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If you're like most busy residents of apartments in Chicago, you may have not yet had time to add festive holiday accents to your home. If you're hosting a dinner party or other holiday gathering in your home, you may be scrambling for ideas for creating a holiday atmosphere if you don't have time to thoroughly deck the halls or trim a tree. Fortunately, there are strategies designed to help you create a holiday mood in a hurry. The following are five ways that you can create a celebratory holiday mood in less than half an hour.
String Some Lights
It should only take about five minutes at the most to string some festive lights around your doorway to welcome guests with a holiday glow. You could even string the lights around a window indoors if you don't want to put them outside.
Simmer Some Potpourri
Creating a holiday mood isn't only about visual elements. Many people associate certain aromas with the season, and it only takes a minute to add a handful of potpourri to some water in a saucepan on the stove and turn the dial to the simmer setting. If you don't have any holiday potpourri on hand, simmer a mixture of cloves and cinnamon instead.
Put on Some Christmas Music
Nothing sets the mood like a little music. If you don't have any Christmas music on hand, you can make a playlist online using a variety of services — even YouTube works for this in a pinch.
Pick Up a Miniature Christmas Tree
Miniature Christmas trees make great entryway decor and centerpieces. They can be purchased from a variety of retailers from your local nursery to a nearby supermarket. As an added bonus, you can plant them in outdoor planters after the holiday season is over.
Place a Holiday Bouquet on the Table
If you've got time for a quick stop at the florist, pick up a holiday bouquet to use as a centerpiece on your table. For an added festive mood, buy another one to place on the coffee table in your living room.
Our apartment community features views of the waterfront, easy access to downtown Chicago and floor plans from studios through two-bedrooms. Contact us today for more information.
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While many Instagram photos show succulents growing happily indoors, they tend to do better in outdoor conditions over the summer. When Chicago's winter temperatures roll in, even the hardiest varieties tend to shrivel up and disappear under the snow. Just bringing your succulents indoors can keep them alive, but a little extra care will help them thrive until spring returns again.
Invest in a Quality Light
Don't expect even the most south- and east-facing windows to provide enough light for strong and healthy succulent growth. Most succulents commonly kept as houseplants require a lot of sunlight each day, and they rapidly lose leaves and their unique coloration in dimmer environments. You don't need an expensive or specific plant light for good results. One or two daylight LED bulbs offering at least the equivalent of 100 watts each in clamp lights provide plenty of light for a collection of succulents. For larger collections or more stylish lighting options, look for LED and fluorescent fixtures offering a few hundred equivalent watts of output.
Grab a Watering Tray or Use Your Bathtub
When you're overwintering succulents indoors, they only need a fraction of the water required for outdoor summer growth. Still, when it's time for a good watering, you'll need to soak each pot until water runs heavily through the drainage holes to ensure the roots are evenly supplied. This is easiest when you can move the plants to a high-sided storage container, watering tray or even your bathtub, so the pots can soak and drain over the course of 15 minutes or so.
Reduce Watering Significantly
Succulents only need the occasional watering when overwintered indoors, even in very dry and warm environments. Try to feel the weight of a freshly-watered pot and then wait until the plant is significantly lighter as you lift it — a sign that the soil is dry and ready for water. Keeping your succulents in thinner plastic pots over the winter makes this easier. Other signs a succulent is ready for water include slightly drooping leaves or wrinkling.
Ready to fill one of our many Chicago, Illinois, apartments with succulents? Get in touch with us today to see what floor plans we have available.
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Who says that you need a huge budget to make a significant impact on your home decor? Apartment living means finding comfort in small spaces and creating a place where you can feel happy and at home at the moment, even if you may not plan on your current home being your forever home. There are a lot of people who look at apartments as a steppingstone — a place where you will stay for a while but shouldn’t invest in. But there is nothing as important as living in the moment, and finding ways to make your apartment in Chicago as inviting as possible can do a great deal to help you feel more relaxed when you are at home.
Investing in custom furnishings and artwork for an apartment may not make sense in the long term, but there are plenty of ways that you can decorate your apartment with simple DIY strategies that won’t leave any lasting damage on those rented walls.
Here are a few creative ways that you can decorate your apartment without breaking any of your property manager’s rules:
Paint on canvas.
Painting isn’t always recommended in rental apartments, and a lot of apartment complexes will downright discourage it. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t get color up on those walls. If you have a bit of creative talent, go ahead and paint on canvas to create a masterpiece of your own. But if you don’t feel that you have a lot of creative potential, have no fear. Use a large canvas and paint it as a solid color block in the color that you’d want to paint the wall. Hang up a few canvases in a row, and you’ll have a minimalist and unique art piece that is exactly what you are looking for.
Get creative with textiles.
Bringing a lot of different textiles into your home is a great way to add personality and plenty of color without making any permanent changes to your apartment. Use curtains and drapes to break up the plainness of white walls, get creative with carpeting, and use blankets to add a bit more flair to furniture. This is a great way to add a lot of personality and comfort to your apartment, and it’s easy to set up and break down whenever you are ready to move again.
Finding ways to bring a bit of personality into your home is a great way to make a standard space into a custom and highly personalized space. You don’t need to knock down walls to make your home more your own. Try being a little creative with your decor ideas and see where the creative spirit takes you. Call our office today to learn more about what apartments are available for you.
