home.

I think I lack the design gene. I have no sense of how to make a place look good. When I see blogs about creative spaces and beautiful homes and how to make the most of a small space, I love it... but it's not something I've ever tried to replicate. I don't go out thrifting. I don't see a chair on the side of the road and instantly create a before and after image in my head. My apartment came furnished, and that made my life easy. It was somewhat of a relief.

But, I long to be able to create a place that's really mine. I feel home here, but I want to add touches that are mine. With how much I have moved in the past few years (see below), I have been reluctant to really delve into the creative me that yearns to try (and perhaps fail) at creating a beautiful home. I'm tired of the sleek, black IKEA furniture. I want different shapes, different textures, different colors. I want an apartment that looks lived in, rather than rented. I want to replace this "painting" on the wall (the one that came in the furnished apartment, the one that says "rock it punkrocker... yeah....). I just don't know where to start. We don't have the money to do a total apartment overhaul, and I'm afraid if I buy one piece then by the time I have the money to get something else, I'll be over that first purchase. And then, there's always the thought of moving... yet again. We chose this furnished apartment because we didn't know how long we'd be staying here, and it was SO easy to move.

Since graduating from Penn State in May of 2009, I spent 15 long weeks living in hotels around the Northeast while doing field training for my job. I was finally put at a permanent location and moved to Long Island, NY (specifically the sleepy town of Commack). After receiving a promotion three short months later, I moved to the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, followed by a short stint in Jersey City, and then here to France where we lived in a hotel for two months before moving into our apartment. Needless to say, I loathe moving and it has forced me to cut down on my belongings each time.

Do you totally move into a place? What I mean is, for you renters out there: do you paint? do you make the space your own? Or do you keep it simple knowing you'll be moving out in a few months or a year? I don't like this anxious feeling of not knowing where we're going next. Some people thrive off of that kind of excitement, but me,  I just want to start nesting!