Transforming an apartment filled with mismatched furniture, unfinished decorating projects, and awkward layouts into a cohesive living space requires more than buying attractive accessories. The Sorry Girls take on that challenge by redesigning best friend Ariana's two-story apartment, which she shares with her sister Katya. After six months in their home, the roommates have accumulated substantial furniture but still struggle with uncomfortable lighting, insufficient storage, and rooms that lack a clear identity. What makes this makeover particularly interesting is the commitment to working with existing possessions, incorporating secondhand discoveries, and avoiding changes that would complicate an eventual move.
The project begins with a thoughtful assessment of how the apartment actually functions. The living room doubles as a passageway connecting several areas, while an underused dining table occupies valuable floor space. Upstairs, Katya needs concealed clothing storage and a more comfortable makeup area, while Ariana wants her bedroom to feel romantic and effortlessly Parisian. Rather than imposing one aesthetic throughout the apartment, the designer considers these individual preferences alongside the building's Scandinavian-inspired architecture. This establishes a practical foundation for the makeover, although some decisions, including eliminating the dining area entirely, receive relatively little discussion about potential long-term trade-offs.
One of the makeover's greatest strengths is its resourcefulness. Existing decorations are gathered into a temporary styling collection, allowing furniture, artwork, and accessories to be reconsidered without automatically purchasing replacements. A thrifted brown sofa helps create a more conversational living room arrangement, an inherited record-player console becomes a television stand, and a wardrobe from an earlier project solves Katya's exposed clothing problem. Even outdoor railing planters find a new purpose beneath an upstairs skylight. These choices demonstrate how reusing possessions can produce a coordinated interior while preserving the character of the people who live there. However, without a complete spending breakdown, viewers cannot easily determine how affordable the finished transformation would be to reproduce.
Curtains become an especially important design tool, softening the apartment's modern architecture and visually balancing unusually proportioned windows. In the living room, black-accented panels complement an existing metal railing, while ceiling-mounted curtain tracks introduce warmth to Katya's bedroom. Ariana's room receives more dramatic treatments intended to unify different window and doorway heights. The designer also shares practical adjustments, including concealing curtain grommets with clips and rings and extending a curtain rod by connecting separate sections. These experiments make the process engaging, although the improvised rod connection is not accompanied by a meaningful discussion of structural reliability, and the broader renter-friendly premise would benefit from clearer explanations of mounting requirements and potential wall damage.
The bedroom transformations demonstrate how relatively small layout corrections can significantly improve a room's appearance and usability. Centering Ariana's king-size bed allows easier access from both sides, while repositioning her dresser and mirror creates more intentional focal points. The designer openly acknowledges that the existing rug is undersized and experiments with layering before abandoning an arrangement that draws too much attention. Katya's room receives a repurposed wardrobe, softened lighting, and an inexpensive fabric treatment attached to her headboard with upholstery pins. These moments of trial and error provide useful insight into the decorating process, although some solutions remain untested, particularly the durability of the pinned fabric and the practicality of unconventional bedside arrangements.
Personal details distinguish the completed apartment from a generic showroom. Ariana's paintings are displayed alongside purchased prints, family photographs add warmth to the kitchen, and inherited furniture preserves connections to the roommates' lives. A stack of books supporting a silver tray becomes a bedside table, while secondhand lamps, patterned bedding, and vintage mirrors reinforce the eclectic aesthetic. The sponsored Desenio segment fits naturally into the artwork selection, but its extensive promotional messaging temporarily interrupts the makeover's momentum. Similarly, the additional Patreon promotion feels less essential than the hands-on decorating. Some styling choices, including decorative coffee-table arrangements and fabric attached to a lampshade, also prioritize appearance over everyday practicality, with limited discussion of maintenance or safety considerations.
The final reveals provide an emotionally satisfying conclusion, particularly because the designer has an established friendship with Ariana and understands both roommates' preferences. Their reactions emphasize how dramatically the furniture arrangements, warmer lighting, and personal accessories change the atmosphere. Ariana's excitement over her romantic bedroom and Katya's appreciation for improved storage give the project a sense of purpose beyond visual improvement. The presentation successfully connects the finished rooms with the decisions made throughout the makeover, although the overwhelmingly enthusiastic reactions leave little room for a more critical assessment of functionality. Nevertheless, the combination of genuine affection, creative experimentation, and extensive secondhand styling makes the transformation both entertaining and practically inspiring.
Pros
- The makeover establishes clear decorating goals based on the roommates' individual preferences and everyday needs.
- Extensive reuse of existing furniture, inherited pieces, and thrifted accessories demonstrates creative and resource-conscious decorating.
- Practical layout changes improve the living room's conversational arrangement and make Ariana's bedroom more accessible.
- Curtain installation techniques and furniture placement experiments provide useful ideas for refreshing rental properties.
- Incorporating original artwork, family photographs, and sentimental belongings gives the apartment a distinctive personal identity.
- The designer openly revises unsuccessful arrangements, showing that effective decorating often involves experimentation rather than following a rigid plan.
- The roommates' enthusiastic reactions provide an emotionally rewarding conclusion that reinforces the personal significance of the project.
Cons
- The absence of a comprehensive budget makes it difficult to evaluate the makeover's actual affordability.
- Several installations involve mounting hardware or improvised modifications without adequately explaining their suitability for rental properties.
- The extended sponsored artwork promotion and additional membership advertisement interrupt the otherwise engaging decorating process.
- Some decorative solutions raise unanswered questions about durability, maintenance, safety, and everyday convenience.
- Removing the dining area receives limited consideration of how the roommates might accommodate future dining or entertaining needs.
- The finished rooms receive enthusiastic reactions but relatively little assessment of how their new arrangements will function over time.
The Sorry Girls deliver a creative and heartfelt apartment transformation that succeeds by prioritizing personality, resourcefulness, and thoughtful furniture arrangements over expensive renovations. Its practical decorating experiments, secondhand discoveries, and emotional reveals make it an enjoyable source of inspiration, even if missing cost details and insufficient attention to installation safety limit its usefulness as a complete renter-friendly guide. The result is an appealing demonstration of how a home can feel dramatically different without replacing everything that makes it personal.
