Spray paints and I have become real good friends. Until a couple of years ago, I never realized how easy it was to alter the
colour (and hence appearance) of ‘old junk’ to give them a brand new lease of
life.
My latest save - an old rotating CD rack I’ve had for years. The simple rack with a light brown wood grain finish just didn't fit into the theme of the living room so, I decided to spray it gray.
A good sanding over and three coats
of gray paint later (using 2 cans of spray and costing only about RM15), the rack took on a more modern look and added a little contrast
to the living room shelf. It would have been otherwisea waste to throw away the very functional rack and I’m just thrilled to have been able to ‘recycle’ it.
I now find it easier to shop or just plain recycle items for
its function, shape and size instead of its appearance or colour. An item with
good bones is what matters. Appearance and colour - easily altered.
My favourite nook in the house came to be rather
unintentionally. For a compulsive planner like me, ‘unplanned’ only gave it so
much more charm and character.
I wanted to have a reading corner in the study but the
end result was entirely different from what I had originally had in mind. My initial plan was to have 2 walls lined with white Ikea BILLY bookcases and a 2-seater sofa, something very similar to a pin I found shared in my earlier post "Finding Inspiration".
But here's how my cozier-than-expected nook turned out.
The beautiful
open shelf that houses our collection of books and magazines was one we came
across by chance. It was on sale and the hubby and I decided to pick it up
instead of the Ikea shelf we originally had our sights on.
The lazy chairwas not even a piece I picked out. It was my
husband who spent a small fortune on it, intended for him to watch television
on in the living room.
The two little piggies which were intended for the rustic-country-ish kitchen were used as makeshift bookends when the kitchen turned out with a contemporary.
The LOVE carving I had originally bought for
the bedroom too winded up as a stray on the bookshelf having not fit the rest of
the bedroom décor.
The framed jigsaw puzzles were little treasures we'd recovered from the store room when we moved. There's finally space to display the things I completed over a
decade ago!
The clock from Ikea I hoarded for no apparent reason
other than ‘it was cheap’ and thepenny-farthing motif platerandomly
pick out on a shopping excursion with Ink were the few other pieces that just
ended up on the shelf.
So there we go. Actual space in my home that wasn't painstakingly planned out.
And I love it!
In the Mac & Ink
households, blank walls have definitely been a staple. But when Ink and I moved
to our new places, gallery walls were on the top of our must have lists.
I've got a couple of them in
mind for my place - and here's the first one:
Children’s Art Prints
Designing my daughter’s room, I
wanted it to be bright and cheery, a happy and inviting place for the little
girl to play and sleep in. While hunting for décor that fit the theme of the
room, I found these adorable prints from Trafalgar’s Square on Etsy. These animal prints are so cute they make me
all warm and fuzzy inside.
Buying the prints was easy but
actually framing them and getting them hung up was a bit (actually a lot) of a
pain. A lot of effort went into getting end result I wanted.
Perfect fit or with a profile?
I wanted to have borders for these as I thought it would add some interest to the overall picture.
Store bought or custom framed?
My first thought was to get
them custom framed but was a bit
apprehensive about which framer to go to having a not so good experience with
the framer a few years back. I also thought it would cost more. So on one of
our Ikea runs, Ink convinced me to get ready-made frames and mount them
myself. Unfortunately, the Ikea frames only came with
a profile for A4 sized art but my prints were 8R and that put in an extra run
to the stationary store and a solid hour of ‘crafting’.
In retrospect, it would have
been much less effort and only a tad more expensive to have had them custom
framed as I eventually found a reliable and reasonably priced framer.
Arrangement?
Having
the framing out of the way, the next step was to decide on the layout of the gallery
wall and its placement on the wall. I
planned how I wanted the layout of the gallery wall to look like by first
trying out the arrangement on the floor.
Satisfied with the arrangement, I measured the spacing of the frames and then
transferred the measurements onto the wall by cutting out the shapes on pieces of tracing paper and sticking them on the wall first. This may look like wasted effort but I'm really glad I did because it made it all so easy for the hubby to measure the location of the nail.
Make a hole in the wall?
The
hubby and I agonised a little over this. No one wants holes in their walls, but in the end we decided safety came first and opted to go with nails
as it would give us some peace of mind that the framed pictures would not fall,
break and cause any injury to the little girl.
Finally…..
Here are the prints all framed
up. Worth every bit of effort don’t you think?
So, back in November, I picked a quote about just plucking up the courage to do the things you want.
And then I went and did just that.
So, amongst other exciting things this new year, I've got a new space to decorate! Yay!
The biggest thing I'd love to do with my space is to keep it as empty as I can.
Let's face it - I'm a messy person. And I need to have space for that mess to unfurl from my neatly packed moving boxes. Having way too much furniture is just going to make me feel really hemmed in.
So here are my top 3 inspirations for planning my place:
1. As usual, Pinterest!
Here's my board, called "the big move" where I'm constantly looking for creative ways to both fit all the stuff I have, and still feel like I've got a big airy space (when what I really have is the size of a closet).
I've been there so many times in the past couple of months, I think I've finally answered the question everyone I know has been asking for years - why the heck are there so many people there every freaking weekend?
But seriously, though. I've turned into one of those people who walk around with tape measure, and, well my phone instead of the cute little pencil and paper. Waaaay easier to keep track of all the ideas I get from walking around.
3. YouTube
Yeah so you knew to look there without me even telling you.
But anyways, me being me, I ended up watching most of the tutorials for fun instead of any actual instruction. Here were my favourites that just got me all pumped up about decorating my space.
Disclaimer: some of these videos are by Ikea as well.
Walk in closet - who doesn't need more space for clothes?
I've always fancied myself more of a lazy, clothes all over the place sort of person. But still, love this idea.
I really really love challenging the typical furniture up against the walls, TV on the opposite wall to the couch sort of living room arrangements. So this was a fun one to watch, although I don't think it'll come to this for me.
I've also always thought about all the different ways I could divide up my space. And after like a dozen "how to use a Billy bookcase to create a partition" videos (*blah*), this was really, really fun!
And just because I get distracted easily and end up watching stuff for fun
