepts that I’m constantly preaching about on this channel.
When it doubt, just create triangles with your decor pieces. The Rule of Three is basically a simple recipe for visual appeal!
Now onto the living room! Which is merely a few inches away because studio life, you know?
So I’m very partial to this area because it’s like music central up in here with the records up there and everything. Kobee is a music lover, and actually that’s one of the things we fell in love over was our mutual love of music. So I knew that I wanted to suggest that music play a big role in his decor, much like it does in mine.
And that was a big empty space up there above his TV and I was thinking, “how can we add some visual interest without spending more money on decor?”
Then I saw Kobee’s records and I was like “ding ding ding!” - the art above the TV will just be records! So I went through them, selected 6 that told this color story of reds, blues, blacks, and whites, and voila! We have a statement wall that expresses Kobee’s love of music and his love for these particular records.
And we ideally wanted to put these in record frames, but we just never got around to it. Again, we weren’t trying to spend a crazy amount of money in here - we wanted to create a styled space without going overboard.
Now, when it comes to the shelf styling here, these are all things Kobee has gathered over time.
I just went through and tweaked their arrangement a little bit - gave it the interior stylist’s touch, you know - but really these are Kobee’s selected pieces.
And what I love is these shelves look very collected. There are little unexpected quirks and little stories being told here, and he’s clearly gathered these things over the years.
He likes finding things that make him feel creative. And he likes to display them so they can spark his creativity. So these are specifically selected pieces that spark that creativity in him.
That’s another thing for you to think about: when you’re selecting your pieces of decor and gathering them over time, think about what you want them to spark within you!
Is it creativity? Is it nostalgia? Is it excitement? Is it serenity? Always try to lead with your emotions when it comes to picking your decor.
Then we have these two C-tables, which act as a coffee table.
And this might be my favorite thing Kobee has in his whole apartment: this Russian anatomy book. It’s so cool and creepy, I love it!
He bought it at a second hand bookstore here in Seattle. He said it was in this old house with creaky floors and cats running around. Basically, my dream bookstore.
And then there’s the couch, which Kobee rented from Fernish, which is a site where you can rent your furniture and pay for it monthly instead of buying it, which is awesome for apartment dwellers who don’t want to commit to buying furniture yet, or maybe want to take a piece of furniture for a test drive before investing in it full price.
The caveat is Fernish only delivers to Seattle and LA. So if you live in Seattle or LA you might want to look into Fernish! Kobee loved them. It’s just a way to experience nice furniture without the commitment or up front investment, which might make sense for certain apartment situations.
The throw pillows on the couch are all from Amazon and Target, yet again. Man, we really went the Amazon and Target route in this place. Just nice and easy and budget friendly.
Now onto the workspace, which is just nice and functional.
It gets nice natural light, which is a great way to feel energized while working. It’s a tight space, but it works. We just had to keep it pretty simple. But it’s by the kitchen! So Kobee can turn around and get a snack in 2 seconds. That’s studio life for you, living the dream.
And speaking of the kitchen, here it is!
It’s also pretty simple, but I think we’ve carved out some nice styling moments here. Some nice little vignettes.
That’s really a piece of advice I have for small apartment kitchen styling, is to create little vignettes like this where you can.
Because in an apartment, as we all know, it’s not like you can do a full on kitchen renovation where you choose your countertops and backsplash, maybe knock down a few walls.
No, you have to find tiny moments like this. Clustering aesthetically pleasing yet functional items together, using a stylish soap dispenser rather than the kind you find in a grocery store… those are just some simple ways to create those little styling moments in a kitchen.
If you want my small kitchen styling tips, by the way, you can watch them in this video. I definitely applied those tips to the styling here, so check that out!
So there you have it! That was Kobee’s studio apartment tour.
Thank you for joining us! The next time you see Kobee, he’ll probably be living with me in my studio.For daily glimpses into my studio apartment life - or really, our studio apartment life very soon - follow me on Instagram @moda.misfit.
For daily glimpses into my studio apartment life - or really, our studio apartment life very soon, 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.