Emily Jones

No-Cost Living Room Redo

 

So, I'm back with another "redo". :)

Ever since we got these vintage chairs, I have been obsessed with rearranging the living room to show them off.. They took a little fixing, okay, A LOT of fixing.  Jim worked very hard to restore them, they are literally vintage, not just vintage looking.  The insides are burlap and horse hair, people.

Once they were sturdy and ready to go in the house, I knew what I wanted to do.  This is once again, A zero cost makeover that was achieved by switching things around and pulling pieces from one place to another.

 

Before:

It was a perfectly nice living room, but too much couch.   The plaid couch was given to us by my parents, and we kept it because it's a hide-a-bed, which can be handy, but eventually we just decided to donate it because it was taking up room and wasn't really our style.

The treadmill that you see next the the couch is now in it's new home, the garage.  We cleaned out the garage and now there is a "man space" office and workout area.  :)

 

After:

Oh how I love the after.

By switching our glass table behind the couch for the Ikea expedit in the dining room, we created a separate living/dining area.  I love how the books are now part of the room.  We are avid readers in this house and the books are a must. 

Don't my vintage chairs look pretty?!  I love them so much.  Eventually we will recover them, but for now the tan corduroy works fine in the space.  The new rug was bought with a Home Depot gift card, so it was technically free.  So even the only new piece added to room was no cost.  And if you notice the new pillows, I made those with fabric and pillow forms I had on hand.

The next thing on the list for this room is paint.  I want to paint the wall that has the couch and mirror a pretty marigold color to match the rug.  Slowly but surely this room will be the yellow+grey+black that I am envisioning.

Once the walls are painted, I of course, will post pictures.

 

Hope you're having a great weekend!

XOXO,

Em

Kitchen Redo For $22.50

Hey all,

So today I thought I'd share with you a fun project that I finished up the other day.

As you can guess by the title of this post, I redid our kitchen for under $23!. 

Now, I am so terrible at taking before shots, and I of course forgot, so here is the closest thing I have to a before..this was taken in April, you might remember it from my Week In The Life series I did.

As you can see, the kitchen was a sea of boring Oak cabinets, no personality whatsoever.  No color.  BOO!  But at least you can enjoy the pic of my super hunky hubby! <3

So here is the AFTER:

When you are on a tight budget but you want to give your kitchen a lift, it can be challenging for sure.  A coat of new paint in a fun color is one of the easiest ways, but is not always practical.

The next best thing, in my opinion, is a great piece of art.  And it doesn't have to be expensive either.  See that guy behind the stove?  I painted that.  I had the canvas in my garage, and the paints I always have on hand...so I grabbed some paint colors that I wanted to bring out in the kitchen and got to work.  It took about 2 hours to paint from start to finish, but I'm very pleased with the end result. :)  It was literally a no cost painting.

Oh, and if you are worrying about the canvas being damaged by stray grease or food splatters..don't!  I sprayed a double coat of clear matte finish over the whole thing, so it can be easily wiped clean!

The canisters on the counter were also no cost.  Remember a couple weeks ago when Jim made me a Cloffice in our bedroom? When I used to scrapbook in the garage, I had all my ribbons sorted by color in the canisters, but alas, there was no room in the cloffice for them.  So they were re-purposed into flour, sugar, and brown sugar jars.  And the tall one with beans was previously just hanging out on our expedit in the dining room.

The rug on the floor is more of a soft mat, and I found it at Target.  It was only $9.99!  The brightly colored dish towels were also at Target.  I got the blue ones for $2.99 and a pack of two striped orange and and one solid orange for $3.99.  What a steal!

A few months ago I was inspired  by this post on Apartment Therapy.  I loved how this smart girl thought to remove the fronts of her cabinets to reveal her cute Fiesta Ware.  What I loved was the fun look of the paper she put in the backs of the shelves, but I was a bit turned off at how busy it looked with every door gone.

