Apartment Tour: Living Room

The next installment of my apartment tour is of my living room. The living room has been subject to some of my most time consuming and in depth projects. There is only one thing in my living room now that I had when I moved here not quite two years ago. Needless to say, the living room has been one large project since I moved in.

This is the left side of my living room. In the window you can see three hanging planters-- they are small metal buckets I got in the dollar section at Target, hanging from clear fishing line. I modeled this project after a project I saw to hang plants upside down. I was originally going to make some upside down planters, with the intention of getting the plants out of the reach of Franklin and Ellie, but I wasn't sure how the plants would hold up upside down. Ultimately I think this is a better solution--and they came in this lime green color straight from the store, no other work for me.

The vase shelves behind the couch are from Target, along with the green vase and the sparkly picks in the vase. These picks were part of Target's Christmas decorations and I immediately decided I needed them upon seeing them. I was good though, and waited until they were 50% off before I bought any. The picture leaning against the wall is actually a little tile with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, brought back from Paris from a good friend. The little animal next to the Eiffel Tower is from my boss at my last job in Chicago, from her trip to Mexico.
The silver lamp on the left side of the couch is a find from the Christmas Tree Shop. This lamp was originally in the office, but it has made its way out to the living room as I have rearranged lamps. It's hard to see in the above pictures, but the lamp on the right side of the couch is the Eiffel Tower!! I got this lamp as a Christmas gift a few years ago, but it is from Target. It started out with a red shade, but I recently replaced it with a white shade to match the other lamps in the room.

The table the Eiffel Tower is sitting on is one of my refinishing projects that I wrote about here. I got the table for a very small amount at the Salvation Army, brought it home and sanded, painted and polyurethaned it. I really like the shape of it and its clean lines.

One of the biggest projects I've done in the living room is the armoire. The armoire is really the project that started the blog. I bought it at the Salvation Army for under $75. It was cherry colored wood and had old, outdated hardware. It took me quite a while to sand it all, prime and paint the inside and outside, spray paint the existing hinges (because I could not find any others that were the correct shape) and replace the hardware. My apartment was literally taken over by this project for a couple weeks last summer. You can read more about this colossal project here, here here and here. Overall I am extremely proud of this project, and also it is a really functional piece of furniture. Not only does it hold my TV and DVD player, its also a great perch for kitties and an excellent place for my plants to get some sun.





On the other side of the room lives my my newest lamp acquisition (read more here and here), and my kitchen.

The bookcase was a purchase from a friend when he left Chicago after college (thanks Kenneth! I love it), and the other table is one I found on the side of the road. I love the detailing on the legs of the table. I actually had the table for several months in my office, unpainted. Then on the morning of this photshoot I decided I needed to paint and use it. I painted it black for this purpose, but I think one day I will do something a little more exciting with it. The Big Ben tower was a gift that goes along with the Eiffel tower. The plant is an African Violet-- I love how they flower, and I seem to be relatively successful in keeping them alive and happy. The basket is an inexpensive one from Target, and if you can see inside the basket- there are some glass orbs that were gifted to me as an 'apartment warming' present. I believe they are from the Christmas Tree Shop. The big awesome mirror above the table is a steal from Walmart. The mirror is about 2 X3, and I paid something crazy like $10 for it. I don't know if it was mismarked or just on sale, but it was an excellent find. This mirror was at one point my "headboard" but I like it much better in this location.

Well, I think that's all for the apartment tour! Rest assured I have many other things to share with you!

Apartment Tour: Kitchen

The next room in my apartment tour is the kitchen. The kitchen is obviously the center of the apartment, but also a difficult one for me to decorate. When I moved into my apartment, the cabinets were two toned- dark brown doors and tan frames. I lived with them for quite a while as-is before I couldn't resist the urge to paint them anymore. Inspired by the many posts I see on various decorating and renovating blogs with beautiful white cabinets, I decided to paint my own cabinets white. I feel that it worked as planned- it looks much cleaner and brighter.
Before:

 After:

In the after picture you can also see my collection of pink, flowery plates (although this was taken before the addition of the Liberty of London plate.

Apartment Tour: Bedroom

The second part of my apartment tour is my bedroom. My bedroom has given me the most trouble of all rooms in my apartment. I've gone through several sets of different bedding, bed frames, layouts, colors, artwork on the walls, and yet nothing has really felt complete.

