This post is dedicated to R for having immense faith in me; for believing in my writing capabilities and for letting me turn our home into an urban jungle. Happy Birthday, my dear husband!
There’s something so satisfying about setting up your own home. It’s like carefully piecing together a puzzle, and watching it unravel in front of your eyes. When we moved into our previous apartment, it was already furnished and needed very little sprucing. While I loved the place, I felt it lacked a personal touch – we hadn’t meticulously handpicked the furniture or spent an inordinate amount of time trawling the internet to find the perfect mirror for my dresser. No, we did none of that. We just added a few photo frames, plants and other knick knacks for a home-away-from-home touch. While that was good enough, I wasn’t entirely happy. I wanted to create a welcoming cocoon that was a reflection of our personalities. I longed for a place where I could feel at home without being constantly reminded that it was a rented property.
Around December last year, my wish came true in the form a moderately spacious and well-lit apartment that is at a walking distance to the train station. Hallelujah! Since the house was partly furnished, it gave us a chance to set it up the way we wanted to. We had a huge laundry list of things we wanted for the house and our first purchase was a beautiful wooden bookshelf (Good spot, R) to complement the black and red colour palette of our open kitchen. Then came the chest of drawers, floor lamps, rugs and plants…my beloved plants that add so much colour and life to our apartment. It’s taken us over two months to decorate the whole place and the puzzle now looks complete.