🏡 decorating my new york city apartment (colorful & maximalist)

Hello everyone, it is Lynn again. Long time no talk, no see, no doing anything on the internet, really. To explain my month-long absence from YouTube, I have just been not here. So I am on two months of having moved in, but I've only been here a month because I've been out of town. I was in Switzerland for a really, truly life-changing experience, and then it was my birthday. I'm now 23, woo, and I'm actually about to leave again. But in between all of the traveling and exciting, awesome things I can't wait to tell y'all about, I have found some pockets to decorate my apartment and unpack. The general saying is that you're not completely unpacked until three months, and I'm really hoping that's true, but we're just not quite there yet. To give you an update on everything that I've done to my New York City apartment, I thought I'd just talk you through it. I really like the videos that Benji does, where he just runs you through his home decor projects, and I'm like, I like talking, and I've been decorating my apartment. Why not? Let's yap and let's decorate. And I also like hearing people's thought process behind the design choices or the furniture pieces they buy. My qualifications for interior decorating is I have a childhood bedroom that is still viral on Pinterest, so you've definitely seen it before. No interior design I'm just having fun, you know. I have my iced coffee today. I hope you have water, tea, anything to keep you hydrated throughout this video. But without further ado, let's jump right on in. We are going to start at my living room because I think the developments that I've made here have been my favorite. First off, I am a maximalist at heart, but I realize that I still like things to feel and be balanced. And I do mean that physically, you know, with these floating shelves, but also just to the eye. I want there to be a ton of color. I want there to be interesting shapes and a lot of textures, but not to the point where you're like, wow, I'm overwhelmed. I recently met a designer who was so, so cool. His rule of thumb, he doesn't believe in like personal style or aesthetic, and instead he wants to make and design things that causes people to want to look again. So that's kind of what I put in thought process-wise. You look once, you're like, oh, it's some of Lin's books, but they also happen to be some of my favorite books of all time. With the exception of Yellow Face, all the books on the bottom shelf are fantasy. Fantasy will always be one of my favorite genres. Since the top shelf has a lot going on, keeping the second shelf all books, it's kind of simplified and almost grounds the entire display. And the second shelf, it gets a little bit interesting. I have a plant here. I went plant shopping a while back, and I am waiting to find the right pottery, the right planter to put my plants in. I currently only have two. I'm traveling a lot for the next four months, so I don't want to commit to any big plants that require a lot of care. Like, I will probably kill them, so I'm trying to be realistic. I'm trying to be realistic. In terms of life expectancy of my plants, I would like to keep it infinity. Yeah. And on the right hand side, I have a display of Smiskies in a mini living room. Fun fact, a great way to keep any figurines, any knickknacks in place is by using the poster putty. And since it's so malleable, you can do it to pretty much anything. And I love this art print by Inner Peach. I have three of their art prints hanging in my living room, actually. And this one, I feel like the color palette fits the book spines. And my friend Jen got me a cat clock that I've been wanting for forever, specifically in this dark blue navy color. And she gifted it to me for graduating college. Thank you so much, Jen. I love you. And the last display of books are being held up by a rack that's actually made to be placed horizontally. But I saw online, I'll link them in the description and, like, tag them here. I think it's so genius they turned it vertical so they can put their books on the wall. It's a very inexpensive but also a versatile way to store and display your books. Mostly because if you end up not wanting to use it for books anymore, you can still repurpose it for your dishes. And a big update that you would know if you watched my last video is that I could configure my couch to fit lengthwise, hot dog style. I love this couch so much. It's so comfortable. And for some reason, I woke up one day and I was like, dang, maybe it's time for me to grow up. I don't want to have plushies on my couch anymore. I want to have real throw pillows. Maybe this is just a revelation that happens when you turn 23. One of my co-workers told me that, oh, the moment you turn 23, life just starts to go downhill and it's over. That's not to be taken too seriously, but I feel like something is happening to my brain chemistry. Many people have also told me that you change