Sacre Bleu! Drab to Chic & Fab Blue Dresser DIY

I finally got my rear in gear over the weekend and painted that $10 campaign dresser.  I'm so happy that I no longer have to look at that dull beat up dresser- why-oh-why did I wait so long ?!?!  The fresh blue look is sooooo much better!

I guess my only reason for dragging my feet on the project was because I couldn't decide on a paint color.  Each one looked perfect and I loved them for different reasons.

After much deliberation, I decided to go with a glossy and rich navy blue.  I figured it would be a good color choice in case I end up using it in a different room in the future. Navy is a bit more versatile than red or pink- even though that would have been fun! 

I picked up two cans of Rust-Oleum spray paint at Home Depot and hauled the dresser outside for painting.

Sadie managed to photo bomb with just her nose :) stealthy and sneaky!

I pulled out the drawers, sanded the surface to get it roughed up, and removed the handle hardware.  The bummer was that I couldn't remove the brass corner details.  They seemed to be glued on so I had to cover with painters tape which was a long and annoying process, ugh!  Then I started spraying...
I did about three coats and let it dry overnight.  I was so excited to bring it back up into my closet to see how it looked, thankfully I was not disappointed.  The fresh paint totally changed the look and it fit so much better in the space!

One other little change/detail I added was this antique bracelet I got from blog friend Mimi-Toria Designs.  I loved the look of the black tassel on the green dresser above, but wanted to add a unique and personal detail of my own.  I don't think anything else would have looked more perfect!  Love how jewelry can also be house jewelry too!

I think the new rich blue look fits in nicely with all the other closet goodies I've got going on... BUT I still haven't picked out my window treatments, rug, or a cute decorative pillow to jazz up my refurbished antique chair. 

Those are the wanted items on my list before I plan to take "after" photos.  I guess they are little details but I want every little bit of my closet/dressing room space to be uniquely me!  So I hope you can be patient with my picky-ness until then :)  For now...

What do you think of my $10 dresser's new look?
What do you think of the color choice?  Like it or hate it? 
What do you think of the (house) jewelry added on the dresser?

I'd love to hear what you think, don't be shy now :)

Curtain Rod Shoe & Scarf Storage... and Pig.

Alright I admit it, I was a total loser this weekend.  I didn't work on anything, I didn't get anything done, and worst of all, my closet/dressing room looks just like it did when I posted that preview photo.  Ugh, zero progress makes me feel like a total loser... I'm going to blame the Leprechaun that kidnapped me Saturday night and made me celebrate St. Patty's until the wee hours of Sunday morning.  Evil Leprechaun!

Anyway, I wish I had a more completed look at my Dressing Room but for now I thought I'd share a rod-iculously brilliant DIY storage idea that I incorporated into my new space!   The best part- it's low cost and perfect for shoes & scarves!  Who knew curtain rods and brackets could do this?  Take a look...

Yep, you can store heels, wedges, platforms, pumps, booties, scarves and more!  I know I probably have too many, you do too though right?  Thankfully, this creative storage solution makes managing my growing collection seem less like clutter and more like a beautiful work of wall art! 

To make my shoe and scarf storage, I hit I kea for all the curtain rods and brackets.  I picked up four Racka rods in the 47"-83" length for the shoe wall ($2.99 each), four Racka rods in the 23"-47" length for the scarf wall ($0.99 each), ten of these Betydlig wall brackets from Ikea ($1.49 each) and four additional Betydlig rod holders ($0.49 each).  The total, just $33.00!

 Another great part of this project?  I didn't have to bug Alex, I did it all on my own!  I love those kind of projects sometimes, because Alex typically gets all the glory :)  All I had to do was install the brackets on the walls to hold the rods.  For that all I needed was a tape measure, level, and screwdriver. 

For my shoes, I measured and evenly spaced eight brackets to hold the four longer rods (two brackets for each rod).  Then for my scarves, I measured and evenly spaced four brackets but this time I added the $0.49 additional rod holders. 

So, for my scarves each bracket held two of the smaller rods (bottom left photo).  I have to say, having the double bar bracket allows for so much scarf storage!  I also love having them hanging neatly, so nice that they don't get all creased and wrinkly!

