Showing posts with label Before and After. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Before and After. Show all posts

2.07.2011

Before & After

When we bought our house all of our furniture fit in 480 square feet. We moved from a studio condo into a 4 bedroom, 2200 square foot house. Technically half of that space and two of the bedrooms were basement storage, but still.

Naturally, I wanted to go furniture shopping CRAZY, but we spent so much money on the down payment that hubby had a hard time even letting me buy drapes. My solution? I became a craigslist stalker! At first I mostly stuck to the free section - but quickly moved on from there. In the beginning we needed everything, but I focused on the living room, specifically chairs. My first big 'find' was a little misleading. The posting was for a 'cool mid-century chair' for $60. I scheduled time to look at it and when I got there I found out the chair was kind of vintage IKEA. It was sort of cool but was pretty worn and really needed to be refinished and because I was already there I felt obligated to take it, so I did.

Right away I bought fabric to recover the chair. But when I finally got around to taking apart the old cover, using it as a pattern, and sewing together the new cover, I'd already fallen out of love with the 'new' fabric - so the chair sat in the basement and collected dust. Recently I discovered some really cool 70's shag fabric that came from my parents old house. It only took me an evening to put the whole thing back together. Luckily the shag fabric was super forgiving and the chair looks like it came that way!

12.15.2010

Living Room Face Lift

Just like the dining room, in the beginning there were dingy white walls. The floors were pretty beat up even though we still haven't finished them, rugs do wonders.We've put on a few coats of paint, put up curtains, added some electrical outlets, insulated the walls, and added a picture rail and a new light fixture (though we're probably going to be shopping for a new one soon*).
It certainly seems more festive!

*the new living room light fixture points the lights up toward the ceiling. with the new darker ceiling, all of the lumps and bumps of the plaster really jump out at you - especially at night. looks like we'll be shopping for a light fixture that points light down.