Category: At Home

Curb Appeal

I really like that phrase, although we don’t really have a curb… The idea conveyed still applies, however.

Our apartment’s hallway is really something out of a bad horror movie. A long, dark, creepy hallway complete with dim lighting, peeling paint, chunks missing from the wall(?!) and creaky floors. There isn’t much we can do about this, because the hallway’s sort of “no man’s land” between our lot and the lot to the south–is it owned by our landlord or the other landlord?

If only. Image via sugrdva on flickr.

Anyway, I’ve been spending some time brainstorming ways to improve our “curb appeal,” if you will, so that first-time visitors to our abode won’t turn and run before making it through the front door. Something above the level of regular sweeping (something my neighbors and I could work on, honestly).

What I’d like to try to do is create some kind of low, narrow unit that could sit to the left of the door, under the chair rail. I especially like the first part of this Before & After from design*sponge, where the reader DIY’ed a credenza from dresser drawers. I feel like I could make a nice one with a small drawer. This would be great because then the mail/UPS/fedex guy would have a little niche in which to slip a package, that wouldn’t scream “hey! there’s a package at this apartment and nobody’s home!” However, try as I might I have yet to come across the perfect drawer.

For now, I guess the best I can do is keep sweeping… :)

First Reupholstery Project

A long, long time ago, I promised you pictures of the “After” of these chairs I picked up for free at the dump. And I promised them that Friday. I gotta stop promising things to you guys. Haha. Well, the cushion on the first chair was finished before that Friday, but we hadn’t purchased the refinishing products recommended by this post from The Brick House (shoutout to Hemet!) so I decided to hold off on blogging about it until we shined up the wood as well.

Well, we got sick of the fabric & cushion for the second chair sitting around, and we still hadn’t/haven’t bought the stuff to try on the wood yet, but the wood has been cleaned on both (this actually made a world of difference) and the cushions have been finished as well. So I figure for lack of other content, and although this project isn’t done done, now’s as good a time as any for the not-as-big reveal!!!

Note the dingy, lumpy pink fabric. Had it been mint, I wouldn’t have minded the color or pattern but… it was actually really nasty. And when we took it off, stinky (we were wearing painter’s masks during that part of the process). This was quite creepy but inspired confidence: “no where to go but up!” So, here’s the before:

And now, the after! (The after so far, that is, we’re going to further clean and refresh the wood by following this guide.)

I’m crazy about the green link fabric we got on sale at JoAnn’s (the selection was way better than at Hobby Lobby). You can really tell the color by looking at the front edge–the sunlight kind of washes it out in this photo. They are actually super comfy and covering them was so easy I’m tempted to attempt to add cushions to the white chairs we got for free from my in-laws (you can glimpse one of them in the background). Time shall tell.

What do you think? Should I try to tackle the white cafe chairs? Or should I not give up my day job…
Oh, and don’t forget to vote for me by clicking the link on the right. Thanks much!

Face Lift

I went ahead and took a photo from a local realtor’s site and used photoshop to show how easy it is to do a few minor updates (okay, maybe a fence isn’t “minor” but you get my drift) and make the house immediately look much more impressive.

Before:

After:

Excuse the amateur work, but I hope you get the idea! I had fun trying this out :) If you want me to do a number on your house, I’d love to experiment. You can e-mail me a photo here!