What do you think of the curtain rod turned storage?

What other DIY storage ideas do you have hiding in your closet?

Also very important- Did anyone else get kidnapped by a Leprechaun this weekend?

Before I go, I have to tell you that it was pretty difficult getting pictures of the shoe and scarf storage today.  Someone insisted on being apart of the photoshoot...

Does he seem to be rocking some kind of mohawk action?  When I told Rocco (aka Pig, Piggy, Mr. Pig, Mr. Pigglesworth, etc.), "Move Piggy, you're in the way," he just circled and stuck his face back at the lense.  Silly Pig, such a ham!  A bit annoying, but his cuteness made up for it.  Hope Rocco/Pig made you smile too!   After all, he's convinced that he's the main attraction :)

The Dressing Room Is Complete! Before and Afters, Clothes, Shoes, Decor, and More!

I finally have a dressing room!  Kick up those Heels!!!  I'm just loving the new space!

Let's take a few closer looks and take a trip down memory lane...

Here is that antique crate I talked about in my last post now looking a bit more fabulous with some high heels!

Can you believe this thing holds 17 pairs of shoes?!?

It is so cute and serves a very big purpose for shoe storage!  Love it!

I love the way the crate also compliments the DIY vintage inspired crate shelving Alex and I made (sitting just to the left behind the Ikea mirror).

Here is a close up of the faux sheepskin rugs I picked up at Ikea.  My toes sure love them in the morning when the floors are a bit chilly!  Thankfully Sadie is finally leaving them alone too!

I think the addition of the Stave mirror from Ikea has proven to be way worth the purchase!  I love using the stool and mirror when I am getting ready in the morning. 

My antique dressform still amazes me! Best way to store/display my necklaces and belts!  Swoon!

Vintage feel with fashion and shoes... Sigh, I am so in love!


Now, let's take a trip down memory lane
Remember back in November (holy moly, can you believe we first started this process in November?!?) we asked what the heck we should do with this room? This is what the room was looking like back then, icky carpet and NO personality!

The majority of the comments we got said we should be turning the space into a closet, sitting room, or divide the space.  We obviously decided on all the above to suit our needs.  Check out the original plan and inspiration here!

Alex got to work ripping out the carpet since we knew that ugly stuff had to go!

He then installed some laminate wood flooring, sooooo much better! This part was the most expensive of our redo of course, you can check out that post for all the steps.

After adding some window treatments, a huge failure, finding the right garment rack, lots of spray painting, hanging a vintage window, making some DIY vintage crates,  shopping for accessories, a DIY sign, and a DIY crate shelving unit here we are!!!  Phew!

Thank goodness I don't have to deal with this anymore!  Alex happily took over both closets in our master. 

This is a lot more fun to hang around in, not to mention things are way easier to find!

What's next?!?!

If you remember from the beginning, this room is going to be divided into 2 spaces. Thus why we hung the vintage window...

We still have the other half to deal with. Remember, this room is right off our master bedroom.  The dressing room/ sitting area is the perfect idea to sort of create a Master Suite.

Our plan is to make a TV sitting room on the other end.  If all turns out right, I just may never leave this space!  A dressing room and TV!?!?  Talk about the perfect place for a gal to go relax in! 

We'll be posting about this half soon! 

For the all the posts on this space check out the Upstairs Spare Room Redo label.

***We just joined the DIY Showoff's Project Parade!  Link Up and join in!***

Vintage, Handmade, and Ikea Accessories for My Dressing Room

I finally made some headway in the ol' Spare Room Project this weekend!  I was on a mission to get all the accessories and decor I needed to get my Dressing Room finished up.  Thankfully, I was successful!  There is quite the eclectic mix of decor in my soon to be dressing room!  Just the way I like it!

So here's what I got....

I went on a little antique-ing trip to Stillwater and picked up this awesome vintage crate for only $8.50 at Midtown Antiques.

I dont' have the exact measurements, but it was a really generous sized crate!  I love the handpainted 'Vine Ripened' label on the side. I am planning to use as decor/ storage.

In my inspiration post I showed this image from Arianna Belle, I love that she used an old crate to display shoes.  I am thinking I will do the same with this crate.

Now to my Ikea accessories! 

