Friday, June 6, 2014

DIY weekend.

With Brian in Arizona for a funeral until Tuesday, I figure it's the perfect time to get crackin' on some apartment-improvement projects I've had sitting around on my Pinterest boards. I don't put much stock in my creativity (my handwriting is like a third grade boy's), or even my ability to follow "simple" instructions from a DIY blog. After much sifting through sites, I've decided to try these three projects. We'll start with the most difficult:
Project 1: Fabric Wall Patterns
I'm pretty tired of renting an apartment where the go-to paint color is white, off white, light brown, etc. I'm all about neutrals, but when the wall is off white and the carpet is brown... I need a little somethin' more. The original picture that sparked my interest looked like this:
So cute, right! All you have to do is get fabric, cut out the shape you want, soak it in liquid starch, and put it on your wall. It comes off with water. Brilliant! (The blog I got this picture from didn't actually do this...they got the picture from another place, and even there I can't find the picture. I think it would be impossible to cut all those little shapes out of fabric and then starch them onto the wall just right.) So I'm doing navy blue circles as an accent wall next to our table. Seems easy.

So not easy. I just spent my entire morning trying to visualize what size dots I wanted, and then figuring out with pencil marks and a ruler what the spacing would be, how big my walls are (this side of the room is sort of like three walls), how many dots I needed, etc. The hardest part was figuring out how many yards of fabric I would need to make enough dots! I got an estimate of 231 dots that are 4" in diameter and spaced about 4" away from each other. I proceeded to slaughter any algebra I knew as I tried to convert that into square yards. Yikes. I eventually drew a picture and figured out I need about 3 yards of fabric. (Brian, this is where your math obsession would have proved really useful. Actually, I think if I had any fifth grade neighbors, that would've been great too.)
Look at those awkward walls!
Trying to figure everything out.

Wait, so how many inches in a yard? 
 Anyway, I'm going to JoAnns tomorrow to pick up that fabric and fabric for another project you'll see below. Then I'll wash it at my nanny job Monday and start starching Monday night!

Project 2: Mason Jar Storage
Our new bathroom has NO STORAGE. We have the area under the sink which is currently full of tampons, extra toilet paper, and cleaning materials. I'm planning on buying a basket for on top of our toilet, but I saw these mason jars on Pinterest and thought, Perfect! 

We can store q-tips, cotton balls, and our toothbrushes in these, and we have the perfect space above where the hand towel rack is. We even have a nice board that fell off an antique mirror (I'll have to make it a little shorter...somehow). I assumed the blog the picture came from would explain how to attach the pipe clamps to the board, but she just says her husband helped her. No help; I'm doing this because my husband isn't here! So I searched around until I finally found a blog that did explain it, which is what I linked you all to in the project title. I've never used Brian's drill, but I'm sure I can figure out how to put three screws through three pipe clamps, right? Anyways, even if I have to wait until Brian gets back to finish this one, I'm sure it will be fine. 

We've had this cork board for awhile, and I think we'll hang it up in the kitchen instead of the study since the kitchen is more central and we can use it as a place to put reminders and things. But cork boards are kind of ugly. So I'll just get some nice fabric (not pink) and tons of those big shiny push pins, and it'll be a great addition to our kitchen decor! My only concern is that the board measures 2'x3' and I need it to hang off the edge by about 4"... I just hope fabric comes wider than a yard. I'll ask at Joanns tomorrow. Oh yeah, that's the other pain: Joanns is thirty minutes away without traffic, and knowing Pittsburgh, I'll hit traffic. Oh well!

All in all, I'm feeling motivated and excited to make our apartment look great. We love how much cooler and homier it is than our last place. Of course we've found a few things that irk us (like inset lights that look nice but that are BLAZING HOT... I'll be replacing those with eco-friendly lightbulbs), but overall, we're really happy to be here. Even though our friends from church who lived in this building just left yesterday :(

If you have any tips to help me in my first major DIY adventure, I'd love to hear them!!


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