My first apartment came fully furnished with 'real old lady furniture' I shared with my nursing student friend and we made it ours with scarves we bought at a craft market and lots of pot plants.Love having our own space after 3years of hospital res

My husband had his first job and I was still in college, so we couldn't afford furniture. We shared his childhood twin bed, and drew wood grain on packing boxes to use for end tables and tv stands. I wouldn't change a thing!

Studio apartment below ground level and I got robbed. Didn't take me long to move up to the third floor!

My first apartment was actually a pretty nice townhouse near the happenin part of the city. But I had just about no furniture, so I had makeshift bookcases and some large floor pillows for seating. I did have a dining table, but the chairs weren't put together well and we'd fall through them now and again, which was frightening. I ended up buying a park bench for one side and two director's chairs for the other side, which I thought was a HUGE improvement!
I had my grandmother's bedroom suite, which was fine, but life got a lot better once I found a futon for $15 and a set of wingbacks were given to me.
I should have only accepted roommates with furniture, hm?

Married very young. First apartment was on the 3rd floor. Furnished. The only things we bought were a TV and stereo console. It even had all the kitchen items needed, including the silverware. And the landlady was quite elderly and wore the worst wig ever with a hairnet over it. LOL

A fifth story walk up, a few blocks from the Boston Commons.

My first place was a 4 room little house...partially furnished and no air conditioning. It had a tin roof with very little insulation...I think my rent was $65 per month, but the electric bill in the winter was like $150...which in 1974 was a lot. I did purchase a window air condition unit which helped in summer...the landlord had closed in 1/2 of the garage and made a walk in closet...which was about the size of the kitchen, however it was not insulated at all...so in summer or winter...you went in and got what you wanted very fast....ahhh, the good old days...

No pics, unfortunately, of the first apartment my hubby and I shared. None of the pink poodle cushioned toilet seat (Yuck!)...or of the gross gold upholstered rocker that was passed down to us by the last newlyweds to own it (But certainly NOT the first!) ...the same chair that my new brother-in-law tumbled over backwards in...Or the lack of a kitchen table, so that my husband's favorite meal of "linguine with clam sauce" ended up on the floor...and he still ate it! Best memories ever!

We lasted 2 1/2 days in our first apartment! It was winter, and the apartment was right above the boiler room and steady at 85 degrees!
Walked right over to the leasing office and relocated to a bigger unit on the third floor, with a balcony and no hike in the rent. Score!

$96/month plus heat. Cute little 2 bedroom place pretty far from campus. Over a tropical fish store and across the street from a bar where there was no music so the locals parked their trucks out front, turned up the truck radio full blast and left the windows open. (Polkas only!)
Fire in the building ended our tenancy and cost us a fortune in cleaning bills to get rid of the smoke smell. Plus we had to scrub soot off every inch of our meager furniture. Took days. Lesson learned, AWAYS buy renter's insurance, it's cheaper than replacing all of your jeans!

Forth story walk up attic, one block off campus. Fully contained kitchen in a 4 foot wide unit. The only windows were in the eves at both ends. Had a short tub with shower, but the ceiling was way too low to stand up in it. All the furniture was found on the curb. We left the door open, and sucked heat from the rest of the building to keep the electric bill to almost nothing. Kielbasi and fried potatoes, with home made wine.

It was a fully furnished . . . well it had furniture in it. It was a second story apartment and the entire building was very long so guess which apartment was open underneath so that cars could pull through from the street to the parking area. When I move in in August it was great because I didn't have a noisy neighbor down below. However, in January when it go really cold and the wind blew, not so nice. Then the drain pipes in the shower/tub would freeze and I would have to shower and then dip the water out of the tub and pour it down the sink. Needless to say I found other living arrangements soon after.

My first real apartment was the first one my new husband and I lived in..above a florist, front windows over looking the main street, steep steps that were slippery when it rained, one entrance straight into the bedroom..living room kitchen all in one, bathroom so small only one could be in there, one closet, kitchen had one cabinet...every evening the floral designer left flowers for us outside our door..it was wonderful, we were poor, we were young, were were deeply in love...44yrs later, we are no longer poor, we are no longer young but thankfully we are still deeply in love..wonderful memories

I am glad I read this...I am about to have my first apartment as soon as I graduate and I can't seem to find any decent affordable place ...Am glad to know most of you have been where I am right now..

