The Grand Plan

I should start by telling you a bit about the apartment itself. It is the sprawling lower half of an 1870 house in downtown Sterling, IL. The plan is to incorporate various decorating styles from the period of the home's existence. The challenge will be to make these cohesive and flow together without making the place look "choppy."
The landlords normally do not allow painting of the walls but knowing of my penchant for decor they have given me permission to do some. I plan to limit my wall painting to just the kitchen leaving the rest of the home in the original cream color. Keeping the cream coloring throughout the home should help prevent too many extremes from room to room.

The Porch
The enclosed porch will be done in what I have often claimed to be my least favorite decorating style - County. Why would I do something as strange as making the first impression on my guests my least favorite style? Because the porch calls for it. There are just some places that demand to be decorated in a particular way and from the moment I walked into this entrance when I first visited the apartment I saw how it wanted to be set up. (Yes - I am a room whisperer)
This wont be a full-out Country - I will be using an updated country look with contemporary touches,

The Parlor
The first room you enter when coming into the house proper is what the landlord referred to as the dining room. It will become my parlor and I will be using my favorite of the Victorian styles in here... British Colonial.

The Kitchen
In honor of my parents' 60th anniversary this past year I will be using a color theme from the last remaining platter from an early set of dishes that they had when they first got married in 1954. The dishes were charcoal and pink. I found a matching platter on Ebay several years ago and I will be displaying both platters in the kitchen. I plan on painting the wall a color called Dorian Gray and will be doing pink accents throughout the kitchen for that mid-50's feel. The lady at Sherwin-Williams said that Dorian Gray was a very popular color recently so I get my 1950s vibe and still stay current.

The Craft Room
I finally have a 2 bedroom apartment - something that I have wanted for a long time. This gives me a place for crafts. I also have a basement (with a washer and dryer hook-up when I can afford the machines) to do messier crafts and painting and a 2 1/2 car garage to work in. Great space for the creative work!
I am still debating the decor for the craft room and for my bedroom. The plan will arrive when these places speak to me.

The Office
Finally the room I look forward to doing the most - my office! I have always wanted to do Mid-Century Modern and Hollywood Regency. I have decided to combine the two styles in this room. Much of the inspiration is from the leaded glass transom above the large square picture window. When the late afternoon light comes in through this window the entire room explodes with a rainbow that dances around the room.
The office will be done in all white furniture with silver accents. I have already begun picking up bits and pieces of the things that will bring this room to life.

The Budget
Oh, by the way - I'm broke. This decorating job will be done on a very tight budget. I plan on accomplishing this with very few purchases outside of thrift stores and second hand shops. I do plan on buying a nice desk chair, desk and hopefully an easy chair for the office. The rest will be hunted, re-purposed, stolen and borrowed.

Let's see how close I can come to fulfilling my mission.