Last week in Houzz's Ideabook, I read a post about "Warming Up With a Sheepskin Throw".  I thought a Sheepskin rug would be a perfect accessory to warm up the space and give it a little feminine glamour.  I picked up 2 faux sheepskin rugs ($12.99 each), the real deal gave me the creeps since I didn't know if a sheep had to die to make a rug. The faux ones looked just fine.

The only problem with the rugs...Sadie was convinced that these were a toy for her (I guess I should have expected that, they are a little weird).  It took a lot of tries setting them on the floor and making sure she didn't run away with them.  She spent a lot of time 'inspecting' them.

I also picked up this AWESOME mirror name Stave from Ikea for $49.99.  I am soooo happy with this mirror, I love the way it leans on the wall and it is a pretty big size measuring 27.5"W x 63"L.  It really completes my room and gives it a glamorous feel!

The last item I picked up at Ikea was this Dalfred stool for $39.99.  I knew I wanted some kind of chair in the space that would be easy to move around and use.  I thought this stool was perfect and matched the style of the garment rack and antique dressform.

On to the handmade item! 

Here is the vintage inspired sign I made to hang above my garment rack.  It reads "La Vie Dans Le Talons" translating French to English "Life in High Heels".  I thought that was the perfect little saying for my Dressing Room. 

I have to add, the whole time I was painting the sign I kept doing my Nepoleon Dynamite impression and saying "Do the chickens have large talons?" Alex just loved that (JK), but I couldn't help it since le talons is French for high heels, such a weird word!

So here are some pictures making the sign. Before I got started, I just grabbed an extra piece of wood we had laying around in the basement and spray painted it black.

 Once it was dry I got ready to add the text.  I didn't have a stencil for the letters so I used a larger print out as a guide and freehand penciled in the writing.

Then I painted in the letters

Almost finished!

The cursive letters were a bit tougher to freehand.

Once I was done, Alex added some frame hangers to the back and hung it up behind my garment rack.  I love the fun personalized touch it adds to my space.

As you can tell I am almost done with this space!  I'm really happy with the way it is shaping up, I just have to get it a little more organized before I can post the afters, but that is next!  I can't wait to show you the room this week, eeeeek!

DIY Vintage Crate Shelving Unit and "C2T39"

About a month ago, I wrote a post about our Vintage Styled Storage Solution for my Closet Room.  Again, here are a couple of my favorite images for the look I was going for...

 And I love the wheels on this little guy...

Since I finally finished the 5 remaining DIY Vintage Crates it was time to make a shelving unit out of all 6 crates! 

First, lets take a look at what we are going to make first.  This is what the base for the shelving unit will look like (after cutting).  We used left over wood that was in our basement from other projects and I picked up 4 wheel casters from Home Depot for about $5 each.

So to back up, Alex measured the length of the crates and did measurements on where to cut the wood.

Then used his saw to cut each piece.

Here is what the cut pieces of wood looked like when he lined them up as the base for the unit.

He used screws in each corner for a stronger hold.

Then hammered finishing nails into the mid sections where the crates sat next to each other.

Action shot: securing those smaller wood pieces that will act as the base for the caster wheels.

To attach the casters, Alex used liquid nails since we couldn't find any screws that would work with the casters (all of our spare screws were way too long or had tiny heads).

Then he stuck those suckers on!

Once dry, you flip it over, add crates to the top and this is what you end up with!  I plan to stain the rest of the base that we attached so it will look more uniform (just got to eager to see how it looked!).

Here's another look.  I did them lengthwise to increase the storage room. 

And here's a closer look at the 2nd DIY Vintage Inspired Crate (the top one) that I painted letters and numbers on. (click here to see the DIY steps to make your own!).

In case you are curious about this letter/ number combination and its sentimental meaning here is a crazy story about "C2T39". 
Back in 2005 I met Alex one day at work, 5 days later I found out he had gotten in a serious accident on his dirt bike. He had broken his neck, back, shoulder, shoulder blade, collarbone, sternum, a bunch of ribs, an elbow, and really, almost lost his life. He was out jumping sand dunes at Lake Michigan and hit a truck head on. C2, T3, T9 are the vertibrae that he broke. After he laid in a hospital bed for about 2 months, the next time I saw him he was in a halo brace and working on recovering from all the pain his body went through. He also had a brand new perspective on life. I spent a lot of time after that listening to his stories of what the whole experience was like, and overall we grew a lot closer. Hope you liked that crazy story!  Alex really is amazing!

