Our First Month in Evanston, Part 1: The New Apartment

October: Setting Up a New Apartment From Scratch

We both took the day off on Monday, September 30 so that we could take advantage of having the rental car to procure essential items (furniture!) for our new apartment. 

Our first stop was the brick-and-mortar Wayfair store in nearby Wilmette, where we found quite a few pieces to help furnish our apartment: mid-century modern TV stand, side tables, carved cabinet for the entryway, four counter stools for the big island, two grey of fice chairs for our future workstations (TBD), hanging storage units for the closet, kitchen supplies, and two floor lamps (that we ended up returning once they were delivered because we didn't realize they were actually bronze rather than brushed chrome due to the showroom lights!). Oh, and an electric fireplace. So not a necessity but so awesome to have! We still talk about and miss our gas fireplace in the Madison apartment, and we figured a little extra light and warmth would be very welcome for the Midwest climate. Oh, and Louis XIV rather likes it as well, even though we don't let him jump up on top.

Most of the Wayfair in-store purchases weren't available on-site, but we did manage to bring home with us an awesome blue elephant lamp and some of the kitchen organizers. And a really cool poster featuring a map of Chicago. Our next destination was Kohl's to look for some small kitchen appliances. Fortuitously, there was a Ross located in the same shopping area, and we decided to browse there first to see if we could find anything on our list. We lucked out with two folding TV tables and two comfy padded folding chairs (since we still didn't have any sort of dining table) along with a small velvety lavender storage ottoman and some other kitchen utensils and equipment.

We were hoping to find a bed that could be delivered the same day, but no luck. One of the odd things we learned is that mattresses now are ginormously high -- 12 inches seems to be the standard -- and our sheet sets don't fit that type of size, so we kept holding out for something smaller. We finally settled on something that seemed reasonable at the American Mattress store just a few blocks from the apartment. Another challenge was the amount of time for anything to be delivered -- sometimes 4-6 weeks -- yikes! The staff person told us we could get this mattress within about 2 weeks and that they could provide us with a "loaner" in the meantime within 2 days. We figured that would have to be good enough. Unfortunately, the promised delivery window wasn't accurate and we didn't end up getting the mattress until about 10 days before we returned to Sac at the end of November! Thank goodness for the loaner mattress in the meantime, or we would have been stuck on the airbed from Evan's mom that had sprung a leak...!!!

Mr. E had found a local furniture store that was going out of business during his mid-September recon visit, so Affordable Portables was another destination for us the next day, and we found a great mid-century modern table and chairs set. Also a fabulous rug with a great pattern. Quite an unexpected find on both counts and great values! And since we still had the SUV, we were able to take it all home with us (table, four chairs, bench). The table is expandable thanks to a built in leaf so can accommodate up to six people quite comfortably. We put the kitty beds on the bench right next to the window, and the fur babies were very pleased with their new sun-filled perch.

Other stores we checked out included Crate & Barrel, CB2, and some local furniture shops. We ordered a few items from West Elm but ended up cancelling the bureau due to a delivery delay as well as the stacking end tables since we decided to use the side tables from Wayfair in the living room after finding bedside tables at West Elm that actually did arrived in a timely fashion. 

Wayfair and Amazon were definitely our go-to spots for additional furniture and kitchen stuff. We ordered two side chairs from Wayfair since we like the ones we have in Sac along with a headboard, standing desks, and mid-century modern low bureau. We ended up returning some pieces that didn't live up to expectations. And during the first few days of deliveries, our apartment was very well furnished with lots of boxes! Louis XIV was of course helpful as always...

Once we had the two side chairs and the TV stand, we could comfortably relax in the living room as we continued to search for a couch. Mr. E got our TV at CostCo, and we used one of our laptops to connect to our Xfinity account to access additional entertainment options.

One of the primary challenges with the couch search is that we needed something in a fabric that wouldn't entice the kitties to scratch. We learned that lesson the hard way with some side chairs in Sac that we had to cover with sticky tape to protect them from Louis XIV! Our solution was found at Bob's Discount Furniture, where we purchased a moderately sized sofa with storage ottoman and four throw pillows in a color and fabric that work perfectly for our home. And later, we returned to Bob's to purchase the small grey sofa that converts to a double bed for the office space since Mr. E often needs to sleep in a separate room.

A final finishing touch was ordering a triptych of The Great Wave from Wayfair to hang over the couch. We also found a big print of a Paris scene at TJ Maxx for our bedroom as we started to fill in the walls with artwork. The first piece to be hung, however, was my Mom's painting that I took down from the wall at Silverado after she died.

In addition to all of this shopping by car, we made numerous trips to the Target just a few blocks away from our apartment for other items that we realized we needed -- floor lamps, sheets, storage containers, yoga mat, kitchen utensils, etc. Mr. E had already done quite a bit of advance purchasing when he made his trip in mid-September, based on the lists we'd made, so that started us off quite well. And it was really interesting to set up a new household from scratch and realize what we really didn't need to have and what we felt the lack of. Good lessons to keep in mind for the future (and to help purge some stuff back in Sac, too...)!