We recently bought a small townhouse here in West Palm Beach. As you know from my previous posts, we enjoy immensely that we now have a small yard and more room for storage, more room for the doggie to run, and also, finally, a second bedroom. Even though the house has been upgraded and renovated before we moved in, there are still, as you probably know if you're a homeowner, a-million-and-one things you would like to change, personalize or just simply improve. Some improvements are on the costly side, some you can do on the cheap, all of them usually include a lot of elbow-grease, time-spent and many are often involved with a thorough backache that manifests the day after said improvement, or --as in Terry's case, headaches, brought on by the mere mention of the wiring that is going on in this house!
So, considering that after the house-purchase and the purchase of necessary furniture items, the budget is significantly depleted, I've started to take a closer look at what I already have, to see, if anything could be re-used, re-purposed or spruced up. I have to say I was quite surprised by what I found.
I looked at our old couch. This was my two-seater, which I purchased in Boston, when I had a single-gal city-apartment approximately the size of a postage stamp. I moved this couch from Boston to Florida, to Memphis and back to Florida. I almost didn't want to bring it along on this last move from the apartment to the new house, but Terry and I decided that it sort of had a sentimental value after many years of us cramping ourselves on this tiny little mud-green couch. So we dragged it along. "The guest room maybe" we said, and just chucked it in there with all the other items left over from our effort to make this our "grown-up" house.
After all odds and ends had settled in the guest room, which felt more like Tut-anch-amun's burial chamber, when I first tried to clean it up, I took another look at the sofa. Right next to it stood the mattress that we had just chucked in there after buying a new one for the master bedroom. Hmm, I thought, if we put the actual mattress on the pull-out sofa, this could be a guest bed for the time being. No need to buy a new one. I tried it, it fit. Nice. Now, the only issue is, all my bedding from former master bedrooms was in various shades of blue, ranging from baby to navy, nothing that really matched the fabulous mud-green exterior of the couch. HMMM.
I looked at it for a few days and finally put on a set of mostly neutral beige sheets and started attaching the wall art from our old living room. The Florida type stuff, a yellow and green ancient map-style picture with palm trees that matched my very "eclectic" yellow, brown and green polka dot recliner (like I said, this room is a collection of the pre-grown up stuff), which now rests next to the make-shift bed. When all that was there, my wonderful and thrifty friend Anna showed up with a lamp for me. A hand-me down that I was more than happy to accept considering the lack of light fixtures in the guest room. It was missing the lamp-shade, but it was an acceptable start for the moment.
That same day Terry, surprisingly, came home with two rolls of high quality tan/neutral-colored fabric from the store next door. Apparently the upholstery shop was getting rid of some out-of-style fabrics that they didn't need anymore. He thought maybe I could do something with it. Thinking about the neutral sheets I put on the bed, I immediately thought that this fabric would make nice shear curtains. HMMM again. So I went on Pinterest to find myself some ideas. I recommend it to everybody, that site is a bottomless pit of creativity and many, many of these ideas you'll find, are very easy to reproduce. Check it out some time. To the right is my inspiration that I used from Pinterest, which then led to my curtains.
I bought one of these little hand-operated sewing machines for $10 and went to work. Now remember, you don't have to be an expert. Have you seen some of the stuff that you buy from China? Those curtains are not particularly well sewn either!! Nor do they have to be. Also, if you don't want to try yourself in sewing, find an old bed sheet, tablecloth anything that is in one piece and already sewn. Works just as well. Imagination is key!! How often do you move/ mess with curtains? Never! So even if they're uneven, as long as you can get them up there on the curtain rod in one piece and leave them there. Good! That's all you need.
So I sewed two panels for myself. Rifled through my crafts stuff and found skinny brown ribbons, remembered that I had two old brown curtain panels from years ago and ironed them up, found my cheap, old curtain rods, dug up old picture frames and made simple stamp pictures that every 3 year old could make.
Et voila. Here is the result of almost no expenses and all imagination and re-purposing (I went with the lightest blue comforter that I had and re-incorporated that color in some wall art to match it and repeat the color). While these are not the colors I would choose to go together, strangely enough, they do kind of go together now. It now looks like a cozy little room that is perfectly acceptable and even cute as a guest room.
Dollars spent: $12 (ten on the sewing machine and $1 each for round ornamental stamp and stamp pad baby-blue in the $1 section at the craft store.
As the cherry on top, my friend Anna showed up with a lampshade just a little bit later, which she intercepted from meeting its pre-mature demise when a neighbor moved out and wanted to chuck it in the dumpster.
As a positive side effect I can feel good about the fact that everything I did in that room, came from re-used products that I already had, no unnecessary spending, no garbage in a landfill and no waste. Challenge yourself to re-use and re-purpose, it is fun, it is a project and so much better for the environment, not to mention, waaay more satisfying than just spending money and getting new stuff.
