Category Archives: Projects

Surprise Living Room Make-Over

We had been in dire need of new living room furniture for well over a year. I was having a very hard time making decisions about what to buy. I loved the idea of a sectional and have always wanted one, but the reality is that our space is just not that workable. In addition to deciding on a style, I was also struggling with leather vs. fabric. We have always had leather and our family is very accustom to the easy care and wipe-ability of leather. Like a sectional, I have also always wanted white furniture. When making a big purchase you want to make sure you are getting it right and thus we shopped and browsed for months on end with no decisions being made. Finally, when our sofa was destined for the dump, we had to make some decisions.

The first conclusion Tim and I agreed on was that the living room/dining room swap that we made a few years ago was really not working for our family. The larger of the two rooms is located in the center of the house and just off the kitchen while the second smaller room is located just to the right of the front entrance. This room is quite lovely with French doors, a wall of windows and a fireplace. The trouble with it is that with so much going on, there really are not many options for room configuration and at times this is frustrating. We suspected that a sectional would never be an option in this space and so approximately two years ago, we moved our living room (fireplace room) to the larger room just off the kitchen. At first, we loved it. It allowed Tim and I to work in the kitchen and be more engaged with the kids if they were in the living room. Our home is far from open concept, but the close proximity seemed to help. However, over time, we realized that other sacrifices were being made. It seemed like our busy schedules, coupled with the dining room’s more remote location led to more and more meals taking place in front of the television. Setting the table seemed like a big job now that everything needed to be transported across the house. We also found that the “kitchen” noises often interfered with the television and the dishwasher was often not put on until bedtime. Finally, we found that the wood burning fireplace, one of our favourite features in our house, had sadly sat unused since we made the switch. Once we decided to move the rooms back, the other decisions were also easier to make. Using our old furniture and a measuring tape, we tried many variations of furniture arrangements and came to the conclusion that a sectional would never work in that space. Since we both had our hearts set on getting one, we decided to go with a chaise sofa and chair/ottoman combo instead. Although we felt this would work, we weren’t 100% convinced it would fit properly into the room. We decided to save ourselves a few thousand dollars and go with fabric, so that we could live with it for a few years before committing thousands of dollars more to a “leather” decision. It seemed like a good compromise.  In the end we went with a darker almost charcoal gray even though I really wanted something light. Sometimes you have to consider not only your desires, but also the function of the furniture. We do not have a living room and family room or even a basement hangout for the kids. Needless to say our furniture gets lots of use. I can be pretty uptight and I knew that the change to fabric was already going to cause me some stress. The sofa covers are all washable, but the reality is that I think white or even something very light would become an ongoing battle to maintain. We opted for what we thought would work best for our family.

Feeling excited to set-up the new furniture, Tim and I unpacked and assembled our new Ikea sofa. (I never actually thought I would purchase a sofa from Ikea, but I was quite taken with the Ektorp series. I loved that there were several colour options, the style seemed both traditional and contemporary at the same time – if that’s even possible and surprisingly, it is super comfortable!)  After the months of indecisiveness, I’m sure Tim almost blew a gasket, when he saw the look on my face once everything was set up and arranged in the room. Yep…you guessed it….I hated it. Not the sofa or the style, but rather how it looked in the room. Our new sofa looked more like a denim blue against the light green walls (Castleton Mist) than gray….Yikes!  I could see it in Tim’s eyes “Oh no…here we go again!” Although he thought we should consider taking the covers back and swapping for a different colour choice, I was convinced the grey would be perfect once everything else in the room was changed! Yes, we would need to paint (wasn’t anticipating that) and the side tables don’t look right. Too bad the curtains will no longer match. Oh and that fireplace has always kind of bugged me! Ugh! I really was not planning a room make-over. Our plans included a new sofa/chair and coffee table. The end. I was prepared to refinish a coffee table because I was pretty certain I wouldn’t be able to find anything new that fit with the look I was going for, but that would have been a simple sand/paint job.

