The Mantel Project

The Before

We need a new sofa.  And by need I mean two adults can only fit on our studio-sized sofa (read: glorified loveseat) sitting straight up with feet on the floor like some 19th century child’s punishment.  A new sofa, however, is not quite in the budget for the month of April and I didn’t think our living room mantel project was in the April budget either.

I was just going to add mantel decor to the long “when we have spare cash” list, but then I came across this link on Pinterest – Spray Bottles DIY Project. Spray painting glass bottles, eh? This blogger was onto something…

Over the years, my parents have sent us several vases full of flowers. The flowers are long gone, but we still have a growing collection of glass vases. And JP and I know our way around a can of spray paint. Heck, we refinished an entire Steelcase desk with spray paint and I still use that desk to this day. So this weekend, armed with two cans of white spray paint (primer and gloss), we transformed one vase and two candlesticks (from the bottom of the sale rack at Target) into mantel-worthy home decor.

The After

We may not have a new sofa, but now we have something pretty to look at when confined to our existing sofa seating 🙂

The Splurge

Image found on quotes-lover.com

So remember how I talked about the importance of budgeting last week? Well, I took my own advice this week…the very small piece of advice to occasionally splurge.

If you haven’t guessed already from the whole attorney thing, I’m a bit of a type-A, “loves to think I’m in control” kind of person. This weekend, my life was definitely not within my control and my budget…well, that was just one more thing that was driven by forces outside of me, namely our fixed income.

So JP and I decided to break out the credit card (literally, from the locked box where we hide it…from ourselves) and go on an IKEA run. We drove all the way out to Round Rock with every intention of buying one of the larger items on our list – a new sofa, patio furniture, or maybe even that bed frame we’d been drooling over for some time. But after making the drive and battling the IKEA crowds, we ended up with three picture frames and a potted plant.

One small stop to Target, and our “splurge” came to a grand total of around $40.00. Last of the big time spenders, eh?

But the trip did what we needed it to do – it released some tension, made us feel like we were back in control of some part of our lives, and (with some swapping of other items from around the house) gave us a happy “new” bathroom 🙂

 

Just call me Martha

This weekend I pulled out my sewing machine and my tool box, and went to work implementing “phase two” of our bedroom upgrade. No, this isn’t a DIY blog, but it is a blog about having it all…and, for me, that includes getting out of my head and back into my body. Using my hands. Creating things from scratch. Remembering that childhood feeling of “I did it!” that seems to get packed away in adulthood.

And this weekend’s projects were pretty big “I did its” for me….

I started with our bedroom because, let’s be honest, it’s where we spend most of our time. And if you don’t have a good night’s rest…well…we all know what that looks like and it isn’t pretty. JP and I have some more furniture pieces we’d like to buy, but it’s not in our budget for March 2013.

Here is what our bedroom looked like when we first moved in:

I have been eyeing this duvet cover set from Anthropologie for a long time. So long now they don’t even make it anymore (good thing for my wallet!). With a little help from a few uber-crafty bloggers (Mari Makes and Neroli Blossoms), I made it myself from an extra set of sheets.

I even had extra fabric to cover the box spring until we have the funds to buy the base of our bed frame. Yay me!

Throw in few window coverings from IKEA and a $6 storage hook, and the bedroom now feels like a place we want to spend 8-10 hours in each night.

And the two throw pillows – I made those too 😉