After prodding Jim multiple times and making him look at the post, he finally relented and took the doors to the cabinets above the microwave off.  Once they were off it made a HUGE difference in the overall feel of the space.  It took us two days to agree on which papers we wanted in the shelves.  As a scrapbooker, the sheer volume of paper I have is pretty staggering, so we had a lot to choose from.  We both immediately loved the blue, but it took a little convincing to get Jim to like the funkadelic paisley print.  I actually put it in the shelves temporarily for a day and we looked at it and decided it worked.

Once the papers were up, we chose what to display.  One of our Christmas gifts to ourselves was a new set of dishes.  We originally found the 10 piece set of small colorful plates at the Goodwill back in November, and then we decided on the off-white bowls and plates as accents.  The colors of the plates work well with the papers we chose.  Also displayed are my china plates and our Princess House collection of Fantasia Ware.

And I couldn't resist putting my little Gnome in there too.  He is special to me because my super talented Grandma Rose carved him for me.  She is a brilliant wood carver and she has made tons of little guys like these for the 21 grandchildren.  I also have a Santa she made me too. <3

This was Jim's idea...instead of putting an ugly bottle of dish soap on the counter, we used an old syrup jar with a wine cork...much cuter. ;)

Here's a shot from the dining room.  I love this table cloth, not only because it's cute...but I'll tell ya a little secret...it is actually a fabric shower curtain from the Target clearance section, and it was $2.48!  Can't beat that!

So there you have it, a new kitchen for minimal cost but optimal effect! 

Below I broke down the cost, just so you can see how cheap it really was,

 

Total Cost Breakdown:

Canvas and Paint: $0 (already on hand)

Canisters $0 (already on hand)

Paper $0 (already on hand)

Dish Towels $10

Floor Mat $10

Clearance Shower Curtain $2.50

TOTAL COST: $22.50

 

I truly believe in shopping around your home first before buying any new pieces.  I tend to collect little things here and there around the house and when I'm putting together a new space, I'll pull things from other rooms.  It helps with cost but the important thing is to give the pieces you love a home to display them in!

If you've done any new decorating projects lately, leave me a link in the comments, I'd love to check it out!

XOXO,

Em

A Space To Call My Own

Living in a small house, the one thing that constantly goes through your mind is: "Where can I put it?"  It doesn't matter what "IT" is, you are usually hard pressed to find space.

As a scrapbooker, the sheer quantity of supplies I have acquired over the past ten years is staggering.  Jim has always been very supportive of my hobby and in every house that we have lived in, he has helped make sure that I have a place to call my own.  When we moved in, he very graciously let me have the garage, and let me tell you.  I took the garage.  The whole garage.  Jim is a carpenter, and he comes with many many tools and he needs space too, but he let me have the garage.  Such a nice boy. ;)

And it has worked, sort of.

In the summer I would come out to the garage and scrapbook to my hearts content because it often stayed very cool in the heat and it was a nice get away.  But I always felt bad about being segregated from the family.  And then we had an unusually cold fall, and it became freezing in the garage. And I started dragging my stuff into the house to scrap at the dining table.  Which presented a whole slew of new problems, like "Oh, where are we going to eat dinner?"

So the other day I saw this and this at Apartment Therapy and the wheels began turning.

I casually mentioned to Jim that turning a closet into an office was a very cool idea. 

And he got to work.  True to his craft, he wanted to build me something beautiful and polished and stained beautifully, and I just laughed.  I told him, "Babe, I'm going to be painting and sewing and glimmer misting and it's going to get ruined.  I just need something functional."  He saw that I was right (as per usual ;)) And he went out to Home Depot and bought some wood.

This is what the closet looked like before: (Now, I took this picture after we had started pulling stuff out, so just so you know, my closet is actually always very organized. ;) )

Before:

 

Jim cut a desk that spanned the entire length of the closet and added an extra shelf under the pre-existing shelves, and voila!  An office! 

 

After:

You can see that he put up a pegboard and a cork board inside so I can pin up inspiration, and hang up tools and embellishments.