So, although there are a few things left to finish, I already love the space and am not even worrying about the few remaining projects….I’ll get to them eventually. So far, we’ve managed to paint the room, strip and stain the mantel, build a tiny side table from a vintage ashtray and sew new curtains. Believe or not, I found the perfect coffee table on Kijiji and someone else had already done the work – score! I still need to paint the cabinet that the TV is sitting on and want to shorten the little half-moon table by a few inches, but other than that we’re done.

The light gray walls (Benjamin Moore ~Stonington Grey)look fine with the oak trim (despite my reservations). Besides the limited wall space for setting up this room, it is also a difficult space because of the limited light. Although it boasts a wall of windows and two additional high windows on the fireplace wall, it is not a bright room. It is north facing and really only gets late afternoon sun. So in choosing a new colour, I not only had to consider a colour to coordinate with the furniture and strong oak presence in the room, but also the limited light. I must admit, I’ve never really paid any attention to LRV (light reflective value), but for this room I did my homework. There is nothing worse than picking a colour that you love on the swatch, but hate when you actually apply it to the walls in your space. Paint colours can look completely different depending on the lighting in your space. For this room, I chose a gray with an LRV of 59 which meant the colour would pretty much stay true to the swatch in my space. For more information on how to choose paints that will work well in your space, check out this article on Kylie M. Interiors. I found it really helpful.

As a side note – I have been a Benjamin Moore paint snob for many years now, but I decided to try Sherwin Williams Duration for this job. Their paint was 40% off and I had heard good things about it. I loved it! The application was beautiful and I even hesitated to do a second coat. My living room is about 17 and 12 and I did two coats with one gallon and the first coat was almost perfect even though it was covering green. Very impressed! (They can make colours from other companies, so I used a Benjamin Moore colour, but had it made with the Duration paint.)

I absolutely love this coffee table. What a great find! Can you believe I got it for $70?
Love the beautiful coffered ceilings in both our living room and dining room.
You can see the TV cabinet really needs a paint job.

Laundry Room Project Part 5: DIY Laundry Hamper

DIY Rolling Laundry HamperRight from the start, I had a vision for how this laundry room would come together. With the major components out of the way, the fun began. I envisioned the room having many contrasting elements of old versus new in a shabby chic sort of way. I love upcycling and really wanted to include many re-makes in this room. One of the simplest projects involved the custom wire laundry basket I made for the space.

I found this great tutorial on Apartment Therapy and was able to create an awesome industrial looking laundry hamper. The best part was that I actually had everything I needed on hand with the exception of the fabric.

Materials Needed:

  • Galvanized Square Mesh Fencing
  • Wood circle (about 15″)
  • 4 casters
  • sandpaper, stain and urethane (for the circle) – optional, depending on where you get your circle
  • wire cutters
  • staple gun (tutorial suggests screws, but I used my staple gun)
  • heavy string (for my version of the hamper)
  • binding ribbon ( another adaptation)
  • laundry bag to fit (I made mine)

wood circleWhen I began this project, I decided to start by checking out my stash and sure enough, I had a circle left over from the wooden Lazy Susan I bought for my homemade Rumoli Board last Christmas. I didn’t care about the hole in the middle as it would never be seen. It was the perfect size and would not have needed any sanding, stain or urethane if it weren’t for the fact that I wanted the wood to be a darker tone. It was a simple fix and I like the rustic look of the darker stain.

The casters were originally purchased for another project, but ended up not working so they had been sitting in one of my project bins and would be the perfect size for this hamper.

The wire was bought several years ago and used in lieu of glass/wood in the shaker style doors my husband made for an 80’s dresser that we converted in to a TV cabinet.

With everything I needed at my fingertips, I set to work and had this baby done in record time.

I followed the steps in the Apartment Therapy tutorial exactly. The description and pictures were spot on and easy to follow. I will say that working with the wire is a bit tricky. Mine was rolled up and it was not easy to get it to stay in place while I worked. In addition, the little ends are sharp and you need to be careful. Wearing gloves is probably a good idea, but I found them cumbersome and opted for the pain and discomfort.

