Quirky, Comfy, Eclectic Living Room [Decorating the Dream Apartment]

Recently, I have decided that next semester I will be taking time off of school, and time on in real life. I've come to a convenient time in my academic career to do so, as I will graduate at the same time regardless of whether I take classes this semester or not. Any opportunity to learn outside of the lecture hall, I'll take. For the first time in my life I have the opportunity to get out, to go somewhere far away, live alone, and learn about myself. After a long discussion with my Mother, she said "you want to run away".  My response was "Yes." I am running away, and I couldn't be more excited for my adventure.

A part of this journey involves living alone for the first time! With that comes so many amazing opportunities. What's more exciting than having your own apartment? Being able to decorate it. Duh. ;)

Realistically, I'll be working with a budget of like $50. But screw it. I wanna dream. My dream starts with an amazing Black and White print from www.invaluable.com, an online auction website. They've got tons of great paintings and prints for a fraction of the price you'd find elsewhere. Bid away.

The "Interpreter" Poster and Black and White print would serve as the focal pieces in a small gallery wall. Of course, I'll be renting; so break out those Command Strips! Honestly, after living in 3 dorms within the last year and a half, I swear by them.

The Chair and Couch are both from the awesome site www.joybird.com

Want a custom piece of furniture?! You can select nearly any color you would like for the upholstery, including leather. AND you can select the stain on for the legs/frame! I'm in love. No, I'm not sponsored by them. [But I wouldn't be opposed.] 

Add a few other midcentury pieces, an awesome Moravian star [Have you seen the one I made yet?! Click here], some comfy pillows, a colorful rug, and you've got yourself a Pretty Little room.

Lets just say I wouldn't be opposed to a Wayfair sponsorship, either. I mean, this rug?!?!

Take in the Gorgeousness. TAKE IT IN.

Thank you. 

Sources

Chair

Rug

Moravian Star

B&W Print

Lamp

"Interpreter" Print

Couch

Throw Pillows

Coffee Table

Don't forget to subscribe. It's fun, I promise

♥

(#TBT) Power Tools are a Girl's Best Friend

Happy Throwback Thursday! Today, we're throwing it back to my first (and only, really) interior design project. This is the basement bathroom of my parent's home. 

The room was completely DIYed, but I never broke down the projects into their own posts.

I'll be re-visiting a project or two from the room over the next few months.

The vanity has quite a story of it's own. When I began designing the bathroom, I was set on using a dining room table as the vanity. I had even chopped the table in half, and cut the hole out for the sink.

As time went on, I fell out of love with the table. I didn't feel like it was the right height or style anymore. The idea of using a dresser was born. Let's just say it took a while. About a year, maybe? I'm kinda a procrastinator, and I wasn't going to settle for anything short of perfect. 

Eventually, my mom gave me an ultimatum. If you can't find a dresser in two weeks, you have to use the table. Well, day 14 came. I'd pretty much given up hope, but decided to stop by Goodwill one last time. And there it was. In all it's [perfect height, depth, and width] glory! The price tag? $25.

AHHH! I screamed! &*$@# FINALLY! Huzzah! Take that, mother. (JK, she's pretty awesome.)

Enter the power tools. Turning a dresser into a vanity isn't too complicated.
You can see a full tutorial over at DIY Network.

It mostly involves cutting out room for the sink and plumbing parts.
Sadly, this leaves most of the drawers pretty unusable.

A few coats of polyurethane later, and much assistance in the plumbing department, it was completely installed and operational!

Be sure to subscribe for a new #TBT next week! 

♥

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Hiding Behind a Sheet & Splattered in Paint? Dart/Balloon Art DIY!

Growing up, my all time favorite movie was The Princess Diaries.
The movie came out when I was 6 years old.
When I first saw it, I was majorly in the middle of my princess phase. Still holding out hope that I'm royal.

Anyways. Remember this scene?! Bucket list worthy.

Well, I decided to start ticking things off of that list!

I fell in love with the following balloon painting:

Source: My Good Morning

This is definitely a different style than the movie, and I plan on eventually making both styles.

Ok, let's get started! 

Gather the following supplies:

[I really using suggest all of these. Hint: I didn't]

-A canvas

-Tons of drop clothes 

-Lots of coordinating paint colors

-Lots of balloons (I used about 16, but suggest more)

-Darts

-Pins
- Metal Key Ring (optional)

I cut down costs by DIY-ing my own canvas. I simply put two layers of indoor wall paint on an inexpensive piece of cotton fabric. After it dried, I stretched and stapled it to a thrifted bulletin board. Not perfect, but hey! It's going to be covered in splattered paint anyways!

Next is the setup. This involved lots of sheets/ drop-cloths around my workshop to cover things that couldn't get paint on them. Even if things are far away, don't take the risk. Paint flies, people!

BUT if you do it outside, you really only need one underneath.

Outdoors wasn't an option for me at this time, but I feel like that'd be much better! Splatter prevention and all.. hehe. 

 The next step is to fill your balloons with paint. 

First, blow up your balloons a bit to stretch them out before filling with paint. 

Here is where the key ring comes into use. 

This created a bigger hole, and helped prevent paint ingestion... 

OOOO. They paint in the balloon looked pretty cool in person...

Experiment with a variety of color combinations, amounts of paint, and amount of air in the balloons.

Then, randomly arrange your balloons and pin them to your canvas.

Then comes the fun part!!

Confession time. I didn't actually use darts. I couldn't find any, and was too lazy/cheap to go buy some.

I first attempted a Macgyver dart, made with a pencil, eraser, and pin.

I don't think it was exactly heavy enough or something. It kinda just bounced off of the balloons.