I am happy to say that I DO NOT have any pics of my first apartment! LoL There are only the memories which cannot be erased! In 1982 I moved into a second floor apartment in a big, old Victorian that had been split into five units. My unit could not have been more than 600 sf. The bathtub was under the stairs that went up to the attic apartment. I'm only 5'2" and I had issues using it! I did have a bedroom but could only squeeze a double bed in it, and it didn't have a closet.The kitchen was tiny! I couldn't open the oven door all the way because it hit the refrigerator. Reverse that and the fridge door hit the stove when opened. The exit to the fire escape was a little window over the kitchen sink. I was disturbed to discover, after I had moved in, that the house had cockroaches. An elderly Polish lady told me that roaches don't like the smell of bay leaves and to scatter them around the perimeter of my unit to keep them out. I don't know if she was pulling my leg or giving me an honest tip but I bought bags of bay leaves! It seemed to work. The house was located a half block from a large hospital. Eventually I got used to hearing the sirens of emergency vehicles but I never grew accustomed to my questionable neighbours. The whole house smelled like marijuana...all the time! I don't think I lasted more than six months. I am cringing with the recollection of it! The one nice memory I have is the big, beautiful stained glass window that was in the sitting room. I could have continued to live with my parents and they would have paid for my university education but, noooo...I had to be "independent", hahaha, the joke was on me! Live and learn...

My first apartment was with my first husband. We'd moved from NYS to Toledo, OH, because of his new job. The apartment was in a small complex of nondescript one-bedrooms not far from the baseball field where the Toledo Mudhens practiced, and near a major artery - I75 - but not near anything else! My husband, not a fan of the white walls in the unit, insisted we put up every piece of artwork I'd brought when we moved, so we had a weird collection of Aubrey Beardsley prints, my own pen and ink drawings and an assortment of posters - very chaotic. We had orange shag carpet throughout, a novelty to us at that time, and the little dining nook had orange and rust flocked wallpaper on a white background - thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies now! As we continued to "decorate" things did not improve. I knew nothing and was easily swayed by my husband's opinions - and, in retrospect, he knew less then nothing! When we finally moved back to NYS, we sold or gave away pretty much everything - and I never missed any of it!

It was formerly the attic of a large house in Allentown, PA, converted into an apartment. Boiling hot in summer. The toilet and a small sink was shoved into a closet off the kitchen area. The shower was a plastic stall contraption shoved inside the bedroom closet. Mildew and mold problems. Yikes. That was a long time ago, right out of college.

My husband and I laugh anytime we talk about our first apartment. We lived above a hairdressers on a busy street in southwest London (Merton High Street in Collier's Wood). We were at the end unit, which on the outside had a rotating billboard that made this rhythmic humming and clicking noise 24 hours a day. There was a window in the shower (which I covered with crafters frosting spray to maintain our modesty). The water pressure was so bad that I washed my hair in the faucet. There was no proper heat, just wall heaters you could turn on by pulling a cord. The passengers on the top of the double decker buses could look right into our living room. The walls of the stairwell were not straight and 24 inches wide at one point, which made moving in and out interesting. We also had a resident mouse, whom we named Martin. Let's just say that we weren't sad to move.

The first apartment I bought was a one bedroom in North London - it was so long ago that one of the key features in the estate agents' details was peach austrian blinds - they were also the first thing to go (looked like lingerie hanging out to dry).
The bathroom was painted a pale pistachio green - which meant that for the first three months I went out looking like a tangerine (I didn't realise that it wasn't me that looked sallow and washed out it was the lighting in the bathroom and all that green meant I was really overdoing it on the blusher).
My decorative choices included:
stick on dado patterns in a rust and gold pattern;
off white dhurries;
grey carpets in the hallway and staircase;
a desk, chair and 1930s typewriter to create a study area on the landing.
I was gifted a dining table - I had to saw an inch off the legs to get it up the staircase.

thank you for helping me recall so many happy memories of those independent girl about town days....

My first place was a ground floor garage apartment in an iffy (at the time) part of town but I loved that place! For a garage apartment it was huge! The garage itself was a 3 car garage so my apt was that wide and half again as deep. It had 10 ft ceilings, hardwood floors, French doors from living to bedroom, tons of tall windows (never had to turn on a light during the day), an antique bathtub (which I put one of those spiffy shower conversion kits on , Dearborn heaters throughout and a teensy kitchen. Loved my chaise in front of the windows looking into the yard. Loved the park catty-cornered across the street. All for $100 per month plus incredibly low shared utilities. I lived there 13 years (who would move from a place like that if they didn't have to!) There was a fire station directly across the alley from my place, so being a single gal, they kept an eye on things (lol) and gave me the direct phone number into the station. This was all before the advent of the cellphone. When I got engaged, the place was so great my fiancée said we should live there! But my landlady (sweet sweet woman) was selling the property. So I moved out. I loved that place. Sure do miss it sometimes.