When you wrap the wire around the circle, you need to make sure you leave enough wire to overlap. Once you have the sides overlapped, you need to fold the wire ends back over the wire from the other side to secure it. (Sounds complicated but the tutorial makes it easy to understand.) I was really struggling to secure the wires because the fencing just wouldn’t stay in place. In fact, it created so much tension that some of the wires were snapping when I tried to bend them. I was worried that I was not going to be able to secure them properly and I didn’t have enough extra wire (in the overlap) for other options. I ended up running string the length of the overlap. I intended to place the string there temporarily while I bent the wires, and then remove it when I had it all secure. However, I actually liked the look of the string through the wire and ended up re-stringing it in a more patterned look. So in the end, the string serves two purposes, it adds strength to structure and is a nice finishing detail.

String and binding ribbon are added.
This is the pattern I used when adding the string.

I made a second adaptation to the original tutorial, when I added white binding ribbon to the top rim of the finished basket. Although I had trimmed the sharp wires off, I still felt that the fabric of my newly sewn laundry bag might catch on the wire ends. I was going to use hot glue to attach it, but ended up doing a simple stitch all the way around.

You can see the little wire ends poking up.
Binding ribbon to prevent the fabric bag from snagging.
Laundry Bag Fabric

The fabric and the binding ribbon were the only things I had to purchase for this project, so the cost was minimal.

The bag was simple enough to make by tracing the base of the hamper and adding an extra inch or more to the edge of the circle to allow for seam allowances and ensure it was a generous fit. The circle becomes the base of the bag. When cutting the fabric for the bag itself, be sure to make it big enough that it fits over the top of the bin. You don’t want to make it too small and then learn that it won’t sit nicely over the top. (You can always “take it in” if it is too large, but too small is a problem.) I also added several extra inches at the top to create a very tall bag (maybe a foot or so beyond the top of the basket) because I wanted to see the printed fabric folded over the edge of the hamper and down a few inches inside the basket.  I simply finished the top seam and folded it over to the desired finished height. I stitched a pocket for the string and then secured the folded over piece for a finished look.

Although I don’t really have a reason to roll my hamper around my tiny laundry room, the wheels work great and I love the finished look!

 

Teen Room Makeover: Cityscape Black and White Bedroom

Teen Bedroom Makeover City ThemeLast summer, Eden and I worked like horses to transform her bedroom from a little girl’s room into what she deemed to be more age appropriate. We sanded and primed over the old mural and painted most of the room white. We then added a bit of drama with a chalkboard wall and painted her nook red. Although the room was mostly completed last summer, Eden was living in the room during most of the final stages. As you can appreciate, it was difficult to ever find the room “photo ready” while being home to a 13 1/2 year old. Eden left for a one week school field trip last weekend and so it was my mission to give her room a very thorough cleaning, put away all of her clean laundry (in a much more efficient way with the vertical fold system) and finally take those post project photos. Although I didn’t do any purging (not my stuff to purge), I think she will be surprised and thrilled to come home to a very clean and organized room. As an extra surprise, I also added a bit of chalkboard art above the entry to the nook. Most of the other chalkboard work has been done by Eden and her friends.

Eden was very helpful throughout the process, but also very particular about what she wanted. I think the finished room looks great, but perhaps could still use a bit more art work.

This bedroom makeover was another huge project as covering the original mural took lots of work. The layers of paint created ridges that had to be sanded before we could even think of putting on a fresh coat of paint. In addition to painting the walls, there were many other small projects that led up to this transformation:

…and no doubt other little projects I can no longer recall. The total makeover was quite reasonable with paint being the most expensive item. I know we needed several gallons to complete the project. The bedding, storage boxes and a few throw cushions were purchased at Ikea. All of the pieces of furniture were items we already owned. Some were painted to fit with her new colour scheme and others were moved from other areas of the house. Eden really wanted the old book shelf from the landing and she made it look surprisingly good when she accessorized it. I thought the framed WiFi password art was a great idea for when her friends visit.

