Friday, May 27, 2011

apartment living.

so i have linked up my kitchen and bathroom posts with
 
 
 

you should go there and check them out along with tons of other amazing projects! so in honor of my peel n stick laminate cabinetry, i decided to show some things around here that we've done to make our apartment feel more like a home and less like well, an apartment.

1. if you can, PAINT. i am telling you what every other blogger for the last well, however long decor, home and diy blogs have existed... paint makes all the difference in the world. i'm serious here. even in a home, a room feels cold and impersonal painted that lovely (sense the sarcasm here) builder's beige that is pink in some lighting, yellow in other, and just blah all the time. my budget for paint is basically zip. so i pick out gorgeous martha stewart, behr and even sherwin williams colors; then i just have them do their color match magic to the paint chip and mix it in a $10 gallon of america's finest paint (or something like that..) that they have at home depot. i painted my whole room for less that $20! it took a gallon and a half! come on people. it's worth it i think.

it's a little hard to tell with my lighting in here and my camera, but trust me. it's a gigantic difference.


 2. switch out crummy old shower heads. it may not be a brand new shower (also clean the tar out of it when you move in.. just sayin) but if you buy your own shower heads and replace them with the "older than the dinosaurs" ones they have in there, it'll make it feel more like home. seriously. do it. 

we had these when we moved in

pretty, huh? i said no way, i will not use some "crummy old hotel" shower head every day. who knows when they even installed that thing??....


you may think it's weird to post pictures of the inside of my shower. that's cool. it is weird haha. i just wanted to be helpful people! a nicer/newer shower head goes from "a quick shower" to a "nice relaxing shower". i bought both of these at walmart and i think they were both under $10. come. on. do it.



 3. of course my lovely cabinet preject. i had to include this real quick. it had made all the difference in here. you can go to the top and click the links for the whole project, but here are the lovely befores & afters.





4. i think another good idea is to change out light fixtures. of course you better save them to put them back up when you move out, otherwise you'll be shelling out the big bucks. we didn't have the money to buy a new fixture for the ceiling, so i did a project here to just sort of get that hideous square light fixture out of my sight. everyone wonders if it'll catch on fire.. i don't know. i never turn that light on, i just didn't want to look at the ugly glass square on the ceiling.


it probably won't catch on fire... haha i don't know. people make lamp shades all the time and they don't catch on fire. anyway, the point is light fixtures are easily changed and add a lot of homey feel. i could have taken the whole square down and figured out how to hang a drum shade or something.. it's just about whatever you can do cheaply and temporarily.


5. figure out a good way to store things. we basically can't fit one more thing under our bed. i may get some risers for it so we can actually... lots of pretty shelving, cabinets, etc. you know what i'm talking about. here is a little trick we did.

see those nightstands? they are those little short squatty ones from ikea. too short for our bed, so i bought risers and some tablecloths to go over them. now they store stuff under them. you know, vitally important stuff... like my animal encyclopedia. : ) but it's such a life saver to just take the junk on my nightstand and shove it underneath. insant clean. just like i like it.

and this little thing is a life saver also.

it holds a boat-load of junk. so i hang all my necessary junk on it, then i just shut the door. again; instant clean. amazing. and for some reason i am about 80 billion times more likely to hang something on a hook than i am to put it on a hanger, so this adds a "boat-load" of extra storage and keeps som of my junk off the floor. love. it.



so that's at least 5 things right there to make an apartment feel like home. i will add more because i have tons more ideas, i just haven't done them yet. so i have no pretty example pictures to show you : ) but you better believe i will show you. i know you are all hanging on the edge of your seat!

1 comment:

  1. I wish your blog was around when we were living in an apartment! Lol, it does make a huge difference. I may even use some of these in our home! You rock!

    ReplyDelete

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