Awkward segway back to the project...

I hope to get the rest of my Closet Room decorated this weekend, then I hope I can finally share afters! What do you think of the shelving unit?

*** We just linked up to the Lettered Cottage's How To's Day Linky Party!***

A Nice Surprise After Painting The Garment Rack

A couple weeks back I wrote a post about spray painting that Commerical Garment Rack I found at Target for the Spare Room/ Closet.  Well, I got a nice little surprise once it was done.  After it dried and we got it back upstairs, I realized it matched the metal on my vintage dressform!  Totally unintentional, but wow, it looks so much better now that they coordinate!

So here is what it looked like before spray painting.

This is the after using Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze Spray Paint. So much better without the chrome look!

Originally, I just didn't like the chrome metal, but wasn't aiming for it to match the metal on the dressform.

But now that they are matching it helps to pull together my strange strategy in this room.

So here is where we are at now.  My clothes are off the floor!  I also have to add that while moving closets, I did a major purge of unnecessary items!  I filled 4 grocery bags of things that were hanging in my old closets that I hadn't worn in almost a year and dropped them off at Goodwill.   It felt good to get more organized and have less stuff to sift through!  I'm thinking I will put a vintage sign in the space above the rack to add some decor!

Next is getting my DIY Vintage Crates in there to add some shelving for storage!

DIY Project: Vintage Inspired Crates!

I am really excited about this DIY post!  If you have checked out our blog before, it is very obvious that I am obsessed with 2 things: Chalkboards (here and here) and Antique Crates.  Turns out it is really hard and expensive to find 6 antique crates of around the same size for our Spare Room project.  So, I decided to make my own Vintage Inspired Crates!  Here is a look at the first little beauty I made yesterday!

This idea started when we failed miserably at making shelves in my new closet space.  I ended up finding a new idea after I found some beautiful inspiration that I wrote a post about here.  

 

 I ordered these crates from JoAnne's, they were only $9.99 each and measure 18"Lx12"Wx9.5"H.  I was so excited when I got them in the mail!  I ordered 6 total, here are 3 of them.

Just because I have to, here is a gratuitous Rocco photo in one of the crates- you know, to illustrate the size :)

I love the structure of these crates, but the plain unfinished look is NOT what I am going for. So we are going to take these plain crafty looking crates.....

and make them look something like this!

So Let's Get Started on the DIY Steps!

 The first step was staining the wood so they would have more of an antique look (because fresh from the craft store doesn't look very chic).  I used Minwax Wood Finish in Special Walnut 224.  I looked at a swatch of it at Home Depot and thought that the color had a gray-ish antique shade to it AND it was only $6.69. 

I used a lambswool brush to apply the stain in nice even strokes

I really liked the way the stain enhanced the wood grain detail, and made it appear more aged and unique.

After the stain dries, it is time to add your own letters/ numbers to the crates for a more personal vintage look (similar idea to what was in my inspiration photos).  I got these stencil packs at Home Depot for $1.99 each, a total steal and very industrial looking- perfect!

I wanted to use letters/ numbers that mean something to me (because I am a sucker for sentimental art and decor).  For the first crate I used "P1920".  The letter "P" stands for my grandma and grandpa's last name, Pierson.  The "1920" is the year both of them were born.  So, there's the special meaning!

I measured out where I wanted the letters/numbers to line up, then used a pencil to outline the stencils.

Next, I painted inside each number.

A tip for anyone that tries this, use a small tip brush. I started with something larger and it was very hard to make neat lines. So I switched to a small brush.

Once you're done letting it dry you'll end up with something like this!  Totally cute!

I grabbed a couple of my actual vintage crates to compare the look (old vs. new)

I totally think my creation passes for a vintage look! I couldn't be happier with the end result.