Black and white bedding
DIY custom made roman blinds
Cityscape mural in black and white
Ombre painting technique on antique vanity
The white door is the entry to her walk-in closet.
I don’t think she realizes how lucky she is to have a huge walk-in closet.
Chalkboard Art
Framed wifi password

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Pantry Make-Over

I suppose calling this a pantry make-over might be a bit of a stretch, but living in an older home means that storage is always at a premium. We have two staircases leading to our basement ~ one from the kitchen and one from the back door. I know ~ weird. The stairwell off the kitchen had slowly become a dumping ground for items that might be found in the pantry of a newer home. We did have some insufficient wire shelving on the wall, but it held very little and thus it seemed that items would slowly collect on the floor along the wall as well as on a large shelf in the basement. There was no rhyme nor reason to how things were stored and therefore, we often missed buying things we needed and over bought things we didn’t need. It was one of those things that constantly drove me about our house.

On the first Saturday of spring break, I was taking laundry down to the basement when the solution suddenly came to me. For months (maybe years) I had been trying to figure out how to solve this ongoing storage problem. I had measured and searched the web and just couldn’t come up with what I thought was a viable solution. It’s funny how ideas come to you at the strangest times. Such was the case with this. It was literally something I had tossed around for sometime, but just couldn’t seem to figure out how to make it work. The stupid part was there really wasn’t anything to figure out. The answer was right in front of me, I just had to shift my thinking.

The best part was that I had everything I needed to make it happen immediately and so that’s exactly what I did. I came up from putting the load of clothes in and set to work on transforming the dog’s breakfast at the top of the stairs.

You may remember the sliding spice storage racks I made to fit between my wall and fridge. I used old book shelves that were being discarded because they weren’t stable enough to be safe. They worked perfectly in the space and made for great storage.

An old book display rack was where this project all began.
Here is a “before” shot of the book display rack.
Here is the spice rack with holes filled and ready for sanding.
Here is a shot of both shelves.
I love the way the two pieces line-up so nicely and fill the gap between the wall and fridge.

I had two more sections that I had considered for can storage, but the depth of the shelves was too shallow and wouldn’t work. Over the last few years, I measure and tested cans again and again hoping I could somehow use the shelves as a pantry, but I just couldn’t figure out a solution….until this day! It finally dawned on me that the peg board backs on the shelves simply slid inside a groove about a quarter of an inch inside the top and bottom shelves. All I had to do was remove the back and let the wall of the stairwell become the new back! This quarter of an inch was all I needed to fit the cans and other small pantry items. I set to work and it was literally as easy as removing the screws from the tops and sliding the backing out. I planned on sitting the shelves on the floor and then securing them with an L bracket or something for safety, but when Tim learned of my plan, he offered to mount them up off the floor. I can not believe how well they work and it was such an easy fix in the end. The stairwell is now free of clutter and works perfectly for our needs. Our basement isn’t finished and so we don’t have to worry about company going up and down the stairs. If and when we ever do finish the basement, we plan to make the back stairs the main entrance to the basement anyway. So happy!

BEFORE: Disfuntional kitchen storage at the top of the stairs.
BEFORE: A nasty space that simply did not work.
The pegboard back simply slid out of the grooves once the top was removed.
WIth the back removed.
Mounted and ready to fill. They work so great because they were originally made with a small lip along the front edge to keep books from sliding out. The same is true for the cans and boxes I’ve now had stored on them.
AFTER: Upcycled book racks make awesome new kitchen storage area.

