When Adam and I moved into together, I knew I wanted some way to track our travels together. Over the past year and a half, we’ve trekked all over the place — 4 countries and roughly 30 cities, to be exact. Whenever we have a weekend that’s empty on the calendar, we start looking at flights and close by getaways, and I wanted a way to reflect that in our home.
THE QUESTION
But how were we going to look back on all these adventures? Besides the obvious memories and pictures, I wanted something physical to represent our journey. However, I’m not exactly the souvenir type, and we certainly don’t have the room in our 614 square foot apartment to accumulate any unnecessary objects.
THE ANSWER
The answer I found is an old school map that we can mark off with push pins. I wanted something with a vintage feel as we’ve been trying, with varying degrees of success, to lean towards neutrals in the apartment. I combed through options all over Etsy and Amazon, and this map came the closest to the look I wanted at a reasonable price. It’s big — 25.5 inches by 37.5 inches — but extremely lightweight, which makes sense given it has to be foam board to actually stick the pins in. The map comes with colored pins, but, of course, I decided to elevate the look a bit with gold push pins (how could I not at $5.50 for 100 pins?!).
THE REST OF THE ROOM
While I’ll do a proper apartment tour at some point, here’s a little peek at our living room. I didn’t want our bookcase or bar cart to be overly styled, and I like to think they have a lived-in vibe. The shelves aren’t filled with books picked just for their covers, there are even some textbooks in there, and the bar cart is home to liquor that’s half empty and a cocktail shaker that gets its fair share of use.
The dark wall went against all my good judgment. I typically avoid statement walls like the plague — they’re a little too HGTV for me — but I read somewhere that in a tiny apartment a dark wall can make a room seem bigger by receding into the space. I’m not sure if that’s the case, but I do love how the white bookcase and gold lamp pop against it. A vintage mirror that belonged to my grandmother completes the wall by adding just a touch of the traditional.
SO, WHERE TO NEXT?
In the immediate future, as in finishing out 2018, we have Austin TX for Thanksgiving next week (I still can’t get over how lucky I got in finding a fiancé from one of the coolest cities in the country), Charlottesville, VA the next weekend for a wedding (one year exactly from our wedding date!), then Louisville, KY to explore the Bourbon Trail, and Richmond, VA for Christmas.
2019 is still up in the air with the only big trip planned being Ireland. You can bet we’ll fill that empty calendar up quickly though…
