Jewelry Holder

I've been thinking about a new Jewelry hanger for a long time.I've had a lot of inspiration from Pinterest.com that you can see below. If you haven't heard of Pinterest I would strongly suggest exploring, it's a necessary evil as it is so so time consuming but so inspirational and one of my new favorite sites. It is by invite only though, so let me know if you need one and I'll send one over.

 

 

Have you ever made a jewelry holder? Do you have any other ideas?Which one do you like best? I'm thinking that I'll mix and match some of the ideas. 


                              

La fin de la banquette lit

Thank you Google Translator for that very fancy looking way of saying " The end of the bed bench". I've been dying to share this little addition for a while now. As most of you know Brian was off in Alaska for a while and I bought this while he was gone off of Craigslist (for $50!! woot woot) . I wanted to surprise him so that is why I had to wait. Both of us have wanted something like this for a while so I thought this would be a nice little welcome home surprise.

Here she is in all her glory.. OOooooo AHHHhhhhhhh....

I thought it was pretty lucky because it actually matches the curtains quite well. And as you can see it looks pretty different when the light changes. It's not exact, but it goes well and I'm a happy girl. 

Here is a close up of the pattern (again the color looks different) :

Yippie! Welcome home you very-useful-to-collect-our-clothes bench! We love you so much and you're the perfect little addition. Bisous. 

Look Ma' No hands!

Don't be confused, I did use my hands for this project, but I did it all by myself and consider this a nice little milestone for myself. Usually I have a partner in crime when fixing up the place but this time I rolled up my sleeves and made the move, I even used a drill! Unsupervised! Thanks to my good friend Janine, she's a DIY guru and heck, if shes not scared I won't be either!!!

I really made myself laugh during this project. Not only was it my first project alone (It was just installing a curtain rod/ curtain) , but it was also late in the afternoon and we had been working hard on the house all morning. My first mistake was drilling the holes. The curtain  rod package (which I got from Target) came with 4 rod holders that you drill into the wall and 1 extra long rod. Due to lack of thorough planning, I proudly installed the 4 holders equidistant across the window. SO PROUD! and feeling so awesome cause the whole drill thing.

After bragging to Brian, I put the two curtain panels on the rod and as  I went to put them up I realized that I couldn't put the curtain up with the 4 holders placed as they were. What I really needed to do is put one on each end and one in the middle so the curtain could slide between each holder. Before the curtain (not the rod) was sitting on top of the holder.  Ugh. Curtain: 1 Kristen: 0 

So I unscrewed and screwed again.(Ha!) and was back to the proud thing. Which leads me to my next mistake. The actual curtains. When I put them up, one was shorter than the other!!! UGH ! Curtain: 2 Kristen: 0

This is what the first curtains looked like with that awful awful paint color too, which we switched up, you can see it here .

Maroon velvet with yellow/black walls? How does anyone get rest in a room like that?

 So here you can see where it all went wrong (mind the ladder):

The curtains I used were Blackout curtains from Target. The sunrise comes right through the window above our bed. They were super affordable and while they're not the best color or material (it's kind of stiff and tarp-feeling), I figure I can always sew on a better fabric or ask my super talented mom do it. (She is currently making me some pillow cases that are SO CUTE, can't wait to share with you)


And here is what it looks like after a trip back to Target and some re-drilling *sigh* :

This place is really coming along huh? TI don't love the curtain color but they certainly work out  well and make for perfect lighting in the morning with the two side windows. I've debated putting another curtain to the left of the fireplace but I really love looking at that tree first thing when I wake up. There is another house that sits just a few yards beyond and for a while we could see right into the house. bummer. BUT then they put up the curtains instead of us. perfect. I don't even really want to know what their motive for that one was. Let's just say I've been less than cautious about the fact they can see in our place too. Oops.

Mirror Makeover

Slowly but surely I am erasing the periwinkle blue of my childhood. Today is was the mirror, some other time will be the dressers...