Spare Room Make-Over: The Reveal

A shot from the entrance to the room. The wooden bowl on top of the armoire is actually an old salad bowl that is cracked, but too beautiful to part with. Now it holds my socks!
Another angle from the entrance.
This shows the door that will eventually lead into the main floor laundry room. A barn door is still in the planning stages. You might notice the picture with the pear sitting on its side. Still have to pick-up a photo of the kids to replace the current picture in the frame.
Upcycled dining room chandelier and bench storage with newly upholstered seat. I also love the new mirror I picked up at Jysk for around $50.
Scrapbooking area
Scrapbooking area
My embellishment organizer was originally navy blue and purchased from Canadian Tire. It’s intended to store nails and screws, but works perfectly for scrapbooking.
Tim just nailed 4 scrap pieces of beadboard together to make me this garbage. It doesn’t actually have a bottom, but the bag fits over it perfectly, so it’s not really necessary.
I love the print on this chair and with the arms removed it is so much more functional.
The same friend that passed on the white bench also gave me this awesome old projector case. She found it curb side on “free day”. It makes a great little storage case and a fabulous shelf for a few of my favourite books.
This wardrobe was a treasure we rescued years ago from a friend that was going to trash it. We removed the warped wood inserts and replaced them with chicken wire and painted it out white. Still one of my favourite pieces of furniture. Now home to almost my entire wardrobe!
My newly organized clothes.
It is a bit hard to see the colour, but it goes beautifully with the new wall colour.

The room is done… at least for now! I am so excited about this space. I think it might be my favourite room in the house. It is so “clean” and bright, and the best part …. it’s all mine! I love how the afternoon sun saturates the entire room with natural light. It is roomy, clutter free and oh so pretty!

Although this was nothing more than a spare room make-over, it ended up being quite a big project. Before I could even start, we had to dismantle the old piano that I had hoped to one day upcycle. (I discovered that the amount of work involved was not worth the blood, sweat and tears it would take to transform it.) From there, we proceeded to empty the room and prep the walls for paint. We primed and painted the walls and gave the trim a fresh coat of paint. The most time consuming aspects of the project actually involved the major purge of my clothes and scrapbooking supplies. This accounted for at least 25 hours of sorting and organizing. It was a huge undertaking, but felt amazing when I finally accomplished my goal.

It seemed there were oodles of mini projects required in order to achieve the desired finished look. In addition to painting the walls and trim, we spray painted my embellishment organizer, cut, stained and mounted the shelves, changed the door swing, reupholster the office chair, and painted and upholstered the bench top. The final touches included hanging the pictures and a new mirror and building and painting a bead board garbage container. We intend to install a barn door that will be used to close off the new main floor laundry (once we’ve moved it up from the basement). With future plans to add a sliding door, we also deemed it necessary to remove the old light switch (for the old scrapbooking room/new laundry room) from outside the room to inside the room. If we hadn’t done this, the switch would end up being covered by the sliding door. After an endless list of little projects, I think the room looks great!

To truly appreciate the transformation, I thought you might need a reminder of how the old room looked in its prior life as “family dumping ground”.

Yes, this is pretty much how it looked. You can see my pile of mending on top of the sewing machine that is sitting on one of those tiny little kids play tables. The next picture actually shows the little black stool I would sit on to sew ~ are you kidding me? I didn’t realize how ridiculous this was until just now.
Don’t kid yourself, the room never looked this tidy. This is post piano destruction and removal!!
So ugly with the original brown walls.

 

Here are a few shots of how my old scrapbooking room looked. Everything was miss matched, the space was cramped and it was always a mess because the storage was inadequate.

Scrap paper storage system.
Navy blue screw/nail cabinet used to store my knick knacks.

Spare Room Make-Over: So Simple

It always amazes me how paint can totally transform an object/space. One of the things I hated about this room was the ugly gold light switch plate. Before painting the room, we removed all of the plug and switch plates, but it wasn’t until I went to replace them that I realized how beautiful that very same plate would be with a simple coat of spray paint. It’s now one of my favourite details in the newly painted room.

BEFORE: Dated gold switch plate
So ugly with the original brown walls.
AFTER: Spray painted switch plate

 

Spare Room Make-over Continued: Office Chair

BEFORE: Old grey office chair
Reupholstered office chair with arms still on.
I love the print on this chair and with the arms removed it is so much more functional.
The chair tucks in nicely under the desk with the arms removed.

