Living Room: Past and Present.

I just wrote out my rent check for June and was reminded that it's been two years since I moved into my little place! That got me thinking about just how much my place has changed in the last 24 months. If you are regular reader, than you know I kind of have an aversion to things staying the same. Just for the heck of it I thought I'd flashback and share what my living room looked like the weekend after I moved in back in June 2011...

(Please forgive the TERRIBLE quality...this was taken on my old digital camera and probably at night.)

 

And here is today... 

Only a few things have stood the test of time...

 

1. The dresser

2. The coffee table trunk

3. You can't see it in this picture, but the artichoke lamp is still in that same spot next to the TV.

 

Everything else like the curtains, furniture, rug, and accessories have been brought in over time and within whatever budget I was working with. I'm really liking the way the living room looks and feels right now, but I know it's not "done". Any room of mine will never have that label and I wouldn't have it any other way :-)

 

 

Campaign Makeover.

Seeing this little campaign style table at the Habitat for Humanity Restore was love at first sight!

Despite it's broken drawer thing and dull hardware, I knew this little thing could be a real beauty. I've had some favorite pieces over the years and this is ranking pretty high on that list right now!

 

Want to see what she has become....

 I love it so much!! This piece took a little while to complete but it's so worth it!

First off, if you noticed in the first picture it came with a drawer front that pulls down. It was sitting on top when I bought it so I knew I'd either have to repair it or ditch it.  Ultimately, I chose to ditch it. The wood on the drawer was splitting and the little metal arch pictured below was damaged on the other side and repairing it was beyond my skill set.

But thankfully, each piece of campaign hardware was intact and beautiful! I love how the corner pieces wrap around to the other side!

Removing them is another story! That whole process took a bit of time and those corner pieces were a little tricky since but I managed it! If you're ever working on a piece of furniture with campaign hardware, they tend to come off fairly easily. You just need to use a flat head screwdriver and gently wedge it in there. Then you slowly pry it back until you've loosened the little nail that's holding it in place.

Once that's done, you could then use a pair of needle nose pliers and pull the nail straight out.

There were a lot of little nails to pull out! But it gave me an excuse to use this cute little hand made pottery dish :-)

 After I was all done removing the hardware, it was time to give it a fresh coat of gold metallic spray paint.

And you can't forget the nails!

Next step was filling in the holes left by the now absent drawer front. I actually did this step before I painted the hardware because I had to do a few coats and let it dry before I could sand it smooth.

 It worked like a charm and it kind of looks like it was meant to be this way from the beginning :-)

While the hardware dried, I gave the whole thing a coat of Zinnser Cover Stain Primer.

 Then I did two coats of Valspar Ultra Paint + Primer in White. Since I painted this indoors, I got a low-odor and zero VOC formula and it was perfect!

After letting everything dry overnight (the hardest part by far!!), I put the hardware back on and I was left with this beauty...

It feels so classic...

And I'm so tempted to keep her especially since she fits in so well in with her gold accents!

 

And because I love a good side by side, one last picture...

I did list her on Craigslist but just between you and me, I priced it kind of high because I *think* I want to keep her :-)

 

 Linked up to...

 



My Insta-vacation.

About a month ago, my mom fell and broke her hip. After surgery she was in the hospital for about a week and then spent another week in a rehab facility. She's coming along and walking with a walker but has a long recovery ahead of her. She's trying to stay positive and focus on all the things she can do, but it's been hard for her. And it's been a crazy time for my sis who is the only sibling living in Oregon near my mom. So as soon as I was able, I flew up to Portland to see my mom and give my sis a little relief from all of the caregiver responsibilities. It's pretty exhausting trying to manage her own family, work, and taking care of my mom, so I was happy to fly up to offer an extra pair of hands.

 I happily traveled down my favorite road in Hillsboro... 

 And spent time with my sweet and stylish little nephew...

