I can’t believe I am finally sitting down to write about this much anticipated subject – setting up our new apartment! I’m stoked! ??

If you follow me on my blog, Instagram, and newsletter, you must know that after a five year period in Eilat due to a job relocation, Daniel and I finally moved to Tel Aviv in June. 

In a recent blogpost published in honor of my blogiversary, I explained on a more personal note the reasons behind our move to Eilat, and the affects the relocation had on me. If you watched the stories you saw us pack up our apartment, and when we looked into buying furniture for our new place, I got like a gazillion questions about where each piece was purchased.

I promised I would share with you here a detailed post on the design and decor process of our new apartment, and it’s about time I kept me promise ?

Those who know me, know how much I enjoy being home. True, I’ve moved to “the big city” and Tel Aviv has endless cafes, restaurants, and other temptations to offer, but most of all I love spending time at home, and when I’m not traveling, I can safely say that is where I spend 90% of my time. I need my own little corner, to be carefree and inspired. That’s why the number one thing on my to do list after the move was to make this house a home – involving the least possible amount of procrastination. 

After some thought, I decided to divide the design and decor process into 4 separate posts. The first being decorating in 5 steps, the second, a tour of my living room, the third, a tour of the bedroom, and finally, the last post – tips to designing your office/work space. Why did I split it up you ask? well, I didn’t want the post to be too long and overbearing, but I also didn’t want to skip any of the details!

Without further ado, let’s begin with the first part of the series of posts, a guide to formulating your vision for your home, where you will be able to follow the process I’ve undergone to design our home, and apply it to your entire home, room, or a cute lil’ special corner. 

Ok, so you’ve moved into a new place or decided you want to refresh your apartment’s look and have no idea where to start. It’s not that you don’t have or know your own style, but it could be, just like in my case, that there are just too many different styles that you love and don’t know how to combine them without it resulting in an unaesthetic “eclectic” look. Trust me, I totally get it. I’ve been there many times, until I finally realized that the main thing that could keep away the unwanted result is to formulate and understand your vision ahead of time, before you start buying and buying without considering the big picture.  

To break it down, I’ve divided the process into 5 steps – 

STEP #1 – SEARCH FOR INSPIRATION

The most important thing to do before hands on decorating is to put together a coherent mood board to help you understand the mood and style of what it is you’re looking for and haven’t yet created. A mood board is in fact a collection of images that set the tone that inspires you to design your apartment. 

If you’re an avid reader around here, you won’t be surprised by my saying that Pinterest and instagram are two highly inspirational tools.

If you don’t use Pinterest yet and have no clue how it works, read up about it in this post before moving on 🙂  

You could pretty much say that over the past six months I have obsessively gathering inspiration from these two platforms, when my only incentive is to understand what vibe I am looking for. How exactly did I do it? I opened a new board on Pinterest to which I pinned looks, color schemes, furniture, and apartments I liked. At first I used very specific keywords in my search, like “home decor”, “living room inspiration”, “urban jungle”, etc., and with time, Pinterest’s algorithm filled my home page with posts that match my style perfectly ? 

Same with Instagram – I opened a new collection on the app where I saved all my home inspiration. I used relevant hashtags here too, and eventually the algorithm kicked in and started showing me super relevant content on the “Explore” page. {Finally something good came out of this algorithm! ?}.

STEP #2 – ANALYSIS

Ok, Now that you have endless images of interiors and furniture, you’re ready for the next step.

It’s time to review the inspirations yu saved. Is there a recurring theme of color scheme, texture, or specific pieces of furniture? If so, prefect! You can choose your color palette based on what you have found and saved {I created mine on Canva}, and go on to make a list of the textures and other elements you like in the photos. For example, in my list I had a rattan rug, natural wood, a round mirror, vintage media console, macrame, plants, and more… If you don’t see any recurring theme in your mood board, keep adding images to it until you find what you’re looking for. 

So how do I define my style after all this? Truly, I have no clue ? I did not study interior design so it’s hard for me to define but let’s say it’s something like modern-boho-eclectic- with a touch of urban jungle. 

STEP #3 – THE INDOOR SCAN

Now that you have a clear vision in hand, an organized color scheme, and you know exactly which elements or pieces of furniture will turn your space into a dream, the gathering work begins. 

What do I mean?

Before you run to the stores, make sure you check your at-home inventory. Yes, even if you’re so over your furniture, and you feel like it completely clashes with your newfound vision, I swear you could find treasures around your place, ones that will save you lots of money too. A reorganization of the space, painting and light refurbishing, even replacing the photos in your frames, will already do your space some good and will change your perspective. We, for example, took an old newspaper holder {I think my parents got it for their wedding or something!} and painted it a fresh white. My old desk chair which we almost threw away {it eventually became Charlie’s throne ?} I turned into my vanity chair, and I have many more ideas and examples for things I was able to remove from my shopping list after an indoor scan.

STEP #4 – WINDOW SHOPPING AND PRIORITIZING

So now that you’ve managed to shorten the list of pieces you’d like to incorporate in your new home, it’s time for some window shopping {online too}! Your goal is to find a selected few for each item on your list, which will help you understand price ranges. To stay organized, you should open up a new folder in your phone where you keep the items you like, and their prices. Then, choose the best priced options, or in other cases something you can’t live without and are willing to pay for, and set up a list of favorites. Add up the total for the items on your wishlist and if you don’t want to buy them all at once, decide which ones you want or need most and organize according to priority.

STEP #5 – PURCHASING YOUR ITEMS AND REORGANISING YOUR SPACE

The hard work is now behind you! All there is left to do is to return to the stores or websites that hold the items you’d like to buy and set up your space anew! {This is a good time to trace back to your original mood board and refresh your memory on the look you’re trying to achieve}.

Daniel and I went for a unified look, but if you like to spice it up and design different spots around the house in different ways, go for it! Though you should probably do a few mood boards, to match each space vibe. I recommend designing one large mood board that encompasses all of the looks and styles, to make sure there is a flow between the different styles in the house. Good luck!

When was the last time you gave a refreshing treatment to a room, or a corner in your home?

What tips can you share about formulating a vision when it comes to home decor? 

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