The First "Before"

While going through some old emails, I stumbled upon the photos I took when first viewing my current apartment. When my roommates and I saw this apartment we knew it was the one for us, but clearly we had an imagination. We saw how great this apartment could be, even if it looked pretty bad at that time.

How bad was it? Well each wall was painted a different pastel color, the floors in the kitchen were ancient peeling linoleum, and every surface was just about as dirty as imaginable. The landlord agreed to put in a new floor in the kitchen before we moved in,  and paint everything back to white. Things did look a lot better when we moved in, but it was still pretty dirty, and needed some cheerful updates.

I thought you guys might want to see a couple of these before shots next to how the rooms look now...
Lots of pictures, so come check them out behind the cut:

Of curtains and chairs, and function over form

Have you seen these curtains from ikea?

ikea stockholm blad panels

I can't help but think these would look pretty nice in my living room, replacing the solid colored gold panels there currently. I am hesitant only because of the not so nice $60 per pair price tag, so for now I am looking for similar cheaper alternatives. I love the idea of something patterned, though.

A Few Recent Additions To My Kitchen, Plus-- A Tea Kettle Dilemma

The print I ordered from Etsy arrived recently, which I framed and hung on that empty wall above the kitchen table.

I love it even more than I thought I would! Check out the print I ordered, and the etsy shop I bought it from here.

I took the above picture the night it arrived. I had been stashing a frame I picked up from goodwill in anticipation of its arrival, so as soon as I saw that cardboard poster tube on my doorstep I framed it and hung it right away. I waited to post this until I had a chance to rephotograph it in proper sunlight. Sadly our kitchen doesn't get that much sun even on bright days, since it is in the back of the apartment, facing another part of the building. I always hope for bright sunny pictures in the kitchen, like I get in my bedroom. Another room that does get that kind of beautiful streaming bright sunshine, however, is the pantry.

Look What I Found

A while ago this caught my eye (and the eyes of quite a few bloggers and decor magazines I read):

I have seen it for sale at urban outfitters and around the internet including Amazon.com from $120-$140. The first time I saw it I swooned a bit, I admit I have a thing for birds and owls in decor (just like everyone else it seems, put a bird on it!), They are sort of all over my room.Especially in white ceramic forms.

Well, look what I found today at TJmax on clearance for $16.99?

quite a resemblance, right?



I think he fits right in, though I am contemplating if the branches look too much like weird spiky hair coming out of his head, what do you think?

A small change

In my last post about my kitchen I mentioned this little problem area:

Somehow clear glass does not do a good job of hiding the microwave/cord disaster ugliness. Who knew?

I have been planning a pretty clever hack to cover up the cord area entirely, but since I probably won't get to that project until things warm up a bit (can't use my claimed workshop space - the alley behind our building- when it is holding several feet of snow) I thought I would try and use things I had on hand to better distract from the things I dislike in that corner. I used a placemat from a set a friend gave me at Christmas, a book end I had in my bedroom, and a few of my favorite thrift store collected cookbooks.

Now the area looks like this:

 You can still see the cords, but only if you are looking straight on, which involves standing right in front of the pantry door. Otherwise, it looks like this:

I think it's an improvement. And I actually love how the red book covers pop against that blue. Unfortunately I can't really make the microwave stop looking...microwave-y. Oh well. Now it has pretty vintage cookbooks on it, what's wrong with that?

Oh, and if you are wondering what happened to our growing wine cork collection, I simply moved it across the room to sit on top of the wire cart near the window. I'll post a pic soon once a few other little things come together.

My (blue!) kitchen

So the kitchen paint job is done, and I really like it. It makes the kitchen feel really different, and I am happy to finally *like* my kitchen (especially after the orange chevron disaster of 2010). I have even been happily cleaning up everyone else's dishes and etc just to keep it looking shiny and clean and cheerful. Here a few pics, still a bit of work to do, including getting some art work up (*check out some updates on the kitchen artwork situation here and here!), and dealing with the icky microwave area (more on that in a bit).

 I took this picture standing on the counter so that I could get in both the blue wall/kitchen table corner, and the cabinets/sink area. If only I had a wide-angle lens, or a bigger kitchen, might not have to resort to such antics.  I am in love with the curtains still, they were a cotton shower curtain from target, which I simply cut and hemmed into two panels, then hung using cute little curtain clips instead of shower curtain rings. I also reorganized the wire cart that holds our toaster oven next to the window, which I feel made a big difference, now the wood top is empty, and everything else that used to live scattered in there is stored in baskets below. I love how clean things are right now. It can be hard to keep things orderly when you live with 4 roommates.

changing and rearranging

There have been a few changes at my apartment in recent weeks, and I thought I would share.


We moved around the furniture a bit in the living room to create a workspace right under the window. The new arrangement also encourages conversation by having the seating a bit closer and more intimate. I also got a rug after pondering options here (you can also see the old arrangement at that link). Now the room looks like this:

 And here is a close up of the rug I went with:

The dresser conversion in the foyer is on hold at the moment, though it hopefully will be done next weekend. In the meantime our foyer looks like this:

The biggest change, however, is in the kitchen. It is getting a heavy dose of cheery colors and whimsy.