I also decided to help my sister with a mini-living room makeover. It started when my sis mentioned how she would love to buy a new sofa. We talked about sectionals and a possible budget and she was set on selling some stuff to raise the money. But around 1am that night, I was doing what I do (searching my Craigslist app) and found this guy listed in a neighboring town and figured it would be the perfect starting point for the room makeover!

 It was WAY under her budget, in fact, it was FREE!!!! That's right. A giant sectional for free!

I still can't believe it! But the family getting rid of it was downsizing to a house that only had a living room vs a living room and a family so the extra sofa needed to go! It has a little damage from a cat that clawed the upholstery and with a cat, comes a little cat hair. But we patched up the damage and vacuumed and lint rolled like crazy, and the sofa was as good as new!!

With the new big sofa, I figured the room needed something substantial on the walls. The easiest and most inexpensive option was to gather a bunch of my sister's frames, spray paint them white and hang a new gallery wall. The whole thing cost about $6 for two cans of spray paint!

By the way, that's my mom in her senior class picture in the upper left corner. Isn't she beautiful?

 

Floor plan.

Like a lot of folks, I'm pretty much obsessed with House Hunters on HGTV. Not only do I love getting to peek into the interiors of home all across the country, but I love to see how much they cost!  Last week, I caught an episode based in Ann Arbor and the girl was looking at the cutest places that were priced under $200,000!

Like this 3 bedroom house listed for just $170,000!

Adorable!

 

Anyway, I bring up house hunting because I'm feeling bored with my place and whenever I get bored, I do one of two things.  I start thinking of buying something or about major redecorating. Of course, living in Southern California and being a fan of Dave Ramsey, I know that I am not ready to buy a place of my own.  I'm working the baby steps (I've moved on to Step 3 - woo hoo!) and his advice and guidance has changed my life and perspective on finances in ways I can't even describe!

 

Not only does Dave have his recommendations for home buying (having a 3-6 month emergency fund, at least 10% down, and a 15 year fixed mortgage with a payment no more than 25% of your take home pay)...I find that I really want adhere to those guidelines! So for now, I'm saving my pennies and trying to stay content with renting!

 

So if buying a new house is off the table (for now), that leaves me with redecorating! Which, of course, I love to do!

 

I've already been changing up small things like my bathroom and the color scheme of my bedroom, but the last few days I've been thinking of switching rooms. Again.

 

I know I've tried to explain this before but I think it's a little hard to imagine, so I have a floor plan for you today!

 

Here's my first attempt at using the free floor planning services over at www.floorplanner.com. I think it turned out pretty well even though nothing was actually measured :-)

 

So as you can see, I basically have two main rooms. My entire place is only 425 square but thankfully I have high ceilings and doors, and doorway (there's only one!) so it feels way bigger than it actually is!

  

So, hopefully now it'll make some sense when I say that my bedroom is now my living room and my living room is now my bedroom. Because I think that's going to be happening sometime in the next week or so! You can take a look back at the last time I made the switch here and here.

Until next time!

Bathroom update.

There are pretty much three things that have stayed the same since I moved into my little place two years ago. The kitchen, my gallery wall, and my bathroom.

 

The kitchen and gallery wall aren't going anywhere, so that leaves the bathroom! And it was time.

 

I was in a very simplistic phase back when I tackled the bathroom.  I opted for a classic white shower curtain paired that with some gray towels and a purple bath mat, and the bathroom was done!

During an impromptu visit to IKEA on Mother's Day, I ended up buying a few new things to spruce up my place. One of those things was a new shower curtain! It's amazing what $14.99 can do to transform the feel of a room!

Goodbye white and simple...hello Akerkulla!!

It really couldn't be any more different than my white curtain and I love it!!  

 I changed up the basket that sits on top of the toilet, too. I added a little white tray, a flower and some perfume. I don't wear perfume on a daily basis, but that might be because it's tucked away out of sight. Now it's right there while I get ready and easy to spritz on before I head to work :-)

 Oh and here's an angle I don't think I've ever shared. My bathroom is set right off of the living room, so if I'm sitting on the sofa and look to my left, there it is!