Slowly but surely, we got everything moved from the old scrapbooking room over to the newly painted spare room.  I had a hard time figuring out how I wanted the shelves put up and my indecisiveness definitely held up the process. I insisted on cutting, staining, urethaning and mounting one shelf at a time and this was a bit frustrating for Tim as he was helping me out with the shelves. I needed to see it all together to be able to assess what needed to go where, as I was determined to create a work space with minimal clutter. While Tim was working on the shelves, I decided to give the old office chair a facelift that was more in line with the new look of the room.

TidewaterFor the most part, the room is quite a subdued colour palette. All of the walls are painted tidewater (LOVE! LOVE! Love it!) and the trim was given a fresh coat of white paint. The armoire and bench are both white, and the antique desk is stained.

The old office chair was functional, but a drab grey colour that really didn’t work in the new space. I really wanted to update it with a printed fabric that would bring a hint of colour to the space. I was so excited when I found this material! I’m usually quite conservative and shy away from multi-coloured prints, but this splash of colour seemed fun and goes beautifully with the overall look of the room. It was pretty easy to re-cover (although the finished product isn’t as professional looking as some projects I’ve done).  It really just involved the removal of some screws and staples, and then replacing the existing fabric with a staple gun. My favourite upgrade was actually not even planned, but once I began changing  the upholstery, I discovered that the arms were not an integral part of the chair design and could be easily removed. This wasn’t so much about the look of the chair, but rather the function. The arms not only prevented the chair from being pushed all the way under the desk, but also meant I couldn’t slide the chair in as far as I would have liked when working. I can’t believe I never thought of removing the arms before. The chair now slides nicely under the desk drawer and is a more subtle piece in the room. So pleased with this project!

Spare Room Make-over: Scrapbooking Storage Bench

When planning out the space, we decided that the spare room would become my dressing room as well as my new scrapbooking room. I already had a scrapbooking room located off the back of the spare room. I loved the room as it was banked with a wall of windows and offered great light. However, it wasn’t very functional and I found most of my projects were done in the evening and I rarely got to enjoy the windows anyway. After years of contemplation, I finally relented and we both decided that the benefits of main floor laundry far out weighed my reasons for keeping it as my scrapbooking room. So I needed to create a space that was visually appealing, functional and could be kept neat and tidy.

Once again, I decided that in order to make this really work, I had to go through the painstaking task of sorting through all of my scrapbooking and project supplies. Although I still had Marie Kondo fresh on my mind, it was impossible to follow the same steps I used for sorting my clothes only two days before. This job involved literally hundreds of small items that needed to be sorted, organized and in some cases tossed or donated. I literally went through every piece of paper and brad I had in my possession. Purging my clothes was a big job, but this was a monster. It took me two very long days to get through everything, but in the end, every item would have a proper home.

As I cleaned and sorted, I tried to think about how I was going organize everything neatly into the new space. The scrapbooking albums were a bit of a challenge to figure out. They are large and needed a shelf that would be about 14″ deep and approximately 3 feet long. They are very heavy and the books themselves are several different colours. I really wanted the colour scheme to be very neutral with white accessories. After pondering for a few days, I stumbled upon a bench seat that had been given to me by a colleague. She thought I might be able to use it for a project some day. Although the bench was rather plain and needed some work, it was sturdy. I was so excited when I tried an album and discovered that it held my whole collection perfectly. I decided to give it a fresh coat of white paint and upholster the top to create a comfortable seat to use while dressing. Here is what the bench looked like before I started.

You can see it looks a little scratched and worn on top.
This is after paint. You can see a bit of a gap between the lid and front. We had to add a board in there for added support.
I covered the bottom with some Mactac to clean it up a bit.

Upholstering the top what quite easy. I just removed it and added foam and padding from an old leather chair Tim had just dismantled. It was really just a matter of using a staple gun to secure the padding and fabric. I then added a piece of white material to give it more of a finished look when you lift the lid. The fabric was discounted and I managed to pick it up for around $7.  After adding the extra piece of wood along the front and upholstering the top, the bench boasts a whole new look. Simple, but lovely.