 Now, I just need to 'antique' 5 more, crazy I know!  But I think they are going to look great once I put all 6 together to create a shelving space.  I plan to use a different sentimental number/ letter combinations on each crate, but they'll maintain the same uniform look and placement.  I will definitely write another post with the photos of them all together once they are finished.  I hope someone out there tries this out and makes their own DIY Vintage Crates, it was really fun!

I joined up at The Lettered Cottage's How To's Day Linky Party!  Link up! 

The Great Spare Room Divide: Hanging An Antique Window

So last week we talked about our plan for this old original window from our house.

We thought it would be a perfect way to incorporate something original to the house and divide up the long crazy space in our Spare Room. 

(If you need some background on this project check out this post for the plan or this link to check out all the Spare Room posts).

In the last post Alex caulked around the glass panes and used Frosted Glass spray paint on the glass so it was no longer transparent.  He then screwed in some eye bolts to the top of the window.

The window was going to hang from the ceiling in the room. So we wanted to use something very safe and secure so that we wouldn't hear the window crashing to the floor and breaking. Alex picked out Cobra Driller Toggles which are "self drilling anchors that feature a unique and powerful toggling mechanism thereby providing maximum holding power for all your installation needs" aka some really tough anchors!

After he got the anchors in place, the rest was pretty easy. 

Just had to cut the chains to the appropriate length and hang the window in place.

Success!

So here is a nice little preview photo (sorry it is dim) of what we have going on in the never ending Spare Room Project.  You can see I am working on the garment rack and vintage styled shoe storage, slowly I am making progress! 

 

I hope tomorrow to post my update on the Garment rack, it turned out just perfect, I can't wait to share!

Our Vintage Styled Storage Solution

I was pretty down in the dumps on Monday when I had to start all over in the Spare Room.  I spent about 3 hours that night searching online for a new storage solution when I came across some great inspiration that got my spirits up and creative juices flowing again!  I was also very inspired by all the comments I got regarding our failure and really appreciate the feedback and new ideas! Hammers & High Fives for everyone!!! ...too cheesy? Probably, sorry, but I got a laugh out of that and kept it in the post :)

So what did I find?!?  Wood Crates!  I guess it shouldn't be a surprise if you have read through my blog before, I am obsessed with using wood crates for storage, I can't believe I didn't think of this before!

I found these two images on Design Squish, I'd say they sparked my inspiration to use wooden crates for shelving.

This one from Ana White looked very clean and sophisticated

 I thought this one from Remodelista was neat, adding wheels makes it look a bit more industrial

 I also like this idea from Arianna Bell, just a different way to display and arrange shoes using crates.

I showed Alex all of my inspiration photos and the new plan I had drawn up.  He loved the new direction we had for the dressing room! 

The big problem though, where were we going to find 6 vintage crates similar in size?  I did a lot of searching on Craigslist, Ebay, and Etsy. I found some dealers that had lots of vintage apple crates, but they would have to be shipped.  Shipping 6 larger size crates was going to cost more than the actual crates!  Luckily, I ended up finding some nice crates on Joanne.com for only $9.99 each and free shipping!  They are a good size too measuring 18"L x 12"W x 9.5"H.



Yes, they aren't vintage (wa-wa), but that doesn't mean we can't do a little DIY magic on them to give them a vintage look (wink)! I just ordered them today, so we should have them by next Wednesday, wish it were sooner.  I have 2 options for how I want them arranged, so once we get them I will have to play around with the actual placement.  I really hope this one is a winner and we don't go back into failure mode, keep your fingers crossed for us!

*** Update- curious how we made those crates look old?  Click here to find out!***

***Update- we made a shelving unit out of the DIY crates we made, check it out HERE***

My High Heels Are Homeless

It has been a rough couple of days in the Hammers and High Heels DIY world.  Our Spare Room redo hasn't been going as well as we had hoped. We were in the beginning stages of setting up my new dressing room.  Before we took our trip to Home Depot for the supplies we looked back at my inspiration post to get an idea of what we should look for.  We thought these basic metal brackets and boards would do the trick, they had a similar look to the metal and wood shelving I loved from the inspiration photos.  They also were pretty inexpensive (lesson learned; low cost DIY isn't always the best idea).

Once we got the shelves up we both just cringed, even Rocco had a look of horror on his face.  I imagine he was thinking something like, "Mom, you guys can do better than this, nothing in here looks cute but me" - yep I just quoted my dog, uggghhh, it IS a really lame day!

