Steamer Trunk Sale!!

For my 21st birthday my mom bought me an awesome gift! This antique, authentic steamer trunk complete with travel stickers from different ports!  The inside smelled musty and was an ugly floral pattern, but I loved it!

Isn't it cool??

It sat closed up under 3 other trunks in my bedroom at my parent's house until I moved out.  I left it behind because it was sooo huge and incredibly heavy and I had no idea what to do with it.  I didn't want to get rid of it, but its purpose was still unclear to me.

Then it hit me!

At my parent's, my mom has entire rooms dedicated to crafts and sewing.  But my apartment? Not so much.  So all my supplies were stuffed into a rolling plastic cart.  Not anymore!

I recovered the drawer faces with random fabric that didn't have a home yet.  Then I sprayed the heck outta it with Febreeze!!

Before

After

It now holds all of my arts, crafts, and sewing supplies!!

Just a Bench For 2

I found 2 of these retro side tables at a church garage sale almost 2 years ago for a buck a piece.  I surprisingly managed to fit them both in the bug!

Ugly right??

Well I saw an idea for something like them in a magazine and took it a few steps further.

Put end to end they make a great bench!  The cushion still needs covered (haven't found the right fabric) but after 2 years of prep work, it's mostly finished.

I bought random plates at garage sales and then dropped them on the sidewalk!

I pieced them together, then glued and grouted them to the table tops in a mosaic attempt. 

I cut scrapbook pieces and puzzled them together all along the edges using Mod Podge. (took FOREVER!).  The raw wood edges still need decorative moulding to finish them off but I can't find any I like.  I painted the legs white and stuck them together!

It sits under my huge window in my apartment.

Still a work in progress, kinda ugly in a cool way, but totally me!

A Tailored Look

When Dan first moved in, he needed something to cover the windows in the living room.  Now, given my hatred for miniblinds, I set off to buy him curtain panels.  I unintentionaly started a color scheme of light blue and brown (the walls are light brown).  I bought brown suede curtain panels (full curtains this time, not just toppers) and light blue sheers for behind them.  They hung for months and everytime I looked at them when they were drawn closed, it looked like a big brown blob.  Dan, of course, would have been just fine leaving them as is.  I, however, was unsatisfied.  So the wheels began turning.....

Something needed to happen to the top of the curtains so that they lost that "square brown box" look that I wasn't liking.

I decided on cornace boards.

I found the prettiest/manliest fabric at Joann's and bought 3 yards of it!

I bought a couple 1x12" pine boards and cut them to form a 3-sided box.  I cut quilt batting to size and placed that over the top and wrapped the fabric around it and stapled to the back.

They fit over the curtain rod and give it a more tailored look.  We still haven't figured out how to hang them :)

His front door needed something too because you can see right in from the road. I mean, the guy left his Christmas wreath hanging until late March just to provide privacy! So, I made a curtain to emulate the cornace boards.

I didn't realize when I was picking out the sheer brown fabric that it had "sparkles" on it.  I was told, in no uncertain terms, that the "sparkles" had to face out so that he couldn't see them in the room.  O, silly boys!

More Femininity....don't tell him though ;)

Once the kitchen valances were done, I went on to tackle the spare bedroom. We had painted the room a really bright, really cool blue. He bought an all white down comforter and red sheets....so the theme had started. I found really cool striped curtain panels at Wal-Mart for $15.00 and cut them down to make valances (the man isn't a fan of full curtains!). For the longest time, we never got around to actually hanging them, so the room remained big and blue w/ nothing else.
We went to Home Depot and bought a 6' long white wooden curtain rod and the fancy finials for the ends and brackets to hold it. We cut the rod in half and used it on 2 windows. I installed the brackets, attached the curtains to the rod, and there ya go!

I found inexpensive wide-slat white wooden blinds that would look great in this room...just have to pick them up!

With the leftover pieces of fabric that I cut off to make valances, I was going to make decorative pillows for the bed, but....

....I decided to make a headboard instead!  I bought some 1x2's and built a frame then nailed a sheet of luane to the top.  Then i took the leftover fabric and stretched it over the frame and stapled the heck out of it on the back.  A D-ring picture hanger on each side and 2 hooks in the wall and finished!  It really helped break up some of the BLUE that was in the room.  Plus it looks really good w/ the matching curtain valances! 

Feminine Touches to an Otherwise "Manly" House

Taking a timeout from MY apartment, I started helping my boyfriend Dan "accesorize" his new house.  We painted all the rooms back before he even moved in, but after that we kinda stopped updating anything.  So I wanted to put up some kind of window treatments in the kitchen for starters. He was hesitant "curtains in the kitchen??" but I easily convinced him when he saw what the fabric was!

I mean, how girly can curtains be when they have beer steins all over them!!  I made small valances for the top of each window and used shower curtain hangers he wasn't using anymore to hang them on the rod.  Simple, easy, fun, and cute (I mean manly).

Finally Made It!

So moving day finally arrived.  I couldn't have picked a worse weekend.  We moved early Saturday morning after the biggest snowstorm of the season.  We measured about 12 inches of snow!  We actually had to dig all the cars out of the driveway before we could even start loading things up.  The drive from my parent's to my apartment took over an hour and a half (normally should have been about 40 minutes) because the roads hadn't been cleared yet from the night before.  But nothing got broken or misplaced and we made it all in one trip.  I've been in the apartment for 2 weeks now, and I gotta admit, you wouldn't know it from looking at the place.  All the boxes are unpacked and all the pictures are on the wall.

Living room set-up w/ kitchen in the background.

Dining room/nook.  I installed the shelf under the window sill because I needed somewhere to put my abundant collection of Coke tins :)  But this is the red and white chrome and porcelain table I had mentioned in a previous post - plus the chrome Coke chair I reupholstered.

Kitchen wall w/ Coke stuff

Quick view of the bathroom (its really small and the vanity/sink is outside).  Love the little metal statue on the back of the toilet :)  My mom got me the old Seventeen magazine from a garage sale a looong time ago.  My bathroom is really girly, so it fit well!

This is a wall in the bedroom above my dresser.  Just kind of a collage of artwork/photos that go w/ the theme and style of my room.

My jampacked Ikea bookshelf in the living room.  I thought Dan was going to have a cow when I put the shelves at uneven intervals (he's the left side to my right side thinking ) but he admitted that it looked good once I filled it w/ my "junk".

More pictures to come of each room as I finish up.

Flower Power II

So these are the curtains I painstakingly painted because I was too anal to just buy curtains like a normal person (see previous curtain post).  I left the middle curtain plain black because I didn't want it to be flower overload.  They are hanging from those handy dandy curtain hooks rather than through a pocket on the rod.  They open and close much easier this way.  I had to cut almost a foot off the bottom because my measuring skills leave a little to be desired, but overall, I'm really happy w/ how the design turned out.