It is a bit hard to see the colour, but it goes beautifully with the new wall colour.
I love the textured pattern in the fabric.
I love how the albums fit perfectly in the bench. So excited that I found a way to hide them!

I couldn’t be more pleased with the finished bench. I am so glad I figured out how to make the albums accessible and yet out of site. The thought of having all of the different coloured albums up on a shelf was just not the look I was going for. Can’t wait until the whole room is pulled together. Just a few more projects and it will be done.  Stay tuned for the next project I have to share from our spare room make-over.

Spare Room Make-over: The Purge ~ Clothing Cast-a-ways!

As mentioned in a previous post, one of the struggles with an older home is the lack of suitable closet space. I never realized how disorganized my clothes were until my friend Robin began sharing with me some of what she learned by reading Marie Kondo’s book on how to organize your life. While we painted the spare room, she shared some of Marie’s thoughts on how to de-clutter and free yourself/life of the weight of all of those things you’ve collected, but don’t really need or even use. I must confess, I haven’t yet read the book. Never the less, I decided to take action and apply some of the tips I learned. I got up the next morning feeling inspired and began to tackle my clothing problem.

Clothing Cast-a-ways:

Step 1:

Collect all of your clothing and I mean all. Every stitch ~ from off-season to outerwear. Dump it all in the centre of a room on the floor. This is key – you must see it all together in order to be able to truly sort it. pile of clothes

I have never felt that I own many clothes. I hate shopping and seem to add only a few new items a year to what I already own. I don’t believe in waste and am not one to spoil myself. Having grown up with very little money, I learned at an early age how to stretch a dollar. (This is not always good, sometimes we need to learn to break free of the belief systems from our past as they can in fact hold us back in life ~ I’m still working on this.) I regularly donate clothes that we no longer wear and I honestly didn’t believe that this would be too big of a job for me. Wrong.

Step 2:

Sort the clothes into three piles: keep, donate and toss. 

Keep Donate Toss

The far pile is my “keep” pile, the one to the right for “donation” and the smallest was what I deemed garbage. (You can see the bottom two shelves of the armoire in the background ~ this is a mad mess of board games that now have a new home – yay!)

Step 3:

Toss the garbage and bag up the items to be donated.

Left over hangers

Here is a tub with the left over hangers.

I was astounded when I ended up with one black garbage bag of clothes to toss and three more to donate. How was it even possible that I had 4 black garbage bags of clothes that I didn’t really want or need? I felt like I had been through my clothes regularly, but the difference really was having it all in one place. One of the things that my friend shared that really helped me to part with items was to stop and ask myself how a particular item made me feel when I wore it. If I didn’t love it and feel great in it, then why keep it. I quickly realized that I had kept many items that I would try-on and end up hanging back-up because I really didn’t like the way it made me feel. Some of the items were virtually new and just never made me feel good about myself when I put them on. It was so freeing to finally just allow myself to be honest and discard what I really didn’t like without feeling guilty. After all, someone else might embrace that same item and be blessed by it.

Step 4:

Sort the “keep” pile ~ t-shirts, pants, scarves, underwear, socks, etc.

Step 5:

Fold and organize all of the clothing that you are planning to keep.

Traditionally, I have hung most of my clothes. I don’t know why I opted to hang, but I think I believed that it would save me having to press everything before wearing it. I’m a pretty low maintenance person and the thought of ironing all of my laundry was just not going to fly. I spend enough hours doing laundry as it is and my iron is used only on a “as necessary” basis. However, when your clothes are crammed onto hangers and squeezed into closets that are too small, they rarely escape without creases. The idea of folding everything seemed almost foreign to me, but I decided to do what Marie suggested and give it a try because what I was doing just wasn’t working. I even followed her suggestions on how to fold the items. I was already doing the vertical folding, but this took it all to a whole new level. She doesn’t believe in storing clothes and says you should be able to see every item of clothing you own.