Even though we didn't think it was quite right, I started organizing my shoes on the shelves to see if it made our vision look any better and even put my antique dress form into place. Our concensus... a classic case of the shoe not quite fitting right.

It still looked like crap.  CRAP!  The two main problems were 1- the shelves themselves, they just didn't look nice at all; and 2- the awkward huge space above the top shoe shelf.  So maybe we didn't measure and place them as we should, but we are also thinking that this wall shouldn't have shelves on it anyway.

So, we are starting over with this one.  My heels and everything else are now in this lovely heap on the floor.  We get a huge FAIL on this one.

The good news is we have a new plan, and yes, we hope this one works!  So, thanks for following up with us on our room redo, and if you have any ideas for us please let us know!  Here's to hoping this week and our new plan goes a little better!

From Fitting to Function; A New Gig For My Antique Dressform

The inspiration for this was right under my nose in my own blog!  I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner!  So, I was looking back through some older blogs and found this picture in my Sights From Junk Bonanza post.  I thought, hmmm, I could do that with my beautiful Antique Dressform (the one Alex surprised me with) and turn it into storage for my belts and necklaces!  Not to mention it would double as decor as well!

The only bummer meant we would have to take it out of our Guest Room.  It looked perfect where it was in our Guest Room, but I think it could only look better in our Spare Room since it goes along with the theme.  We also got some feedback from a recent Guest (aka my Mom), that the Dressform looked a little spooky when she woke up in the middle of the night, like there was a person in the room.  Point taken Mom.  So, we are moving the beautiful Antique Dressform from its spot here in the guest room to the new Spare Room.

There hasn't been anything fun about moving around our closests and all the stuff in them.  But I'm not going to lie, this was sooooooo much fun!  I was pulling out my belts and necklaces and accessorizing my dressform.  

 I loved the Dressform before as is, but this gave it some pizzaz and more of a purpose.  My necklaces sure look a lot nicer here than in a pile in my jewelry box.

Sigh, I just love this idea, and I can't wait to add it next to my shoe shelves!  It's shaping up to be a really neat space! 

We are finishing up the shelves and are in process of moving everything from both closets.  It is a colossal mess in our bedroom right now, but I'm super excited to get it all organized so I can take pictures soon!

Closet Confessions

Oh dear, my stomach is kind of in knots thinking about posting this and showing the mess, but I think it has to be done.  Since part of our Spare Room project will be creating a closet space, I thought it was appropriate to show you what we are currently working with and why we desperately need the extra storage space.

Back when I wrote the first post about our Spare Room I showed this picture of the doorway to the Spare Room from our Master.  Those cute doors to each side are our 'his' and 'her' closets.  They are pretty cute because they are original to the house and should never be changed; except there is nothing cute about a closet that measures 33" x 40"!!!!  That is one of our biggest complaints about living in our old house, NO CLOSET SPACE!!!!

So we had to get creative, and here is where that 'knot in my stomach' feeling comes in.  I feel a little embarrassed to be showing where and how we store all of our crap stuff.  Why?  Because it certainly is not cute or organized- and I pride my self on my organization skills. 

So here is where we stand today with our existing closets, and thankfully we are currently working on a solution!  I will let Alex go first!  

He has all of his dress shirts hung on a very small bar (can you see that the right side of his closet has the Dutch Colonial slant/dormer, so his closet is even smaller than mine). Then he has Ikea wire baskets filled to the top on the left side, jeans stacked right on the floor so you can't access anything behind them, then old Yaffa blocks on the left (remember those.."Go Yaffa", I had a bunch from my dorm in college that have followed me since) holding all of his t-shirts and what looks like a messy wad of stuff towards the bottom.  I have not a clue how he finds anything- oh wait, I DO know.  When Alex can't find something I end up seeing him toss a pile of stuff (while swearing) onto the bed to sift through and find his 'needle in the haystack'. Sorry honey, you know you do!

