A fresh start

If there's one thing I'm absolutely in love with, is the fresh and happy look of the new apartment. As for any new home, it is nor perfect. There are bags of random stuff and boxes scattered pretty much everywhere - but I'm struggling to find the words to express the level of gratitude I feel when I find myself in awe in front of the simplest decor or new furniture piece. 

I think I'm in love.

One of my favourite corners of The Venetian Apartment
Ikea Wardrobe & a Vintage Chair

I'm sure you know the feeling... and is a precious one - when you know you've been given a chance to change, to improve... a blank slate, basically, to show yourself and the world you can and will do better. That's how the new home makes me feel!

It represents a much-awaited fresh start - will you follow the journey? 

Unexpected turns

Painting white walls, emptying rooms, sleeping on a mattress... these are the images that moving house evokes in the imaginaries of all of us, right?... well, in our case things went a little differently. 

Until a few months ago, someone else was enjoying this pretty little apartment: tourists! They were coming and going to visit Venice - yes, Venice - that floats just 10 minutes away from here. Maybe you've been one of them... if that's the case, HI! We loved hosting you (we've met some amazing people through Airbnb, so grateful)! But now it's our turn...

So, The Venetian Apartment was originally a vacation rental listed on Airbnb, as you've gathered by now - but before that, it used to be my mother in law's family home, the very place where she grew up. We gutted and renovated it to a new life and immediately became super happy Airbnb hosts. The learning curve was steep, but having experience in the hospitality sector helped... and in 3 months we gained Superhost status! 

Mornings at The Venetian Apartment are for black coffee and inspiration

Guests were delighted and often wrote in their reviews that the apartment looked even better in real life than in pictures. What can I say - it was so nice having our work acknowledged by those we designed the apartment for. 

However, it was a bittersweet feeling all the way from the beginning. I remember being a little jealous of them. After all that hard work, so much effort and love poured into it to choose the best furniture, decor, linens, and personal touches... I wondered often if we'd ever enjoyed the fruit of our labour one day. 

Anyway, the new business was great, and that was all that mattered to us! ... little did we know it was not going to last! 

Only four months later a huge and destructive high tide invaded Venice (you probably heard this from the news, too), causing damages and making it impossible to live in the city, let alone enjoy a holiday there. We lost all out bookings for the rest of 2019. It was bad. 

Then the coronavirus pandemic came. At that point, we realized it wouldn't have been smart to keep pursuing our vacation rental business project in such global circumstances. And here it was...my shiny little apartment, empty... why not, we said? We talked all night long, and then again and again. 

Eventually, we took THE decision: we were going to move into The Venetian Apartment after lockdown. 

Exactly 365 days after hosting our first guests, we moved in ourself. And it couldn't feel better.

Putting up Sinnerlig shade (IKEA) in the master bedroom
with the help of my father in law

A little love

Weirdly enough, the apartment from which we've just moved out from was quite sterile. Especially compared to what The Venetian Apartment looked like from day 1!

In four years of living there, we had never even put up curtains (the neighbours know by heart my workout routine by now lol), we only had 2 sad old cushions on the sofa and the bedroom, well, it lacked any kind of personality - it was a mere bedroom, it didn't have a soul!

I think the problem was that we were simply not taking care of the space we lived in, and that speaks a lot about how we were also dealing with our own lives and relationships. 

I don't know about you, but I came to understand the hard way that when you love yourself and your life you automatically position yourself as a "caring" person: you take care of others as much as you do for yourself, you take care of your body and mind as well as the place you chose to live in - love can make such a big difference.

Plans ahead

Look, furnishing an apartment to function as a short term vacation rental is one thing, creating a home is another. 

We're so lucky that (almost) all the basics are already taken care of but the one big issue to tackle is storage space. There are many small DIY projects that need doing, but what's going to make a true difference is:

1) wardrobes/closet space 

2) pantry.

As of now, we are short of both! 

We plan on purchasing a few things but not all once, so I'm really looking forward to seeing The Venetian Apartment change and adapt to its new owners as we go! 

This one below is my main inspiration for the master bedroom closet as of now, like it?

Source: Pinterest

I hope you'll join us in this exciting and intimate journey into building a home of our own.

Have a lovely day,

Sinù

Let's chat on Instagram! I'm @the_venetian_apartment, come to say hi, I'm always happy to chat.

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