Monday Makeover: Mini Makeover Edition

Sometimes in the midst of major home makeovers, you have to stop and work on some smaller tasks to keep yourself from going crazy.

... Or, at least I do!

I thought I'd dedicate today's blog to two of the mini-makeovers I've worked on over the last couple of weeks. These were relatively simple afternoon projects I completed that had a tremendous impact on the way I feel about my house. Hopefully they will inspire you to do the same.

The first project I worked on was my laundry room. I'm fortunate to have a large laundry room, but to be honest, it used to end up being a "junk room" that I tossed things into when company came over. Those days are OVER now! 

The shelf you see in the picture was a white shelf that used to be in my apartment's entryway. It had seen better days, so when we moved into this house, I relegated it to the laundry room. On a rainy afternoon, I shelf-papered the shelves with cute chevron striped paper I found on clearance (thank you T.J. Maxx) and added some Sterilite plastic drawers to serve as junk drawers. I try to keep the drawers relatively organized by giving each of them a "theme" (i.e. kitchen, office, craft, first aid, etc.) 

Once the bulk of the work was done, I bought some inexpensive decorations and a few bargain priced baskets at Hobby Lobby to finish the look! I also threw a large gray bathmat (found on clearance at Target) onto the floor to keep my feet "comfy" while doing laundry. 

Quick and CHEAP! (My second favorite word, right after FREE!)

I'm not even sure if this next project technically counts as a makeover, since it was so easy, but I'm still claiming it! Here's one important principle I've discovered in home decor:

When you get bored with a room, mix it up! 

Seriously, what's the fun in furniture if you don't rearrange it once in a while?!

The wall above used to house my computer on a high "pub" table. It looked lovely for a while, but I noticed that it was catching a lot of clutter and wasn't the style I was going for anymore. Because I use my laptop more often, I moved the desktop computer to my desk in the "guest" bedroom, and asked Prince Charming and my Dad to move the table into our "bonus" room for use in a future makeover. Then, we slid my piano over a few feet into it's new home! I pulled in a lamp from across the room, and gathered a few pictures from around the house to spruce the area up. This was an easy fix and changed the entire room - my living room feels so much larger now!

So there you have it - makeovers don't have to be major and time consuming. Mix up your furniture, artwork, and trinkets once in a while. Little changes can make a big difference!

Master Bedroom Makeover

When we purchased our house in December, we knew that it would need a little (read: a lot) of love. While the previous owners had done a relatively good job of keeping it up, it was looking pretty dated! Unfortunately, some of the big projects that we wanted to do, like gutting the kitchen, were - and still are - not in the budget. So we went to the metaphorical drawing board!

December 21, 2012 - Right after closing! Note the plants in the front flowerbed.

Thinking about which project would make the biggest impact on the "comfort level" of our house, without making the biggest dent in our budget led us to remodeling the master bedroom. Naively, we expected the project to be quick and easy. Gorgeous, easy-to-install, laminate flooring, a couple of coats of "Thin Ice" colored paint, and the replacement of some flimsy closet doors and discolored blinds. Sounds simple, right?

Wrong.

Step one was to take out the flimsy old closet doors. No problem!

Step two involved us ripping up the old laminate flooring. Actually, it involved my DAD ripping up the old laminate flooring, with a little assistance from my Prince Charming (henceforth referred to as PC). This is where we made a "lovely" discovery. Shocking to all of us, there were little tiny roots from the plants GROWING THROUGH THE CONCRETE BLOCK WALL to soak up moisture, which had seeped into the concrete because the soil level in the flowerbed was higher than the foundation of the house.

Beautiful, yes? Cellphone photo courtesy of PC.

Thankfully, my PC has an uncle who has worked in the construction business for many years. After some conferring between PC's uncle and my Dad, they determined that the best course of action was to rip out the garden, relocate all of the excess dirt, and replace the bed with rocks. You might be surprised to find out that I was all for it! Replacing the bushes with a container garden was already on my list of "Things To Do Someday!"

While front garden demolition was in progress, we had time to repaint the bedroom with the help of PC's dad and replace all of the blinds. Immediately after that, the new flooring was purchased and installed by my Dad. (He's great! I'm so thankful that he lives around the corner and is willing to help with projects that Dustin and I aren't handy enough to do ourselves.)

From Instagram: Toby enjoying (holding down?) our new flooring!

It's taken a few months (and several trips to IKEA) to get everything arranged "just so," but I couldn't be happier with the final result.

Behold, our master bedroom!

June 9, 2013 - Finished at long last!

More projects to come soon, but for now, it's time for a little nap on my comfy bed in our beautiful new room!