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With the arrival of the spring season comes a chance to elevate the beauty of your home with the newest design trends. These awesome trends can help bring the decor of your Chicago apartments up to date in amazing ways. Here are several spring design trends that can help you get started.
Candy Colors
With the identification of Living Coral as the color of the year comes a wide array of gorgeous candy colors to enjoy. As with the rich coral hues of 2019, these candy colors should exude happiness and brighten your mood at a glance. Choose the ones that speak to you most, and then pick up throw pillows, blankets and other decor pieces in those hues.
Wicker Accents
Wicker accents are all the rage this year. You can add wicker to any room in your house to give it an interesting splash of color and texture. You can find wicker baskets, chairs, tables and more in a wide range of colors or even paint your own.
Stone Elements Throughout Your Chicago Apartments
With their smooth textures and natural tones, stone elements can beautifully balance the candy colors and wicker accents you add to your apartments in Chicago. You can find stone decor elements in the form of knickknacks, lamps, and tables. You can also fill decorative dishes with smooth river rocks or polished stones in interesting patterns.
Vintage Lamps
Vintage lamps will bring your spring design together beautifully. You can find vintage lamps in any style imaginable. You just have to choose a design that will work best with your other interior design elements. Select a combination of table and floor lamps to add height and variation to your design. You can also acquire vintage bulbs to go with your lamps if you want to go that route.
As you add these decorative elements to your apartments, your interior design will start to come together wonderfully. As you complete this project, reflect on other ways to improve your living space. If you would like to explore your apartment upgrade options, contact us at The Belden-Stratford by calling 866-452-6177.
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You live in a chic part of Chicago, so shouldn’t your Chicago apartment look chic as well? Of course, it should. But it does not have to have a deep impact on your wallet. There are simple, yet crafty ways to make your apartment chic, and we provide five of them, one for each living space in your home.
1. Make Your Kitchen Instantly Chic in Your Chicago Apartment
Apart from the dishes and pots, towels get used most in the kitchen. Find towels with a punch of color—towels that you actually look forward to using—to place in your kitchen. Towels, even luxuriously soft ones, are affordable, and the added color makes the kitchen feel fancier.
2. Make Your Dining Room Worth Dining In
Apartment dining rooms can be small, so add a beautiful mirror to add visual space as well as chic-it-up a bit. Mirrors come in all sizes, shapes and framing. Find a mirror that is affordable and matches your decor, and all at once you have a chic new element in your apartment.
3. Make Your Living Room Worth Living In
You spend a lot of your time in the living room, so make it worth it. If you have throw pillows, think about purchasing new covers to spice up or tie in colors. If you don’t have them, think about which colors make you happy and purchase a few. They are functional and aesthetically appealing.
4. Make Your Bathroom Luxurious
There are so many things you can do to a bathroom to make it luxurious! But one fun idea is this: Replace bathmats with a cool rug. Why should you have to limit your floor cover to boring bathmats? Find a rug you like and spread it out.
5. Make the Bedroom the Chic Place to Start & End Your Day
Your bedroom is the place you close your eyes at night and open them in the morning. Buy new sheets and a soft new duvet that adds a bit of color while maintaining a soothing feeling. This aids in getting a good night sleep, which aids in your ability to wake up happy. Plus, it looks great!
If you are looking for that chic place to live in Chicago, then come visit us at The Belden-Stratford. We look forward to building our community one neighbor at a time.
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This holiday season, living in The Belden-Stratford Apartments in Chicago provides the perfect backdrop for hosting elegant holiday celebrations. Even if you do a minimum of home decor, you can add a dramatic effect to your entertaining this year by featuring an elegant tablescape that will put all guests in a festive state of mind.
Elegant Table Setting Tips
What is a Tablescape?
When considering your tabletop arrangements, view each setting and centerpiece as part of a design plan to create a breathtaking look that harmonizes your dining or serving area with a sense of balance. A tablescape is just that! It is less about matching plates, silver, linen, and glassware and is more about creating a sense of balance using textures, color, and scale.
Consider Alternate Color Combinations
While you may want to take your color inspirations from traditional holiday palettes such as red, green, gold, and silver, you can increase the visual effect with color alternatives such as deep pink, purple, and red or adding a pop of mustard yellow with your blue and silver. Nature can offer its own inspiration for color combos — brown, green, and white or red, yellow, and black for a dramatic effect.
Layering Textures and Finishes
So maybe this is a good year to change up your silverware settings with a set of bronze patina flatware or a lovely tinted set of stemmed goblets in a soft azure or nuanced plum. A key part of the balancing is to add subtle differences in textures and finishes — mixing and matching to make your table come to life in a unique and festive way.
For finishes, you may opt for a linen tablecloth or choose to leave your lovely wooden table uncovered. The options can go from a relaxed look of a cream-colored cotton/linen with a burlap table runner to a vibrant red Poinsettia imprinted tablecloth to add spectacular contrast.
Use Elements From Nature
Bring your tablescape together using elements from nature. Ditch the idea of pinecones and holly for blooming tropical plants, a floating orchid centerpiece, branches of fern and scattered peppercorns, or sprigs of wintergreen with pomegranate seeds.
Call our offices today to schedule a viewing of our The Belden-Stratford Apartments in Chicago, IL and to discuss which floor plans are available. Start your own holiday traditions in a luxury apartment setting with fully equipped kitchens with stainless steel appliances, hardwood flooring in select units, and panoramic views of Lake Michigan, downtown green spaces, and the city skyline.
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