I knew right when we painted our bedroom the "escape" color by Sherwin Williams (you can see it here) that I wanted an Aged Bronze color for the mirror. With a million other things to do around the house, I hadn't really made it a priority. However, since we have yet to get a couch or any other comfortable seating (besides my yoga ball chair :) ) I find I spend a lot of the time in the bedroom because it's the only comfortable place in the house! There's nothing like fluffy comfy time after work. Oh how I dream of couches, hammocks, pillows, the car, a restaurant booth... anything. So with that in mind, I decided to really focus on the bedroom and get those minor things done. So to start my 3 day 4th of July weekend I started and finished my mirror. Yippie!

The Product. I got this at A.C. Moore, which is essentially a version of Hobby Lobby. I could have gone somewhere with more choices (Home Depot, Lowes etc) but I had a coupon, and well that usually is the deciding factor

Before:

Here is before (with blue tape):
 

In progress, I recycled shopping bags and covered it up, making sure there were no gaps. I used an old sheet to cover our "patio" aka roof (it's an awkward relationship, I'll share more later):

After a few coats:

And Ta-Da!:

Bye Bye Blue!So much better! I really love the color and an scoping out other items in the house to spray paint next. Maybe a small table that's in progress... maybe a lamp.. maybe the bathtub... you think I'm crazy but I am really considering it. I'll share more on that later.

Our bedroom is really coming together huh? It's my favorite room in the house and I can't wait to share the new furniture and other additions. Stay tuned.

Le Kitchen

Besides the bedroom, the kitchen was on the "must paint" list before we moved in. While I didn't mind the original color of the walls, Brian hated them. They're kind of like a 50's teal color, like the dress of a 50's diner waitress or something. As I mentioned in our bedroom paint post, we bought the paint at Sherwin-Williams at $50 for two gallons! Surprisingly we settled on a fairly similar teal color to the original color called "Lakeshore" but it gives a totally different vibe. Instead of "we're out of spinach pie" vibe, we now have "let me make you a Tiramisu and in my creative kitchen" feel. Or at least that is how we feel when we enter the room. (I have yet to make a Tiramisu, but it will be done and shared right here - virtually that is!)

I guess I'll mention how big of a change this place is from our last. Our last apartment was brand new with plush carpet, a brand new kitchen with granite counter tops and mahogany cabinets, tons TONS of space...  *sigh*...So while the kitchen is about half the size and a lot more work (cleaning, storing etc..) we do have a lot more space throughout the rest of the house which makes up for it. It's also nice to pay a little less rent and be close to downtown. So Besides the moments when I see spiders, cockroaches and I about s*** myself, and this kitchen, we're very happy with the place and hope that we can fix it up enough to stay here for a couple of years. :) Oh and we also get to practice for our real house someday.

Brian killing a cockroach.. My hero...Yes that's a curtain rod.

More before... (psst...the fridge is not back all the way, the space is not normally this small,only by a little bit)

Look at that totally awesome fruit printed liner too! Oh and can you see that "smoke alarm" hanging on the wall- to the right? It's hung by a nail, how nice. Makes me laugh.

And that counter top there, it's the same tile that's on the floor... I'm not sure how I feel about that because it's better than other tan counters behind you, but it's just the concept. weird.

Here are some after...

I took out that fruit liner, it was just way too old fashioned, and i lined it with some new white contact liner. Much better. Now if I could only reach the cabinets... At a whopping 5'2" I mostly just throw things into their place. Or use my handy dandy step stool that my dad bought me :) Always looking out for me!

Okay so I know what you're thinking. It's not that different right? But you see what I mean about the general feel of the room? a little more cozy, a little more likely there is something yummy baking in the oven, more hangout-able...and a little less I just poisoned your cookies... ok a little far, but you get the point. What do you think about the blue/turquoise? are we crazy? are you scared to eat my cookies now?