Oh, how I wish I had pictures of my first apartment! It was on Main St in historic downtown Bethlehem, a third floor efficiency. I paid 120.00 per month for a view through a large window overlooking Main St, large main room, small dining room (I used as my bedroom), tiny but efficient kitchen, nice size bathroom with dressing room(!) and huge walk-in closet. Oh, and hardwood floors! Great landlords, interesting neighbors. The lady who lived below me had been a buyer for a large department store and had traveled quite a bit. I still have a bracelet she gave me.
The only drawback I can remember is that the Historic Bethlehem folks didn't allow us to have window AC, so it got kinda hot in the summer. I can go on Google Street View now and see everyone has window AC units!

My first apartment with my husband was in 1971. It was your typical nondescript apt in suburban Detroit. We had no money, right out of college, no furniture. We bought a blow- up couch and chair. We Used moving boxes for dresser covered by colorful sheets. Peter Maxx was big at the time and Seven up (yes the soda company) was giving large 8 ft by 12 ft peter Maxx like billboards away for free. We used it as our art work. We still laugh today about it.

A girlfriend and I had a furnished apartment over a mom and pop store (they lived in the rear apartment). It was a nice, clean place for $27/week. Including utilities! Because many of our friends still lived at home our apartment became a very busy place. Loads of fun. Lots of laughter.

Our first apartment was a tiny 2 bedroom unit in what used to be a hotel in downtown Seattle. It had 1 closet, a minuscule kitchen with only 1 outlet so you could run either the fridge and the blender or the fridge and the microwave. Our kitchen table only fit in the hall. We fell in love with the grand 12 foot ceilings and the ability to walk or bike to work. As a Unfortunately, the only mirror in the place was hung in the bathroom mid way between floor and ceiling--and being on the shorter side I could only ever see the top of my head reflected back to me. The bedrooms were cozy too--we had a bed in one room and our dressers and desk in the other. We had no parking, but were right next door to a yummy Mexican restaurant. I never really did master parallel parking, uphill in the rain with an old deisel stick shift. Sadly we were also near a gas station and spent many an evening chucking eggs at people who would turn their radio up at 2 or 3 am to hear better while they pumped gas. My dad always said the apartment toed the line between quaint and crappy.

My first apartment was one block from my mom. A studio apartment in Southern California. I remember decorating with red, black and white and lots of screens. Really enjoyed it.
Within 6 months moved in with 3 other girls right on the beach!
What a party house!

Jane George, what a great first home (apartment). Sounded like it was perfect.

auntkathy, that is being really creative. Love your memory.

As an undergrad college student I moved into the top half of a large Victorian house that had been made into a 2-bedroom apt. The landlord and landlady lived downstairs with their 2 dogs, and they, my roommate and I all belonged to the same church. The house was 6 miles away from the college in the next town over. My roommate was 10 years older than I was and had a car and a full-time job, so I commuted with her until my dad got me a car of my own.

The apt was gorgeous -- you entered off the porch and went up a curving carved oak staircase with a large elegant stained glass window lighting the room. The image was a coat of arms with a banner that read "il tempo passa" (time passes).

The apartment had 6 rooms and every room had stained glass panels above the windows. In the dining room, the panel was actually painted glass of a naked winged cupid lying down on a rock with his fingers dangling peacefully in a pool of water. The first time our pastor saw the cupid's bare bottom, he said jokingly that he didn't know what to think of it!

My bedroom looked out on the side yard. It was shaped like a long emerald with 8 sides, three of which formed a tall bay window with stained glass panels at the top. I loved that room so much. Studying art history and loving architecture as I do, it was the perfect room for me. And the place was so quiet and peaceful.

The bathroom was large with a long clawfoot tub equipped with a shower and wraparound curtain. The kitchen was the smallest room of the apartment -- you had to eat in the dining room.

One corner of the living room was a round alcove formed by the turret on the corner of the house. It had windows all around it and was the perfect spot for a Christmas tree.

We also had access to the attic, and one night a bat flew around the apartment. Our landlord was scared to death of it and my roommate finally got it with a broom.

Great memories of that place -- great first apartment that spoiled me for all that would follow. And my half of the rent was only $125 a month! This was in the late 70s. We lived there 2 years until my roommate got married and I had to move into town..

I love all these stories! So much fun to read. Great post!