a lot the first year out of post-grad. And I'm just like, well, this is exhibit A of my brain chemistry changing. However, I still have my Jasmine Rice pillow. Look at this color scheme. It's so perfect. I love blue, green, red. I've been referring back to my Milo noteboards that I created right when I moved in for my color palette. And it's actually anchored a lot of my design. You might know from my last video that I have a nook right here. That's kind of a strange cutout. I didn't know what to do with it except maybe two options. I have a very tall plant there or I get a cat tree, but also my cat, even though she likes climbing to high places. In my old apartment, she would constantly be somehow parkouring up to above the kitchen cabinets. What are you doing there? You're 13. You're supposed to be elderly, but you're acting like you have so much energy all the time now. But she doesn't like using things that are meant for her, aka scratchers or cat trees. So I'm really hoping she warms up to using this. And I've sprinkled catnip and stuff for her so she knows it's, you know, a place where she can play. But at the moment, she still prefers, you know, being on the couch. Couch. Why do I buy you things and you not want to use them, bruh? I like to call this my reading corner because there's a green banker's lamp, which I've wanted since I was a child. Something about this just is so quintessential to the dorky, light academia aesthetic. In another life, I would have gotten a library science degree and master's and been a librarian. And as you can tell, I only put paperbacks on here because I am scared of it breaking. So no hardcovers. Another part of me being like, maybe I should grow up and maybe buy more adult things for my apartment is I decided I do want a coffee table. And this coffee table, the wood is a lot more yellow than I thought it would be, but I'm just rolling with it. And I have no idea how to decorate the surface at the moment. I feel like I need a tray or more plants. The area where this is right now, there was the which I love, but I ended up moving to my office. I got this checkered rug from Revival. It's actually very soft. It's the perfect size. It also has a rug pad underneath so it doesn't slip and slide. Very adult, if you ask me. I will say my only qualm about this rug is that if you want it to look nice and crisp, you need to vacuum it. Just the moment you step on it, the rug tuft will shift in direction and then it'll look very trodden. But there's something like very homey and cozy about that. Like a lot of people have been to your living room and left their footsteps, yada yada yada. Also, does anyone remember Mr. Kate and how like she and her husband would do rug cuddles? This is how soft the rug feels. I just want to do a rug cuddle. I could lie here forever. And now for the main attraction, which is this giant ass gallery wall. I do not want to go into deep detail of how I got up there. If anyone asks, I just jumped. I have a 12 foot vertical. Well, anyways, I got a TV. Yay. It's a 55 inch TV. I really only use it to watch, you know, like Netflix and going 17. So. Gallery wall. There are moments when I look at it and I'm like, oh, perfect. It's beautiful. And then there's other moments where I'm just like, oh, something feels slightly off. It's almost like a puzzle piece that you think fits in the section you're trying to complete, but it doesn't have that perfect snap. And that's exactly how I feel about the process of this gallery wall. I did it before I left for Switzerland and I knew I was going to be gone for a week and a half. I want to have something completed before I leave the country for a while. And because of that, some of the art pieces, I want to trade in and out and I don't have the right frames for everything. So I will definitely revisit this in the future if you have any tips or suggestions. I will say one of the things I love is the Smiskies I've hidden throughout this wall. So there's one here at the TV corner and then there's some standing and leaning on the frames. Something else I need to tackle is my dining area. It's really messy right now because this is where I've been doing all my work and I'm about to pack to leave the U.S. again. But I did move my floor lamp from by my couch to over here. I think it frames the nook quite well. And there are still some hooks that the old tenants left behind on the wall that I need to scrape off because I think that what I'm going to do here to create some distinction between the living space and the dining area is paint some sort of mural, either an arch or like a curved circle. I don't know. I'm sitting on it in case I change my mind. So I'll probably do it either in the new year or December. Nothing too much has happened in the kitchen. I did install this light strip, though it's a lot brighter now. I also added the poster of Namjoon on the fridge. And because some things don't change, we're putting Joonie on the fridge. This is what I