Guest Bedroom Lamp Update

The teeny tiny lamp we originally had in the guest bedroom just wasn't doing it anymore. So after a little price shopping I decided it would be much thriftier to use a lamp I already had.

This lamp (along with it's twin) was originally housed in our master bedroom once upon a time when we were apartment dwellers. I don't know what I was thinking buying that lampshade. Shame on me!

After a coat of glossy red paint and a lamp shade I found on clearance at Target, she's a completely different lamp! Viola!

Cost Breakdown:

Lamp Shade = $13

1 can of spray paint = $3

Total Cost = $16 

LINKED TO

Orange You Glad I Painted that Wall

Even before we moved in to this house and long before (well, maybe only a couple of weeks before) we made an offer for this house I knew I wanted to do something spectacular to the TV wall in the living room. All I knew for sure was that I wanted to paint the living room orange. I don't know how many times I must have googled wall design, wall pattern, wall geometric pattern, wall... you get the point... until I finally found this little blog post. I just <3 her foyer!

I used the instructions in that post as a reference, but given that I live with my very own engineer I just let him do all the dirty work (I consider math to be very dirty). Once he had taken measurements, planned everything out on graph paper, and shown me how to use the laser level I set to work on taping off the wall.

Eric had me tape an entire grid and then go back with a box cutter (I didn't own an Xacto knife at the time) to cut out the squares to make the pattern. He said it would be easier this way... yeah, I'm sure it was easier because I was the one doing all the leveling and taping and un-taping and re-taping and marking and cutting and peeling and painting and re-painting and touching-up.

After all the cutting, this is what was left. I actually really liked how the tape looked, but alas I don't think painter's tape matches with the rest of the decor.

After 2 coats of paint I removed the tape and found this little surprise.... EVERYWHERE!!!

The psychotic Virgo in me was determined to take a tiny brush and touch up each and every line on that wall. After a couple of weeks and many paintstaking painstaking hours with the smallest paintbrush on Earth in hand we only managed to touch up about 1/8 of the wall. At that point, we both agreed it would be easier to just keep our guests about two feet away from the wall at all times. We've so far been very successful at preventing wandering eyes from getting to close :)

This is what the wall looked like right after we moved in. Don't mind all the junk everywhere, this was literally the day after we moved in.

And this is what the living room looks like now. I've been scouring Craigslist and thrift stores looking for a relatively short and rather long credenza/sideboard to go along the wall, but so far I haven't found anything worth while that's within my budget. Once we do find one then we'll mount the TV on the wall.

The color used for the accent wall is called Really Russet by Olympic Paints and the color on the rest of the walls is called Golden Sunset from Valspar Signature Colors. In total I probably only used about 1/4 of paint for the accent wall, so I'm sure a quart would have sufficed.

 Cost Breakdown:

2 rolls of painters tape = $18

1 gallon of paint = $14

Total Cost = $32

PARTY, PARTY, PARTY

Featured On:

Dining Room Server Redo

After a long and rather un-fulfilling search for a reasonably priced server/buffet/credenza/sideboard/whatever, I finally found one that fit the bill at the Salvation Army. She wasn't in bad shape, but she wasn't necessarily going to win any beauty pageants like this --- especially with those grimy hinges and hardware.

Given that this was my first ever paint job, I clearly had no clue what I was doing. Please disregard all streak marks :)

Now we have a place to store all our fine china!

Cost Breakdown:

Server = $60

Hardware = $23

2 cans of primer = $10

3 cans of spray paint = $9

Total Cost = $102

If I may say so, I think it's much better than the $250 particleboard hot-mess sideboard I was eyeballing at Ikea. :)

Chair Redo

I bought this chair last Thursday, took it out of my trunk on Sunday, bought the foam cushion for the seat Monday morning, upholstered the seat cushion Monday evening, and spent a big part of Tuesday spray painting it. Here she is from start to finish:

I forgot to take a before pic before I ripped off that horrid floral fabric, so I just draped it over the cushion to take this pic.

I ripped off layer after layer of fabric for a whopping total of four different fabrics! The turquoise colored vinyl-y fabric below was so GROSS!

The cushion consisted of poly fill and some sort of hair-like fill pictured below. It was gross interesting! All those layers of dirty fabric and gro... I mean "interesting" fill left my hands filthy and the floor in need of some serious vacuuming!

And finally here she is after two cans of paint, a new foam cushion, and some red fabric!

Cost Breakdown:

Chair = $6

Foam cushion = $8

1 can of primer = $5

2 cans of spray paint = $6

1 yard of fabric = $1

Total Cost = $26

It didn't turn out that bad for my first time upholstering! Although, in hindsight I probably should have put more thought into cutting and assembling that foam cushion. Maybe next time!