I've recently begun trying to make my home a bit nicer- I live in a tiny one bedroom flat with a balcony with my DH, and try as I might to make it actually a nice place to be, it's beginning to feel like an exercise in futility.
Let's start with the bathroom. It has no windows, and a tiled floor- the builders did a crappy job of grouting the tiles, it comes out in huge chunks so there are loads of gaps, and there is some on the tiles which I just haven't been able to shift which means parts of the floor just always look dirty. The tiles are grey with a sort of grainy texture to them. It's a tiny room with no storage at all, I bought this little floor tidy to put things in as it was about the only thing that would fit, but the room still manages to look cluttered. One of the light fittings has never worked either.
We have a combined kitchen/sitting room with wooden floors which were poorly fitted so in winter/when its cold you can't move an inch without them creaking like crazy. The washing machine makes so much noise at times it's pointless trying to watch TV or pay attention to anything else.
We have floor-to-ceiling windows with no windowsills and cheap vertical blinds like these. Same in the bedroom. All the windows are south facing and the blinds are practically transparent so on sunny days it gets absurdly hot.
The furniture - DH bought the place before we got together and furnished it like a typical cash-strapped bachelor with chunky black Ikea furniture as far as the eye can see, and the world's ugliest beige sofa. The black furniture shows up every speck of dust and fingerprint, so sometimes it feels like painting the Forth bridge trying to keep it looking nice! We do have a lovely bureau which I inherited when my GPs died but next to all the black Ikea stuff it just looks odd and out of place.
The bedroom - also tiny, we have a (chunky black Ikea) kingsize bed, a massive wardrobe (same again), chest of drawers in front of the window and a small bedside unit.
Hallway - essentially just an empty space, occasionally occupied by the clothes horse. Not enough room for any furniture.
The balcony - also pretty small with a glass wall, impossible to hang anything from (unless I use cable ties) because of the flat, roughly 2-inch wide rail along the inside. We don't tend to spend a great deal of time out there anyway because of the kids who play outside and scream their heads off until about 10 p.m. and our downstairs neighbours whose cigarette and weed smoke comes straight up at us.
I just don't know how to make it into a nice home. I keep it clean and tidy, have tried not to clutter it up with too much 'decorative' stuff but it's just never a particularly warm or inviting place to be. I can't afford to start replacing furniture, I did buy a throw for the sofa but because the sofa cushions don't even fucking fit it just looked messy.
Does anyone else feel like this about their home? Can anyone make any suggestions from how I might transform mine? It's getting thoroughly depressing at this point.