mean when I say men need to spend more time in the kitchen. I will say I love both corners on either side of the stovetop. On the left side, I have my coffee tea station. So there's my French press, my matcha. And on the other side are my cooking utensils, spices, oil, salt, all the sauces that I use on a daily basis. Right here are two new additions. I have a letterpress tray that I hung up and this is a giant blue cabinet that acts as my pantry. So excitingly enough, I finally got a pantry cabinet and I also got baskets and I still need to do a little bit more organization. It's a very simple locker, but what I like about it is one, it can be used for virtually anything. So if I ever move again and I decide that I don't need as much cabinet space for the kitchen, I can easily use this for my art supplies, my clothes, and the general theme across my apartment. I really love the mid-century, the Danish, the teakwood. But overall, I think my style is pretty eclectic and I think it clashes in a good way with the rest of my apartment. So I'm going to decorate the outside with some of my photos and artwork because my fridge isn't actually magnetic. So I'm going to put my magnets on here. Not much has changed in the entryway, but I did get this wonderful coat rack. I actually found it for the great price of free in my building's trash room and I believe this is a knockoff dupe version of the Eames wall hanger. There's actually a colorway that I really love that's red and blue. Eames, if you're watching this, hey, I would love, I will replace this knockoff one if you send it to me. It's safe to say this is where the magic happens and by the magic, I mean bedrotting and me resting. Outside of sleep, I don't spend a lot of time in here, so I feel like it's going to be the room that I decorate and finish last. I tried working on the nightstands a few days ago, but I couldn't really get anywhere mainly because the built-in nightstands, I really love the look of, but in terms of organizing things, it's tough because my cat likes to push stuff off. I do want to keep the design pretty simple. Right now, it looks like I'm living out of suitcases and that I hoard a lot of books. This is what happens when you like to read and you decide to move your entire book collection from your childhood home. I think I'm gonna go through a second spring cleaning, donate some more books to the local libraries, but I don't want to commit to getting a huge standing bookshelf, which is why I decided to do more floating shelves in this apartment. But yeah, if you have any design recommendations, I'll take them. I don't know what I want to do above my headboard. The bed is pretty low, but the ceilings are pretty high, so there's a lot of negative space right now, which I don't love, but I don't hate because it's not necessarily unappealing. It just feels a little bit empty. I improved the lighting situation in here a bit. I put a spotlight lamp up on that shelf, but I haven't worked on the shelving unit at all. It looks pretty much the same. It's feeling pretty messy because I've had a lot of work projects, and so every time I need to shoot a video, I try to do it in here so I can contain the mess. Or if I have any work in progress projects, boxes I haven't unpacked but I want out of the way. This has kind of been the transitional room where everything goes to. I also hung up my Studio Ghibli poster wall. It looks okay. I'm not a big fan of the white frames. There is a place in Williamsburg I want to go back to. They sell a lot of secondhand frames for really cheap, so I'm gonna try to get new wooden frames for all of these posters. I also tried hanging up my diploma and my YouTube play button. The frame for a diploma is so expensive, but I didn't want to just keep my diploma in the tube. Anyways, I ended up taking it down and now it's just on the ground, but my play button is still up and proud. And I set up my desk. I got a new monitor because the one that I owned before got damaged while I was moving. I didn't pack it properly. It was very much broken and beyond repair. Oh my god, you want to you want to be in my vlog? Vlog? Yeah, you see my camera? Wait, let me make you big. Do you know what I'm talking about? But yeah, it's coming together. It's pretty messy still. Once again, I'm relying on the give me three months to completely unpack. We're on month two. And this is where I say goodbye and we depart because it's the end of the video. I hope you enjoyed this little apartment update. Really excited to see things come together and I'm also glad that I got to update you on my life. You have no idea. I'm just ecstatic. Like all I want to do is sit down and make stuff and edit and like get it out to you. I have so many wonderful things that oh I really hope you'll love it when I finally get to share it with y'all. And if you have any tips for any of my design qualms please let me know and I love y'all a lot. Stay safe out there. I'll see you in the next one. Bye!