At the end of the day, as crooked as the sewing may be, I MADE those curtains. If nothing else, its a conversation piece.
P.S. I added some handy new gadgets to the blog. You can now subscribe via email, in case you enjoy this little page of mine, that way you won't miss a post. Also, I added a little poll to find out more about my readers and when they enjoy their social media/reading/ blog-time. Feel free to add your comments, votes and suggestions and thank you for stopping by.
So, considering that after the house-purchase and the purchase of necessary furniture items, the budget is significantly depleted, I've started to take a closer look at what I already have, to see, if anything could be re-used, re-purposed or spruced up. I have to say I was quite surprised by what I found.
I looked at our old couch. This was my two-seater, which I purchased in Boston, when I had a single-gal city-apartment approximately the size of a postage stamp. I moved this couch from Boston to Florida, to Memphis and back to Florida. I almost didn't want to bring it along on this last move from the apartment to the new house, but Terry and I decided that it sort of had a sentimental value after many years of us cramping ourselves on this tiny little mud-green couch. So we dragged it along. "The guest room maybe" we said, and just chucked it in there with all the other items left over from our effort to make this our "grown-up" house.
After all odds and ends had settled in the guest room, which felt more like Tut-anch-amun's burial chamber, when I first tried to clean it up, I took another look at the sofa. Right next to it stood the mattress that we had just chucked in there after buying a new one for the master bedroom. Hmm, I thought, if we put the actual mattress on the pull-out sofa, this could be a guest bed for the time being. No need to buy a new one. I tried it, it fit. Nice. Now, the only issue is, all my bedding from former master bedrooms was in various shades of blue, ranging from baby to navy, nothing that really matched the fabulous mud-green exterior of the couch. HMMM.
I looked at it for a few days and finally put on a set of mostly neutral beige sheets and started attaching the wall art from our old living room. The Florida type stuff, a yellow and green ancient map-style picture with palm trees that matched my very "eclectic" yellow, brown and green polka dot recliner (like I said, this room is a collection of the pre-grown up stuff), which now rests next to the make-shift bed. When all that was there, my wonderful and thrifty friend Anna showed up with a lamp for me. A hand-me down that I was more than happy to accept considering the lack of light fixtures in the guest room. It was missing the lamp-shade, but it was an acceptable start for the moment.
That same day Terry, surprisingly, came home with two rolls of high quality tan/neutral-colored fabric from the store next door. Apparently the upholstery shop was getting rid of some out-of-style fabrics that they didn't need anymore. He thought maybe I could do something with it. Thinking about the neutral sheets I put on the bed, I immediately thought that this fabric would make nice shear curtains. HMMM again. So I went on Pinterest to find myself some ideas. I recommend it to everybody, that site is a bottomless pit of creativity and many, many of these ideas you'll find, are very easy to reproduce. Check it out some time. To the right is my inspiration that I used from Pinterest, which then led to my curtains.I bought one of these little hand-operated sewing machines for $10 and went to work. Now remember, you don't have to be an expert. Have you seen some of the stuff that you buy from China? Those curtains are not particularly well sewn either!! Nor do they have to be. Also, if you don't want to try yourself in sewing, find an old bed sheet, tablecloth anything that is in one piece and already sewn. Works just as well. Imagination is key!! How often do you move/ mess with curtains? Never! So even if they're uneven, as long as you can get them up there on the curtain rod in one piece and leave them there. Good! That's all you need.
Et voila. Here is the result of almost no expenses and all imagination and re-purposing (I went with the lightest blue comforter that I had and re-incorporated that color in some wall art to match it and repeat the color). While these are not the colors I would choose to go together, strangely enough, they do kind of go together now. It now looks like a cozy little room that is perfectly acceptable and even cute as a guest room.
Dollars spent: $12 (ten on the sewing machine and $1 each for round ornamental stamp and stamp pad baby-blue in the $1 section at the craft store.As the cherry on top, my friend Anna showed up with a lampshade just a little bit later, which she intercepted from meeting its pre-mature demise when a neighbor moved out and wanted to chuck it in the dumpster.
As a positive side effect I can feel good about the fact that everything I did in that room, came from re-used products that I already had, no unnecessary spending, no garbage in a landfill and no waste. Challenge yourself to re-use and re-purpose, it is fun, it is a project and so much better for the environment, not to mention, waaay more satisfying than just spending money and getting new stuff.
At the end of the day, as crooked as the sewing may be, I MADE those curtains. If nothing else, its a conversation piece.
P.S. I added some handy new gadgets to the blog. You can now subscribe via email, in case you enjoy this little page of mine, that way you won't miss a post. Also, I added a little poll to find out more about my readers and when they enjoy their social media/reading/ blog-time. Feel free to add your comments, votes and suggestions and thank you for stopping by.
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