 I really like the pop of color and ever since I've changed the shower curtain, I've found myself looking to the left and smiling!

 

And just for kicks, here's a before and after! I don't know if I'll be able to live with this shower curtain for two years (like I did with the white) but at $14.99 it's a super inexpensive way to change things up!

Until next time...

 

Cute & Coral.

Hey everyone...I managed to finish up the first of my 3 recent furniture finds and wanted to quickly share it!

 

I chose to do the smallest and easiest piece first.

 

Here's the before....

 A little dirty and pretty beat up but tons of potential.

 

And here's the after...

I really love the shape of this table and the cute little rack on the bottom. So charming and fun! I would have loved to keep it, but decided to sell it since I'm leaning toward keeping the campaign one I got from Habitat.

 

So thanks to Craigslist, it's now living with it's new family somewhere in Burbank :-) 

 

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend.

 

Tables, tables, tables.

I've gone several months without any real furniture projects and all of a sudden I have three and "I'm so excited!! I'm so excited!! I'm so...so...so scared!" Can anyone name that line? You'll get a big round of applause as your prize!

 

Back to the tables! The first one is this little entry table I found on Craigslist! It has cute lines and is from Bombay & Co. Some guy was moving and just needed to get rid of it!

The 2nd is this little side table (it's smaller than the one above) that I found when I went with a friend to pick up a bench she was buying off of Craigslist from this junkyard type place. This little guy was tucked behind and under some boxes but the color caught my eye! I love the legs and the details at the bottom and for $15 I couldn't pass it up!

And finally the last one is this Campaign style table (?) I found at the Habitat ReStore yesterday. It was marked for $30 but I got to them lower it to $20 since it has been there awhile and it has a busted drawer front. I'm not sure if I'll be able to salvage it though...it's kind of a lever system where it pulls open and out. I'll give it a shot but it might just become an open shelf :-)

 I think they have all have such great possibility!! I have some color ideas floating around (especially on that campaign one) but would love to hear what you think!

 

Navy and Gold.

As I showed you through the progression of my bedroom, I like change. The most recent change has been slowly transistioning the color scheme of my bedroom from coral as seen here....

  

to navy and gold as seen here....

As you can tell, the things that get changed the most are my uber-adaptable headboard ($20 frame from the Habitat Re-Store and lamps I picked up at yard sale for $10.) I can easily change those with some new fabric and can of spray paint! So easy....and I always love the fresh new look.

 

The next on the navy and gold conversion list were this pair of frames that I turned into a earring and necklace holder. They've been coral and aqua for a while now (I loved how the aqua complimented my dresser in the background!) Oh boy...does that mean that dresser is next?? Hmmm...maybe.

This one color shift took me less than hour (I did it on my lunch break.) I started by removing the jewelry (obvs!), the foam board and screen and then took the frames outside to spray them navy. I battled a little bit of wind and ended up with a bunch of navy paint on my fingers and completely ruined my cute nails (I should have known better...oh well!) Lesson learned...I'll wear gloves next time.  

 

I then recovered the cork board with new fabric I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

The next step was putting everything back together! Someone had asked me once what the back of the earring frame looks like...so here's a look at that. I just taped the screen to the original matting that came with the frame - which I painted metallic gold in this latest update. It's not pretty, but it works!

So once everything was all dry and put back together, I had a whole new jewelry corner!

It was such an easy transformation and I just love how it finally goes with the rest of my bedroom!

Here's a shot that gives you a better of idea of where that little wall is located. It's right next to my closet - my only closet I might add!

Small space living has it's perks, but lack of storage is not one of them :-)

I'll have more closets someday, but until that day comes, I'll be grateful that I'm blessed with one at all.

 

Until next time...