I got my first apartment by myself after a 30 year marriage and divorce. I loved having my own place- I was a teenager again, except I could entertain in a great space, with water views

:)

I was 17, and half way through my senior year when I picked a stupid fight with my parents and stormed off to live with my 18-year-old best friend who had just rented an attic studio in an old house that was owned by an aging biker guy. The apartment was long and narrow with steep roof slants. Everything was open except the bathroom. My roommate decided to smuggle in two kittens (which were not allowed), and they played "race up and down the length of the apartment on the hardwood floors" all hours of the day and night. For little kittens they made a lot of noise. Needless to say, our big burley biker landlord discovered our violation and we were soon sent packing.

My first apartment was when I got married. I moved in with my husband to a ground floor 2 bedroom garden style apartment. We were only there for about 1.5 months before we had to leave and move across country from Maryland to California so he could attend medical school. So the first apartment I spent much time in was the ground floor unit in a gated apartment complex, also a two bedroom unit where we used one bedroom as combination library, double office, and storage. We were incredibly over-crowded because my ex had large full sized furniture from a previous single family home he'd owned before our marriage that he refused to get rid of since, "We're going to buy a house later anyway." Everything was over sized for the apartments we lived in every time we moved (8 times in 10 yrs). We were both so busy, him with med school and part time nursing job, me with full time job and finishing my Master of Science that we really never had time to do much with any of them. I lived like a hoarder most of the 10 years I was married to him due to his refusal to part with anything once he got it into his possession. Now I've finally got my own first place, a small condominium and I am desperately trying to declutter and have an open airy space where I'm not following little paths between furniture that's too darn big.

I was 26 when I moved out of my mom's house. The square footage was...650. My husband and I met about three months after I moved in...The funny thing, that 650sq apartment was all we needed....so happy. Well, like George and Weezie we moved up..he moved out and I moved on...to 928sq with two dogs..could not be happier.

Not my first apt, which I shared about above, nor the first apartment my husband and I had, but our most memorable apartment was the one we lived in for 4-1/2 years (1985-1989) and brought both our baby boys home to in 1986 and 1988. 2 bedrooms in the bottom of a farmhouse that had been converted into 4 apartments.

What was most memorable about that place was that everything in it was avocado green: the carpeting in every room (different types of carpet, but all the same color -- including kitchen carpeting!), the appliances, the bathroom fixtures. The walls were various colors -- beige, light green, and off white, with tasteful striped paneling in the kitchen of blue and green for a backsplash that was actually kind of pretty. I mean, it was all liveable and really a very nice apartment -- just all avocado green.

The place was on a busy highway but in a nice country setting. There were cows in the field behind us that were owned by some farmer renting the field. He had one white cow that liked to jump the fence. We never knew when we would come home and find that cow in our driveway. I remember one Christmas morning lying in bed listening to the soft sounds of mooing cows in the distance -- and suddenly we heard a MOOOO!!! right outside our window! That woke us up fast! He eventually got rid of the cow.

The water there had problems. Every now and then the landlord would dump a huge amount of chlorine into the system and it would be like swimming pool water for a day or two. It was actually that chlorine water that wrecked my wedding ring, which is made of pink and green Black Hills gold so not as pure as plain gold. We didn't realize our water was not up to health codes.

Then, when I was pregnant with our younger son, our landlord and landlady took off for a month in France to celebrate 40 years of wedded bliss (haha, being facetious there). Probably less than a week after they left, our neighbor knocked on our door with a baby food jar full of water and fur. "I just took this out of my faucet aerator," he said. He and my husband went to the shed where the water holding tank was (my husband knew where it was) to check on things, and there was a smell that was coming from it that our neighbor couldn't tolerate so he wouldn't even go inside -- and by the way, he was a mortician!

So my husband had to go in and check on the water. The tank was wide open (in complete violation of health code laws) and two woodchucks had fallen in it and drowned. We called the health department and they sent someone out to drain the tank. Something else was on the bottom of it that had been there for a long time! The only way to certify the water as okay again was to have someone in a wet suit with an oxygen tank go into the tank and scrub it with chlorine. There were maybe 6 people locally who would do that kind of work but naturally, no one could authorize it to be done and guarantee payment because the landlord and landlady were in France for a month!

I wouldn't even shower in the water after that. We started drinking bottled spring water, and funny thing, my morning sickness stopped right around then. Our water was condemned for 3 months total and our landlord eventually reimbursed us for the water we had to buy. To this day, 25 years and several homes later, I still drink only bottled spring water (it just tastes good to me anyway) and am leery of anything that comes out of a tap!