Alright, now it's my turn!  So here it is, itty bitty closet #1 (I had to use 2)!  Notice you don't see the wall at all?!?!  I have all my clothes packed so tight in that little space.  I hang all my shirts on the hanging rod, sweatshirts and jeans up top, scarves covering the wall to the left, necklaces and belts on the back of the door, and tons of random things in the drawers below. Usually, when I pull something out another 1 or 2 things would come with, so annoying!

Now here is itty bitty closet #2 which is in our guest room.  There was no way everything could go in just one little closet, and it has been really annoying having to search through 2 rooms to put an outfit together!  So in this one, I mainly stuffed away sweaters, dresses, jackets, shoes, and purses up top. I always felt bad too if we had guest come that wanted to hang something up and they opened the closet to see this cluster.  Other than those 2 closets I switch out seasonal things (like swapping the sweaters for shorts in the warm months) in a giant storage tote in the basement, doing anything I can to maximize the space!

It truly was a sad state of affairs.  I am so glad to report that I am getting ready to move on out of of those 2 itty bitty closets, so we should have fun pictures to show soon!  Alex has been hard at work, I think he is also excited that he won't have to hear me yell "Avalanche!!!!" every morning. 

So, I guess I still think it is embarrassing, but I can't wait to show the 'afters' which should paint a much better picture!

Step Into The Light (And Airy Side of Our Sunroom)

Phew, sorry I haven't posted in a while, I was in NYC for the past couple days (which means I might have some fun store photos to post soon!). Here are those before and after pictures of our Spare Room with the new window treatments that I promised. 

So this was before, just after Alex put in the new flooring

 Here is after we put up the window treatments. Don't the longer drippy curtains give the illusion that the windows are much bigger?  PS- you can see some of the supplies we are going to be using soon!

 Here's the 'before' from the other direction

And after. I still don't think it is quite perfect yet. I might have to add 2 more panels; one at each end.

This is a close up of the rod pocket I had sewn for the curtain. Oh, I should add that we hung the sheers on the old curtain rods that were there before. We hung them behind and a little lower than larger curtain rod (that was free, yay!).

 I think we will be replacing the white sheers soon (hopefully). Right now it is the cheap "mosquito net" curtains from Ikea and I would love to replace them with nicer sheers soon, maybe ones with a pattern or texture on them.  But so far the room is feeling a little more, well 'roomy' the curtains really helped cut down on the echo in there too!

Things have seen crazy busy for us since we have been working on this room and I had been traveling quite a bit.  Things should be calming down for a while, so I hope we can get started on the next steps soon... looks like Alex is going to be building something so we might have a good DIY post coming up!

Spare Room Flooring is Done! DIY Steps to Install Laminate Wood Flooring

 I just got back from China today and sure enough I came home to a nice surprise!  Alex finished up the floor in the spare room off of our Master!  So... that means we can get started on fixing and decorating the space, yay!

The last time we blogged about this room we wrote about our plan for the space, and in the post before that we removed carpet from the room.  We decided on using that laminate wood flooring we found when we went to Home Depot since it was budget friendly.

So here is where Alex started.  First he had to pull all the baseboards off of the walls so there was room to install the flooring. The flooring needs to be 1/4" from the wall so it has room to "float" as well as expand/ contract with humidity.

 

Here's a look from the other end from the room.   

Next, he cut and laid the laminate floor underlayment (the red stuff you see under the wood flooring). Then began cutting the wood laminate with a miter saw and piecing them in to fit. 

Here is the other end with only a couple feet to go. 

Here's a look with the floor complete!  

So much better than before with the icky carpet...

Another view...

Our next steps are going to be dividing the room into 2 useable spaces and looking for the right pieces to make my dreamy dressing room/ closet! I also need to figure out what window treatments we should use for the room, so sick of the cheap Ikea ones!  If you have any cute ideas for the window treatments let us know!

As far as the budget we spent $175.98 on the wood laminate flooring for the space (160 sq ft), $119.94 for the underlayment, and $9.97 for a flooring pull bar (which is used to tighten boards together in tight spaces).  So we spent $305.89 to redo the floor, we originally thought it would be less but the underlayment doubled the estimate when we realized we needed that too.  Overall the look is so much better and I know once we are finished we will be using that room a lot!  Can't wait to start decorating it soon!

***Check us out and everyone else in the DIY Showoff's Project Parade!