Though I pretty recently made some changes to the kitchen here, I ended up feeling really unhappy with the result. I tried to live with it for a bit to see if it would grow on me, but you know what? It didn't! At all. if anything, I started to like it less and less, and started imagining new ways I could fix what I had done. Hope this works, I like it a lot better already, and can't wait to find some fun, poppy art work for that empty wall to pull it all together!

I'll post a few more shots once the project is done. Right now a lot of the kitchen looks a bit unfinished...

A few small projects in the bedroom

I did a couple quick projects in my room this past weekend, some simple things to help me feel organized. First, I made some changes to my ikea Aneboda wardrobe. You know the kind, with the corrugated plastic that is translucent, so you can see whatever mess the thing is meant to hide. I used a roll of soft blue contact paper, and some decorative drawer pulls to change its appearance a bit. I am still debating adding some decorative moulding around the crown to give it a more feminine look that matches better with the pulls. I also have a second more modern pair of pulls I may use instead. I am going to give it time.

Before: (ikea stock photo)

 

After: 

(poorly lit bedroom photo...does that red suitcase peeking out bother you as much as it does me?)

I also made the insides of the doors into functional space. I adhered cork board to the inside of the left door, and a jewlery organizer on the other side. The jewelery holder has clear compartments just the right size for storing hair clips and elastics and earrings and things, many of which had previously lived jumbled in a bowl on my bookshelf. The organizer will have to be cut down a bit and re-hemmed eventually, as it is a tad bigger than the door.

In which I go even more insane than that other time.

Remember that time crazy Hannah covered the refrigerator in patterned contact paper? Well I think I one-upped myself.

If you are thinking this looks familiar, it probably does. I posted about this project in mid-November right after its completion, but soon felt so embarrassed by the grainy dark pictures and took down the post. Anyway, want to see the crazy orange chevron wall in my kitchen? I think it is fun. And since I love to cook and experiment in the kitchen, it is definitely a place I like to have fun, so why shouldn't the space itself be fun?

Want to see a bit of the process?

First I taped out the pattern I wanted. I may have been a bit drunk when I started this. That would at least explain that weird gap of a few inches along the left wall.

The next step was painting white paint over the tape to seal any spaces where paint could bleed through with the existing wall color. My friend Gabby helped me out with this (if there is one tip I have when it comes to painting projects...invite some friends to help! We had so much fun!)

Then, up went the orange (we had ran out of the exact orange used on that rail, so we had to mix some up to match) Gabby and Sophie helped, as we hummed along to Janis Joplin and ate cupcakes and had a generally pretty awesome time.

 

After 2 coats of paint, the tape came down. Relatively cleanly, even. Though there were a few spots that were less than perfect.

Boo, peeling. Hopefully no one will notice!

 

The Bike in the Bedroom

Firstly, doesn't that title sound like it should be the name of an episode of  Bones? No?

When I first moved into my apartment a year ago, my bedroom was the first place I decorated. In fact, I hung the curtains and artwork, and arranged vases and decorative items more than a week before I had a chance to move most of my furniture in there. After bringing in my belongings from my previous apartment, it took me all of two days to completely unpack. I wanted it to feel settled and homey, no boxes, no big blank walls.

I thought and planned out the room a lot ahead of time, picking a color scheme I thought could make the must-be-left-white walls look purposeful, incorporated into the room. So I wanted something calm and soothing. I picked a color palate of stone blue, chocolate brown and pure white. I scoured marshalls, TJ maxx and my favorite thrift stores for items that fit this theme.

At first I loved how well everything fit together. After a few months, however, I started to feel trapped by the matching-ness of it all. I felt walking into the room like it screamed "Hello, I have a color theme!!!" Recently I decided I had to find some small changes to make to keep the things I liked about the room, but get rid of some of the matchy-matchy-ness.

So I have been going through and making small changes to the room. New sheer gray curtains replaced the blue set that matched the ones behind the bed, a lavender throw, some new beige pillow cases and  a sage throw pillow I sewed went onto the bed to break up the chocolate quilt.

Also among the things that have changed is a 1972 Phillips bicycle has come into my life. After hours of scouring off rust (by the way, a little white vinegar and some steel wool go a long way) I wasn't enthusiastic about keeping it outside in the elements. This post over at Design*Sponge  inspired me not to worry about creative ways to conceal the bike, but to instead use it at a decor item in the room while it is not out on adventures.

The Search Is On

For a while I have been hoping to find a new living room rug which is cheap, but not as cheap-looking as the one I currently have.

My living room has evolved quite a bit in the past several months, here is a picture of it taken in late July, complete with party decorations:

And, how it looks currently:

changes include replacing the coffee table with the one I refinished here, getting a new couch, and loosing the blue and white couch and papasan chair (one was sold to a friend, one left us when a roommate moved out), and then simply rearranging what was already there (also, clearly the fiesta themed decorations were put away). I think it is looking a lot better already, but I keep wondering what a difference a new rug would make, especially given that the current rug (a $40 target find) sheds every time we vacuum, and is looking pretty scuzzy.


So now I find that I spend a lot of time looking online at rugs. I am hoping for something similar in size or a bit bigger than the one there currently (which is 4'x6'), but not too much larger- hopefully 5X7 or so. Since there is already a bit of the feeling of too much furniture in too small a room, I want to stick with a rug that is toned down, and somewhat neutral. It's also important that its colors work nicely in the room. A few that have caught my eye so far: