Tuesday, September 17, 2013

A House Tour and a Ton of Simple DIY's and Super Quick Tip's

As you all know I moved and I have been shopping, DIYing and decorating like crazy! Here, I am going to give you a tour of my living room (in the video) and my room (through photos). 

In the video, while I am showing my living room, I am taking you around and showing you all of the awesome deals I got on everything. I try not to buy expensive things. I also show you the makeup I got at Ulta and Lauren Conrad shoes I bought at Kohl's. They were around $70-something and I bought them for under $20! This was a really fun day and I hope you enjoy it too!






My room is the big room up in the attic. As you can tell, I don't have high ceilings. The shape of my room is in the form of what a roof looks like. I kinda like it like that. I think it adds character. 

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And Then There Was Light:
This is my bed where I sleep at night. I got the comforter for Christmas and even though it wouldn't be my first pick, it is really comfy and looks cute. I bought my actual bed in high school and never did buy a head board to go with it. So, I made my own head board with stringy lights I bought at 5+Below. I love the light it gives off, making it look dreamy. I also hate having the big light on in any room, especially my bedroom, and try to avoid it at all costs. These type of lights are perfect for me. They are the only lights I keep on in my room. I have a different style of stringy lights in my kitchen that are colorful. They're adorable. And it's so simple. 

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Jazz Up An End Table:
My end tables were my first decor venture in this house. The end tables you are seeing were from my mom's house. She kindly gave them to me. Thanks Mom! I especially like how this one has that shelf to put stuff on. I have a notebook underneath a decorative box I got from Target in the $1 section. I throw my junk in there: reading light, a pen, makeup remover, Pocket Bac, etc. It's great because it catches junk but also looks cute. Stylish and purpose-serving. The drawer isn't a drawer. It's actually a filing cabinet. I want to use it but haven't yet. The last thing I want to do is start throwing stuff in there without any plan, place, rhyme or reason. That is how clutter starts and that is how you lose things.


Cheap DIY:
On top of the end table's, I have my bouquet's I made for $6 a piece from Dollar Tree. You can buy different fake flowers there. Be creative and put together your own flower arrangement! I think it adds a special touch. Nobody else is going to have that exact bouquet. To help the flower's stand up, you can add decorative rocks. They had a few different colors at Dollar Tree. I preferred the clear non-colored one's. They also have fake water at Pat Catan's for around $10, but I like to have the option of changing out the flowers. That glass vase is also from Dollar Tree. To me, it looks classy and stylish but I didn't have to spend a bunch of money and I also got to create something.


Instead of hanging up my wall art (bought at Ikea years ago) and make more holes in the wall, I decided to simply set them on the end tables. I think it looks cute! They are a little out dated to me so I wanna do some kind of DIY with them but for now, they look cute and totally go with the purple floral print on the comforter. I also have some silver photo frame's to go with my cool toned room, and some cute tea light holder's I bought at 5+Below for $1 a piece. They are on sale right now 2 for $1!

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Work With What You Got
My beauty dresser, as I never called it but-needed-some-type-of-name-to-differentiate-it-from-the-other-dresser, dresser. It was a surprise to me that the dresser which is darker wood went so well up against the cool toned off-purple walls. I quite like it. I made the nail polish rack myself. I bought the T-Bars at Pat Catan's {$4 and $10}. The bucket serves as another place to throw junk instead of having it laying out. My body spray's and lotions are sitting on an old candle tray I had lying around. Another Tip: Things that used to be used for one thing, could be used for something else completely another time around. I love that tip! Give something a new life.

The shelf I hung up has all the rest of my nail stuff. Manicure scissors, emory boards, that kind of stuff. I used an old candle jar from the small candle's from Bath and Body Works to store that stuff in. Told you! Give thing's a new life. And it even looks cute. Boom.

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T.V. Dresser DIY
This is another piece of furniture from my mom's house. This actually matched my "beauty" dresser but I decided to paint it to go with the cool toned theme that is my room. I wanted an off white base with silver accented drawers and that is exactly what I got. It looked cute outside when I painted it but I am un-sure of it at this point. I feel like it may clash with itself and even then may clash with the walls. It works for now! Maybe it will be cuter when I get some drawer knobs on there. Whoops. Haven't got around to it yet. The Off White Color I used is a spray paint from Krylon called Ivory. I bought it at Wal-Mart for like $5 a piece. I used the same color base coat from the same brand. It was only $1 extra. That equaled 5 cans total, including the base coat. I have used a top coat before when spray painting furniture and found it served no purpose in the long run so I didn't use one this time around.

For the drawers, I used a metallic spray paint called Silver from the Metallic Collection by Krylon. It was also around $5 and I only used 1 can of this and even have some left over. This really sparkled outside in the day light and I am in love with this color/finish. It looks a little more toned down in the house. It does however reflect objects in my room, picking up those colors making it cohesive with the whole room. I am just not sure if it goes well with Ivory which is the color of the dresser itself. I used 3 coats for the drawers.

About Spray Painting:
I recommend spray painting furniture any day! Pick a spring or fall day where it is neither too humid or cold. It takes 10 minutes or less to do 1 coat and it takes 10 minutes for each coat to dry. Spray painting is goof proof. After the first coat you might be wishing you haven't even started it. It will look like you tried to tag up your piece of furniture but after that last coat, it looks even and opaque.

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 The Closet:
I used to organize my clothes from tank tops all the way to hoodies and then assort them by color. Since there is no door, I wanted it to look a little more aesthetically pleasing so I went with every single piece being organized by the colors of the rainbow. ROY G BIV. It's harder to find things this way so I don't know if it is going to stay like this, but for now it works.

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The Walls:

 I really wanted to go with a neutral toned silver. I went for a paint called Simple Shimmer from the Metallics line from Valspar. I bought it at Lowe's. It is a pretty penny- literally. {metallic humor} With the special paint sponge/brush, base color, and the actual paint it cost me around $100. If I could do it again, I would have went with something else. You can kind of see the strokes from the paint roller too. For $100, it just isnt worth it. They had paint similar to this from Martha Stewart at Home Depot. If your dead set on a metallic or a shimmery finish, look to Home Depot. The wall directly behind me in this photo {the wall with the closet and beauty dresser} was only painted with the special base coat paint.  After doing this wall, I kind of liked the way the base color looked and it was way less work. Luckily, we still have some left of each paint can so I need to come up with another project to play around with. You better believe I am not letting it go to waste!


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Computer Desk:
I painted this with the same method as my T.V. dresser. Only when I painted this, I used a top coat and sanded the whole entire thing. Seriously, an unfruitful venture in the worst way. This spray paint is by Krylon and the color is called Gum Drop. I used 4 cans of this but I think I could have went with less. I got a little paint happy lets just say. I painted this a couple years ago and I am not sure I would have chose this exact color to go with this room but I do actually think it work. In fact, I like it better than the T.V. dresser in this room which was thought out for this room exactly. Going with your gut isn't always the best option.

By the way, those pink drawers are from Target. I bought that for like $12 and they are also on sale right now for even cheaper. The drawers hold both my makeup and office supplies. Call me crazy but it works for me. 

That is rule #1. 
Find what works best for you. That's the best piece of advice I could ever give yah!


Writing all of this out made me think that it may have been better in a video form. I dunno. Whatever. 

So let me know what you think!
What do these room's need more of?
How awesome is that mirror and those shoes?! 

thank you for reading!
xoxo
Erica 


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