3 bedroom, 6th floor walk up in Chelsea in Manhattan, shared with two guys I had only met through friend who moved out. Lots of fun, great area and loved the big rooms with high ceilings. Did not love sharing a kitchen and bathroom with two sloppy, yet sweet, guys :)

One bedroom apartment on the East Coast. Sooooo humid during the summer, and made worse by the dryer that vented into the apartment.

My first apartment was with my sister. I was 18. I wanted to move out! My dad agreed if I lived with my sister. We split the rent and all the bills. It was a two bedroom, she got the master with the ensuite. I didn't care at the time. After a year we both moved out and I got my own apartment in the same building.
I never wanted a roommate after that. Didn't need one. I was pretty responsible paying the bills. Much cheaper to live off a paycheck back then (1978) and when i was at home my dad charged me a very high room and board, so I was trained to make my money stretch ( thanks dad ).
It was a decent building. I'm too snobby to live in run down places. It had a pool which I used a lot.

My first apartment was nothing special, but my grandparents' first "house" was in a converted boxcar. The food froze in the cupboards in the winter, but it had a REAL working bathroom! My grandma always says she married my grandpa for his bathroom. My husband and I had similar humble beginnings (but with central heat!), and we wouldn't trade them for all the money in the world.

Shared an apartment with two friends. Pre war. 2 bedroom 3 bath formal living room dining room laundry room and kitchen. 12 foot ceilings. Parquet floors. Floor to ceiling windows All cabinets and french doors had thick leaded glass. Fully furnished with great goose down furniture and antiques. Shoot me I gave it up! Rent controlled on west 86th street. Manhattan.

Wow, I am so envious. Yes you should be regretful, but I am sorry you have had wonderful experiences else where.

It was a tiny one room on the Marina Del Rey Peninsula for only $550 a month. No Kitchen and my knees hit the sink when I sat on the toilet. I had a view of the ocean and it was my very own place. I loved it!

I am sorry. My sentence should have said, I am sure you have had wonderful experiences in all your residences .

My parents freaked out when they saw my first apartment. All the doors in all the units had marks where people had tried to break into the metal doors and there were bars on the windows

When I read the question I thought of our first apartment when my wife and I got married. We moved to Oakland, CA in Adams Point. Great area! We found a small one bedroom and have since moved on, but we still have fond memories. We had a huge sliding glass door in the living room that opened out onto a patio which made us feel as if we lived in a tree house.

I'm actually just about to move into 'my' first apartment--my own place, anyway. A basement studio with a full kitchen and washer and dryer, with a fenced yard and garden for my dog to enjoy. Leaving my current place tomorrow--which is a 2-story 4-bed 3-bath suburban Florida cookie-cutter house I've been sharing with some college friends. Time to move on!

Have to admit, seeing some of the rent y'all paid 'back in the day' is making my wallet hurt quite a bit, haha.

My first apartment in San Francisco after graduating from college was a closet - literally. For $200 a month I rented a walk-in closet off of the living room of a 1-bedroom apartment, my full size mattress on the floor and slightly up the sides of the walls where I slept beneath my hanging clothes. Had a small window which made it very pleasant! Was a great first spot while working part time as a bank teller until I landed a real job and a real bedroom.

I think the key to designing an amazing small focus is to actually not focus on the fact that it is small. Great your dream space. Incorporate all the things you love then devise a plan to make them work with the space you have.

I have an amazing blog post that I think may help.

http://timothyriversinteriors.com/2015/01/19/decorating-a-small-apartment/

I really just loved reading these stories. Thank you to everyone who shared their memories - you brought back a few of my own.

My first apt. was a huge bachelor suite 5 minutes from the airport where I worked. It was bright and cheery with a big balcony. I filled the balcony with plants from the store. I had a ball talking across balconies and sharing my day and jokes with a kind, elderly man that was lonely. His wife had died and they didn't have any children. He liked to smoke on his balcony.

He was kind of like an adopted grandpa after awhile and came and helped me with little things. I remember shortly after moving in I tried to bake banana bread for the first time, but it wasn't baking right. I couldn't figure out what the problem was. It was baking on top, but was still runny in the middle! Ernie came over and told me I needed a new element in the oven. He took the banana bread dough home. (He snuck it when I wasn't looking). Next day after work I arrived home to find a loaf of baked banana bread and a note by my door. Ernie had arranged for the landlady to have my oven fixed for me and had finished baking the loaf! So sweet.

He got to know my schedule a bit and I got to know his. He liked to watch a regular tv show at night and then his light would go off. He would watch for my car to pull in and then wave at me. One day I went away for the weekend, but there wasn't a wave when I got back. Ernie died during the night. My apt. building was never quite the same after that. I'd still find myself checking to make sure Ernie's light was on.