 After chucking 3 random pointy things at the canvas (my mother's suggestions!), I gave up.

SO! Solution time! 

Macgyver dart was back, but not really as a dart. Prepare to be splattered, people!

This involved a bit of hiding behind the drop cloth. Didn't do much in the splatter avoidance.

After all the balloons were popped, I did a little splattering to add a bit more color.

Splatter avoidance? Eh, I tried.

After a little finger painting, it was perfect!

Macgyver dart was preeeetty afterwards :D

And so were my hands.

TADA! Finished piece.

I apologize for the lack of nice staged photos. They'll be coming eventually!

This thing was still wet when I drove back to school.

Overall, NEXT TIME, we're going HAM.
More balloons, more paint, more like The Princess Diaries, and actual darts!

♥

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Anthropologie Leather Lasse Chair Knock-Off [DIY]

 Anthropologie is kinda the bomb. I have an unnatural obsession with browsing through their furniture. When I came across this particular chair, I fell in love! The green leather and the midcentury modern lines made my heart sing.

I stopped by my local Habitat for Humanity Restore to pick up a chair with similar lines to the original. See it tucked in at the beginning of the second row? Potential! Ugly beyond belief, but potential..

My store always has a large selection of chairs, and I picked this one up for just $2.

I took the chair from dumpster worthy, to living room ready with the help of a jigsaw, drill, and electric sander. First off, I had to change the shape of the frame. After removing both of the cushions, I tackled the legs.

First, I chopped off the part connecting the front and back legs that ran along the floor.

I also used a jigsaw to taper them.

After some quality time with my sander, the legs were completely transformed!

The back of the chair was rounded, and I needed it to be straight across. Once again to the jigsaw. The curve was cut off of the back and screwed into the front to square off that side as well. 

Last step: arms. Screw on a simple 1x4 and voila!

After that, it was ready to be upholstered. I stopped by my favorite fabric store to pick up materials. I actually did a post just on that store! Fabric for miles, people. Check it out. It's amazing.

I matched the green leather, and found black and white 

chevron fabric for the cushions.

So, once the frame was done, I covered it with batting and was ready to upholster.

Then the upholstering began. This being the second chair I've ever upholstered, I am not going to do a tutorial. I really had no clue what I was doing.

With the price of fabric and foam coming out to $82, the total was $98! That total includes $2 for the chair, $12 for upholstery tacks, and a $2 board that was used on the arms! A far cry from the original, which rings in at nearly $1,500!

♥

Let's go shopping! On Craigslist that it. And a Designy-Life update.

Good morning, lovelies! This post is brought to you by sleep deprivation and a need for entertainment.
First things first.  Some very exciting things have been happening to me lately!

Behold!!

Um, hellooo!!! What?! Super exciting for me! 

Did you see it? Check out the post here!

I always put nice comments as my computer wallpaper for a while, so thank you everybody! You may just have earned the spot! [Just like I did when Mandi Gubler visited my blog!]

 [Note the tabs I have open in this screenshot. Um, yup. I'm a geek]

On to another life update. College.

The last semester was crazy and all ended with the decision to transfer universities and switch majors. I've decided to major in Housing Studies instead of Interior Design, to eventually reach my goal of being a realtor and renovating houses & historical properties. My old university will be dearly missed, but it's all for the best. 

Oh yeah. And today, by blog views just passed 10,000! That's so crazy! Thank you, everyone!

Ok, back to Craigslist.

Whenever I have no money or space for new furniture, I turn to craigslist. Cheaper and easier than actually shopping, and less likely to result in another piece of furniture shoved in my bedroom! (Seriously. I was home this weekend and attempted to clean it? I have two headboards, a papasan chair,  two wingback type chairs, lockers, two matching nightstands waiting for a makeover, two desks, about 3 bookshelves and a crazy huge plywood thing that started it's existence as a dollhouse. Oh, and I just got rid of a couch from my old dorm room. Then there was the $20 couch from about a year ago? My mother made me get rid of that. It was vintage adorable. But she was right, I have absolutely no space for it. And that's just what is in my bedroom. I've gone through so much furniture. Have I ever mentioned how many beds I have had in my lifetime? 8. yup. (bed, other bed, bunk, loft, other bed again, other other bed, plywood things, current pickle bucket arrangement.)

My mother likes to joke that I could furnish an entire apartment by myself. And, yeah. Pretty sure I could. Whoa! Coffee induced ramblings! Let's get to this!

The first post that caught my eye. Really?! 

Okay. I'll admit it. If I saw this for $5 in Goodwill, it would painted some crazy color and sitting in my room. It's a goat! What?! 

This next one shows one of my biggest pet peeves. So, you're selling a table? Because I cannot see the table? Understand my problem with this picture?

Oh. My. Gosh.

Gorgeous. I really need a house, right now, to buy these for. And for $50? That's not bad, right!?

*drool*

I would go for these, if they weren't quite $30 per locker. I'd really sell them per unit. Plus, I have a set of four lockers sitting in my garage that I bought 2 years ago and never did anything with.

[Well? I attempted to scrape the layers of paint off with paint remover, but gave up pretty quickly.

 You have to look pretty closely to find the gem in this one. See the wicker headboard peeking out from behind the wooden one? I actually visited this store, and it was gone already. Darn it.

 Here is an interesting couch! I feel like someone could make this work in the right space. All white room with red, purple or green accents? Hmm!

 The next two are gorgeous midcentury modern pieces. I would never pay nearly $600 for a dresser, but I think the right buyer may come along for it.  

But honestly? Would anyone, rich or poor, pay $2500 for a desk? I sure hope not. This is Craigslist, people. Honestly.

And that is where I leave you! Go off and find interesting things of your own!

♥