My plan was to use the armoire which had previously housed a mish-mash of items including my pants, board games, linen, fabric, batteries and a few other odds and ends. This meant finding new homes for everything that didn’t fit into the category “Cindy’s Clothes”. The armoire has mesh wire doors and you can see into it. I know Marie suggests using containers/boxes you already own, but I wasn’t okay with this since they would be visible. I didn’t spend much, but did pick-up a few containers to add to what I already owned. I really just wanted them all to be white. I began the process of folding my clothes with the goal being to fit everything in one cabinet and one closet.

In the end, I was able to downsize considerably. I no longer store my off-season clothes in a huge tub in the basement and was able to give up the dresser I was using in the master bedroom. I now have almost everything in one place. The armoire is full, but completely organized and not cluttered at all. It contains both my summer and winter clothes. My main closet has the few items I chose to hang. All of those easily fit on the top bar in the closet. The bottom bar was completely empty, but I decided to move my hoodies from the hook on the back of the master bedroom door to the bottom bar in the closet. I do still have the closet in the master bedroom for longer items such as dresses. It isn’t very full, but the length doesn’t allow them to fit in my main closet in the spare room. My outerwear is still kept at the back door.

I love this armoire. We once retrieved this from a friend who was set to trash it! Can you believe it? It now is home to most of my clothes. Love it!
You can see how everything is folded vertically and visible.
My newly organized clothes.

It feels so light and airy with all the extra clothes gone. So far I haven’t missed one item. Everything I own is at my fingertips and visible. The change is dramatic, but I will admit it took me a long time to complete this job. I was so busy that week that I honestly don’t remember exactly how many hours I worked on this from start to finish, but I think it was more than 10. It is a huge task, but the payoff is tremendous. I love how accessible everything is and find that I spend so much less time getting ready in the morning because I only kept items I like!

The time spent definitely took away from the time I had to work on transforming the spare room, but was completely necessary if the make-over was going to be successful in the end.

If you are interested in learning more about what Marie has to say in her book, but aren’t ready to buy it, check-out One Kings Lane for a post outlining 8 of Marie’s decluttering lessons. I for one can’t wait to read the book!

Spare Bedroom Make-Over: Chandelier Upcycle

Before and after chandelier

The bulbs look black, but I haven’t changed them because they are still working!

When we first moved into our house, we set-up our dining room in the large room next to our kitchen. This seemed logical since it was close to the kitchen and had a large chandelier in the (almost) center of the room. This always bugged me because it was mounted in a small square section of the ceiling created by the beams ~ so beautiful and yet, not centered! Not only did I not love the chandelier itself, but the fact that it was not properly centered drove me a bit crazy.

To avoid leaving the wire hanging, Tim just put the old bedroom light fixture up until we find a ceiling fan that will suit the space. You can see how off center it is.

Eventually we realized that perhaps this space was better suited for our living room and so we switched the two rooms around. Although we had every intention of replacing the chandelier with a ceiling fan (we have no air conditioning), we didn’t really know what to do with the chandelier and felt a bit bad about getting rid of it as it was original to the home and almost a hundred years old.

I know I might get hate mail for this, but original or not, I hated the brass. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to upcycle the chandelier and make it into a really beautiful piece. One of the first mini-projects we did for my new space was to remove the chandelier from the living room. We carefully took all of the glass pieces off and put them through the dishwasher to make them sparkling clean. I gave the brass a good cleaning and then spray painted the entire thing white. I had the spray paint on hand, so this project cost me nothing! I suppose the can of paint was probably about $6 or so.  I absolutely love the transformation and it looks amazing in the spare room. (We will need to purchase a proper fixture for the living room as this looks hideous, but is preferable to the hanging wires from the chandelier. I don’t mind the expense of this because it is something we had planned to do anyway.)

One of the keys to decorating on a budget is to try to find things you already own and make them work in new way. Often paint or even just a fresh perspective can bring new life to an item you already have. For this room, we primarily used items we already had around the house. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts on how we transformed other pieces for this space.