Previously I had a dark brown duvet with light blue/turquoise sheets, and some mirrored pillows that I made last summer. I also had a MALM bed from Ikea.
Since these pictures were taken,  I have replaced the comforter and duvet that was dark brown with a new down comforter and white sheets. I sold the bedframe and got a new metal one. I got the two bedside tables off of craigslist for $25 total, the down comforter and sheets from Target, and the rug from TJ Maxx. The dressers are actually from Ikea, I purchased them second hand when I lived in Chicago. I originally only had the tall dresser, but then later found both the long dresser with 6 drawers, and one with only 3 drawers. I used the 3-drawer dresser as a bedside table for a long time, but it felt very cluttered. I now have that dresser in the closet in the office, holding blankets and sheets. The cat here is Eleanor (Ellie). I got her from Animal Care and Control in Chicago about 2 years ago. She matches nicely, right?
The mirror on top of the dresser is from an awesome thrift store in Chicago called "Unique," and the necklace holder is actually a rack made for a closet, which came from target for about $8. I like to have my jewelry visible, otherwise I forget what I own and things don't get worn. The sconces on the wall were originally a gift from my Aunt for my living room, where they were for quite a while. I found sconces for the living room that better fit, and then had these in the closet for a while (and some canvases covered with fabric on the wall above the bed) until I was ready for a change. Honestly, I don't like the placement here-- they're too small for the size of the wall, I think it just makes the wall look even bigger and more empty. I'm still searching for the best thing to put on that wall.

One project that I have wanted to do for a while is to make an upholstered headboard. I did a post on this idea a while back (here) and haven't forgotten about it. I want to do it right when I do it, so I haven't jumped into it.

On the other side of the room, you can see a painting I did last summer and my map of Chicago. The map of Chicago was a gift I got as a sophomore in college for my birthday. It is laminated but came unframed, and I bought a frame separately from Michael's (of course using a coupon!). Finding a frame that really fit this poster was a challenge- it is slightly bigger than a normal movie poster, not a standard size.
The coat rack is something I've had for a long time--I got it for Christmas one year in high school. It has had various functions- for coats, purses, scarfs, etc. It has really been an awesome addition to my furniture. I used it in my room at home, in my dorm room(s) and in my apartment.
The vases on the dresser--the silver one is from Walmart-- I got it on clearance for $5. It matches a bowl that I actually have on my living room coffee table. The white vase is from Michael's. It was originally intended to be in the kitchen on the shelf with my other white ceramics, but it was too big. It fits much better in this spot.
And the cat pictured here is Franklin. He is also from Animal Care and Control in Chicago.

Apartment Tour: Office

I recently had a beginning photographer come to my apartment and take some pictures for me. It was an exchange-- she wanted practice taking pictures of architecture/homes, and I wanted some better quality pictures of my work. We took pictures of all of the rooms in my apartment, it took about an hour. It was really nerve wrecking to have someone taking pictures!
I decided I will share the pictures officially room by room. So today I will start with my office.

I spent some time last summer working on my office, to make it less of a dumping ground for everything random in my apartment to more of an actual office I could use for school work. I purged, cleaned, organized and purged again. I originally had two desks in the room situated in an L shape, and a hideous rug and wheely desk chair. I ended up getting rid of one of the two desks, repainting the remaining desk, replacing the wheely chair with one of my extra kitchen chairs and adding a few items.

I got the lamp at the Christmas Tree Store on a trip home to Vermont (although now one has opened up near me!), and made the paper flowers myself with a kit from Martha Stewart that I found at Michaels.

As you can see, the walls are vast and empty. I made an attempt at covering some of that empty wall space by framing some pretty paper that I got at Target.

You may remember that I also put up some shelves on the opposite wall for the cats to climb on. I didn't have the photographer (Willow) take any pictures of those, but you can see them  here.

Part of my purging was some serious reorganization of the closet in that room. I bought a bookcase to hold my binders and some office supplies, and added in a metal shelving unit I had and some plastic boxes to organize my sewing supplies and other craft supplies in a pretty way. I have a longer post about that project here.

I also added a chair that I found at a garage sale (here) At this point, I haven't actually done anything with the chair. It's waiting for a rainy day, I guess. Or waiting for me to find the perfect fabric and get brave enough to rip the thing apart. When my family made a visit lately, they brought along a bookcase I had as a kid. It's 3 shelves, and has a mirrored back. Currently it is unfinished, and I have sanded it in preparation for painting, but I haven't decided what color I want to use. I think I want to do something bold-- perhaps turquoise. But again, I'm not rushing into this project.