When I first moved into my apartment, I thought decorating would be the easy part.
I had hundreds of Pinterest boards, a folder full of screenshots, and I was convinced that if I just bought the right furniture, my apartment would magically turn into one of those cozy homes I had been saving for years. It didn’t.
Not because I bought the wrong things, but because I slowly realized that creating a home has surprisingly little to do with following rules. Nobody really tells you that when you first start decorating. Everyone talks about trends, color palettes, and where to shop, but nobody tells you that most of the things you end up loving are the ones you never planned.
Looking around my apartment now, I honestly don’t think I’d change much. Not because it’s perfect—it definitely isn’t—but because it finally feels like me. And I think that’s what I’ve learned more than anything else over the last couple of years. A cozy home isn’t something you buy all at once. It’s something that slowly happens while you’re living your life.
These are probably the five biggest things decorating my apartment has taught me so far.
1. Your home doesn’t have to come from one store
One thing I definitely used to overthink was where everything came from. I somehow had this idea in my head that if I wanted my apartment to look nice, I needed to buy everything from the same place. Like if I bought my couch from IKEA, then maybe I should also get the coffee table there, the bookshelf there, and basically keep everything matching because that’s what all the showroom photos looked like.
Looking back, I honestly have no idea why I thought that.
If you walked through my apartment now, you’d probably never guess where half the things came from. Some furniture is from IKEA because they honestly make great basics. Some decor is from little vintage shops. I’ve found picture frames at flea markets for just a couple of euros. One of my favorite lamps was on sale, and a few things have simply followed me from previous apartments because I still loved them. And somehow… it all works. Actually, I think it works because it didn’t all come from the same place.
When everything belongs to one collection, a room can sometimes feel a little like you’re walking through a furniture store. Beautiful, yes, but not very personal. The homes I always end up loving are the ones where you can tell someone collected things over time instead of buying everything during one shopping trip.
I’ve also realized that your own taste naturally ties everything together. If you genuinely love each individual piece, chances are they’ll look good together—even if one came from IKEA, another from a flea market, and another from a random little shop you wandered into on holiday.
I honestly think we put way too much pressure on ourselves to make everything match perfectly. Homes aren’t supposed to look like catalogs. They’re supposed to look like someone’s favorite place in the world.
2. You really don’t need a huge budget to create a cozy home
This is probably the biggest thing decorating my apartment has taught me. Before I moved in, I honestly thought cozy homes belonged to people with huge budgets. Every apartment I loved online looked so beautiful that I automatically assumed they must have spent thousands decorating it. Now that I’ve actually decorated my own place, I can confidently say… that’s really not true.
When I look around my apartment, so many of my favorite things were actually really inexpensive. I’ve bought things during sales because I knew I’d regret paying full price. I’ve found little treasures at flea markets that cost less than lunch. Some of my favorite picture frames were second-hand. A lot of my decor has been collected slowly over months instead of bought all at once. And honestly, I think decorating slowly was one of the best things that could have happened.
At first I was frustrated because I wanted everything to feel finished immediately. Every empty corner annoyed me. Every wall that wasn’t decorated felt unfinished. But now I’m actually glad I didn’t rush it.
There’s something really fun about randomly finding the perfect vase six months later or stumbling across a beautiful lamp you weren’t even looking for. Those pieces somehow end up meaning so much more than things you buy just because you feel like you need to fill an empty space.
I also think cozy has surprisingly little to do with money. A room with warm lighting, books, plants, soft blankets, and things that make you happy will almost always feel cozier than an expensive room that has no personality.
If anything, decorating my apartment has taught me that patience is worth a lot more than a big budget.
4. Don’t be afraid of color
I know beige has been everywhere for the last few years, and don’t get me wrong—I actually love warm neutrals. They make such a beautiful base and they never really go out of style. But somewhere along the way, I feel like people started believing every single thing in a home had to be beige. The couch, the pillows, the artwork, the blankets… everything. Personally, that’s just never been me.
I’ve realized that I feel so much happier when there are warm colors around me. I love deep forest green, burnt orange, dark reds, warm browns… especially during autumn. Those colors instantly make my apartment feel warmer without making it feel busy. And the nice thing is, you don’t have to commit to painting your walls if that feels like too much. Most of the color in my apartment comes from smaller things anyway—pillows, blankets, artwork, candles, books, flowers. All those little details add up and completely change the atmosphere.
I also think people sometimes underestimate how calming color can actually be. A room doesn’t have to be completely neutral to feel peaceful. If anything, I think homes are becoming much more interesting now that people are decorating with colors they genuinely love instead of the colors they think they’re supposed to like. Maybe „sad beige“ works for some people, but I know I’d miss my green lamp and my orange pillows way too much
5. High ceilings are actually one of my favorite things now
When I first moved into my apartment, I had absolutely no idea what to do with the walls. I live in an older building, so the ceilings are really high, which sounds amazing until you actually have to decorate them. At first everything looked tiny. I’d hang a picture where everyone says you’re supposed to hang a picture, stand back, and somehow the wall still looked completely empty.
It took me a while to realize that high ceilings just need a different approach. One of the biggest changes was hanging my curtains almost all the way up to the ceiling instead of just above the window. It instantly made the room feel more elegant and somehow much cozier. I also started hanging artwork much higher than I normally would have, letting gallery walls stretch upward instead of stopping at eye level. Suddenly everything felt balanced instead of empty.
One of my favorite tricks, though, has been hanging plants. They naturally draw your eyes upward, soften all that empty wall space, and make the apartment feel much more alive. Looking back, I actually think the high ceilings have become one of my favorite features. I just had to stop decorating them like a standard apartment and start working with the space instead of against it.