 

I've got all my wood stamps and acrylic stamps on this shelf, to the right of the picture below is a basket of loose acrylic stamps and all the acrylic stamp sets.

I consolidated my button, flowers, and thread and opted for a more compact storage solution..they aren't separated by color anymore, but it's no biggie, at least it all fits!

 

These little jars were Jim's that he gave to me, they are magnet topped and attach to the metal strip.  I've got beads, brads etc.. in them.

This is a pic looking up while sitting at the desk.  You can see I have a lot packed in here!

Under the desk I have a white rolling cart to the right side, it houses ribbon, extra tools and punches.

Under the desk to the left, I've got my Fat Max.  I keep all kinds of stuff in here.  This is the best thing I ever bought for scrapbooking, true story.  It holds so much product and tools and it is so easy to travel with.  I use it all the time.  I got it at Costco a couple months back when it was on sale for $39.99, such a great deal!

 

Oh, and if you're wondering where all the clothes went...we went through all of them and scrutinized what we actually wear and still like and we gave a lot to the Goodwill, and then the remainder went folded into "Under the Bed Boxes" and into the dresser.

So there you have it!  I now have a space to call my own, and I don't have to freeze my batootie off just to scrapbook! I still have some stuff to find room for and I'm planning a big purge soon, but most of all the important stuff is in here!

Jim says he is very excited about the prospect of hanging out and watching movies while I work, this way we're not banished to two different spots in the house when I work!

He's the best husband ever. <3

Best Christmas present ever.

XO

Em

Before and After

Recently I have discovered a love for a new hobby.

Recycling and re-purposing furniture.

I am absolutely obsessed with finding vintage and quirky pieces and making them my own.  My favorite place to find pieces is Craiglslist and this awesome local Thrift Store called Treasure Quest. 

I thought I'd share some of the pieces I've added to our home recently.

 

First was Lily's changing table.  Now that she is potty trained, she really had no use for the chest in her room, it housed diapers and wipes and was now sitting empty. 

The chest was given to us by one of my mom's close friends, her ladies, as she calls them.  It is an antique dresser that had been in her family and she passed it down to us when Lily was born. 

So I had an idea.  I decided to paint it and add crystal knobs.  I loved how it turned out, and put it in the hallway.  It's next to the bathroom and houses extra toilet paper and toiletries. 

 

Another piece we recently did was an entry way/ mudroom system. We've been needing a solution for all the coats, shoes, backpacks, mittens, etc. that come with three kids.  I knew I wanted a mudroom bench and coat rack, but I couldn't find one that was skinny enough to fit on the wall we have in the entry way and I didn't want a huge bulky piece of furniture when you walk in the door either.  So we decided to come up with something on our own. 

We found this reclaimed window at Treasure Quest.   It had the glass panes in it, but after consideration, we decided that our boys would most likely break the glass in it within a day, so we removed the panes.  We painted it a barn red color, which I love, and I distressed it a bit with sand paper.  We added hooks to the top, five hooks, one for each of us.  And voila!  I cute coat rack. 

For the bottom of the wall, I found a mudroom bench with cubby storage at Home Depot.  It's made by Martha Stewart, it only came in white but I really wanted it in black.  I bought some of the "for plastic" Krylon paint and after lots of cuss words and three coats of paint, it actually ended up working.  We use the cubbies for shoes, hats and mittens.

My most recent finds are these chairs. Sorry for the crappy blackberry pic...but you get the idea. ;)

They are vintage Wing-backs, and I have grand visions of recovering them in black and white toile. 

Let me tell you, I love these chairs.

I got an estimate from a local upholsterer about having them redone and he quoted me $525 a chair.  A chair.  Insane.  So I guess I'm going to do the reupholstering myself.  My mom offered to help, and she is the expert on all things sewing related, so hopefully between the two of us they will look great!

 I have one other before and after to share, but it deserves a post of its own, so that will come soon. ;)

If you have a website you love to go to for interior design, share it with me!  I love to peruse Apartment Therapy daily, but I love to find nw inspiration!

 

XO,

Em