I rent a room & I fill the spaces with wood in places to make it feel like home

(Insert image that I cannot find of a room with the perfect glow of a lamp. Google apparently doesn't know what I mean when I search 'lamp lighting,' 'lamp ambiance' or 'lamp glow').

I'll get straight to the point: I'm a lamp-loving convert. My friend Abby hates overhead lighting and loves lamp. Maybe she's the reason why I too now crave lamps around me. Or maybe it's because I'm growing up.

Hmm, that's a stretch. Or is it?

See, my parents have always been lamp-loving people. Growing up we used lamps and not the brighter overhead lights. I wasn't a fan of this concept. In fact, sometimes I turned on the overhead light just to spite them (shameful, I know).

But in the midst of making my new apartment my own, I have found that a few simple things are sure to make a place feel homier to me.

First and foremost are flowers. I love nothing more than fresh flowers in mismatching vases filling a room with color. This past week I had the joy of having astromelias from Jonathan and sunflowers from the farmer's market spruce up my living room. They're on their last legs so I hope to find some replacements soon. But when the fresh flowers fade, I still have plants. They're simple green living things that add my favorite color to any room.

But onto the reason for this post - lamps. I finally hung my paper lanterns this weekend - two in the living room and two in my bedroom. I still haven't finished hanging art on the walls or finding the perfect throw pillows for futon, but the simplicity of warm, intimate lighting has transformed a not-so-mine place into my cozy corner of Columbia.

Other recent decorating triumphs: reupholstering my first piece of furniture (photograph to come soon) and making simple curtains from a deep coral/red fabric.

There's so much more I could say about decorating that I've recently been thinking about, but I'll save that for another post. It'll make me write on this thing sooner rather than oh-so-much later.