UNDER THE STAIRS CLOSET REVEAL!

It's the last week of the the $100 Room Challenge and time for the big reveal!  In the previous two weeks we had installed a coat rod on one side of the closet, and wall hooks, a shelf and the door organizer on the other side.  We also painted the stripes on the wall last week (tutorial here).

This week I spray painted the baskets to the door organizer gold:

I also found some bins for the top shelf.  I looked at Target and Michaels and they had cute options but on a whim I also stopped by the Dollar Tree and they had these fabric bins for only $1 each!  They are the perfect size to store seasonal items and we have a bin for swimming accessories, winter hats and gloves, and summer toys.

The last addition was a rug that we originally had by our kitchen sink. 

The total cost that we spent updating the closet is as follows:

Pole sockets for the closet rod: $6

Bike hook (which we are no longer using): $1

Door organizer: $44

Gold spray paint: $6.50

Baskets: $4

Which brings me to a total of $61.50!  We did shop around our house for some of the items like the rug and the wall hooks and shelf to keep this under budget.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with the space and it is super functional now with all the storage organizers.  Most importantly, I was able to make this our coat closet with the new closet rod and that was our main goal from the start!  

Thanks for following along on this challenge and here are some more amazing transformations from all the other lovely bloggers:

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5 EASY TIPS TO PAINTING STRIPES ON YOUR WALL

Striped walls are nothing new, but the preppy clean look is always a classic.  We decided to paint our coat closet with wide stripes to inject some personality into an otherwise small and cluttered space.  Even though it may be one of the smallest areas of the house, we use the closet daily and it's nice to see a space you love, especially one that you see every day.

There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to paint stripes, but here are my top five takeaways from undergoing this project to make it an easier and more fun process.

1) Decide on the width of your stripes.  The rule of the thumb is that you measure the height of the wall from floor to ceiling and divide it by the number of stripes you want.  It is always nice to use an odd number of rows, i.e. divide by 5 rows if you want wide stripes, 9 rows for thin stripes.  I ended up using 7 rows for our closet, which made each row approximately 13" wide.

The nice thing if you divide by an odd number is that you can leave both the top and bottom rows unpainted.  This way you do not have to tape up the ceiling or any baseboards or moldings which saves you a lot of time and energy.

Lastly, when taping off your stripes start from the ceiling down.  Even if you are off slightly with your measurements the difference will be in the bottom layer which is harder to notice. Plus, no one will ever break out a ruler to measure your stripes so even if the last row is larger or smaller by an inch it will be undetectable to the eye.

I also used a bit of tape to mark off the stripes that need to be painted.  It's just an easy visual reference.

2) Use a good quality painters tape.  For our project we had leftover painters tape from both 3M and Scotch from previous projects and I ended up using both.  I started with 3M and when that ran out I used the Scotch.  I found that the Scotch tape preformed better and was easier to remove as well. 

When you tape make sure you use your finger or the edge of a credit card to press along the entire edge of tape on the side that you are painting to ensure there are no gaps where the paint might bleed underneath. 

Lastly, you don't want to leave the tape up for too long.  I started taping and then got sidetracked for a few days before coming back to the project.  The older tape was a little bit more difficult to remove.

3) A laser level is a must!  The area we painted was small and I think we could have gotten away with marking out the stripes on both sides and then taping but a laser level made the process so much easier (and for a bigger wall it is definitely a must have).  We just marked one side of the wall with a a small pencil mark and then lined up the laser level and taped off each stripe.  Since we had two adjoining walls, once we taped one wall we used the laser level again on the other end of the wall to match up the stripes on the second wall.   And remember, it doesn't have to be exactly perfect.  You don't have to make sure the level is 100% perfect - if it looks straight to your naked eye and the bubble is close to the center then you are good to go. 

4) Make sure you have enough paint for two coats.  It's hard getting a color match on your paint, and even two different batches of the same color might not be exactly the same.  Speaking of paint, while I like the matte look, I always get satin or eggshell finish.  With matte finish, any scruff or mark shows up on the paint and it's hard to clean.  The glossier the paint the easier it is to clean, but conversely it is harder to do touch ups and the paint will highlight imperfections in your wall.  I find satin a good compromise between the two.

5) Remove the tape when the paint is still wet.  If you wait until the paint dries before your remove your tape, it is likely to pull off little pieces of paint with it which will ruin your clean line.  And another painting tip: don't load up your roller or brush with too much paint.  After you dip it, roll the roller a few times in the tray before painting.  And if you use a brush just dip the tip in and not the whole brush.  This way you won't get lots of drips and you won't get brush or roller marks because of of the excess paint.  Speaking of paint drips, as soon as you notice one, wipe it off immediately with a wet paper towel.  If you do it before the paint starts to dry you can usually easily remove it.

It honestly is a quick and easy project.  Happy painting!

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UNDER THE STAIRS CLOSET MAKEOVER: FINALLY GETTING ORGANIZED!

This is Week 3 of the 100 Room Challenge.   Finally, I am adding some organizational items to the space.  The back of the closet we will be still be keeping as storage.  We added a coat rack last week.  And this week we added two sets of wall hooks, a floating shelf for added storage, and a storage rack to the inside of the closet door.  Whew.  That was a LOT of drilling going on.  I can't complain because I was the one that just pointed where I wanted things and all the elbow grease came from my husband.  Thanks babe!

The floating shelf and the wall hooks we were able to scavenge from the laundry room in our previous house.  But we did buy the door shelf unit and that took a big chunk of our budget at $43.98.  Yikes!  I was trying to think of cuter options for the shelf rack but functionality won out.  It will be nice to corral miscellaneous seasonal items like hats and gloves and sunscreen in it.  I thought I had the brilliant idea of using adhesive shelf liner to wrap the wire bins to give it a faux wood look, but as evidenced below that was a big fail!   

It looks like what it was, which is basically a giftwrapped basket.  Does anyone have any ideas to make wire baskets look cuter?

Speaking of fails, I have another one.  Last week we installed the coat rod and I was thinking the decorative ledge in the closet would be a perfect place to put it.  But when we started to actually hang our coats on the rod I realized we placed it too close to the entry of the doorway.  It makes the closet look very small, and the jackets hang past the door frame which makes it look even more cluttered.

My amazing husband was kind enough to move the rod back a few inches into the sloped section of the closet.  The few inches made all the difference and the jackets do not protrude out into entry way any longer.  Lessons learned! A little spackling paste and paint to cover the old holes and problem solved.

Total budget spent of our allocated $100:

Pole sockets for closet rod: $6

Bike hook (which we no longer are using): $1

Door organizer: $44

Which makes it a total of $52.  Our plans for next week is to give the closet a bit more personality by painting it and to get some storage baskets for the shelf!

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UNDER THE STAIRS CLOSET MAKEOVER PART ONE

I'm finally ready to tackle our closet, aka the dumping ground for all things we want to hide!  First things first, we did a total clean out of the closet.  Surprisingly it can actually fit a lot of storage items as evidenced below:

Eeks!  Look at all the things we have been just throwing in there haphazardly.   After cleaning it out, we decided to keep seasonal items like holiday decorations as well as our empty luggage in the tapered section of the closet.  

For the entrance to the closet we are installing our long sought after coat rod.   Hopefully the coats will help hide all the items we are storing in the back!  Because we are hanging heavy winter coats on the rod and we could not find any wall studs where we wanted to install the rod, we also installed a hook (a regular bicycle hook) in the middle to help support the rod.  

The rod itself is leftover wood that we had from installing other closet rods in our bedroom closets.  We just used the regular saw station at Home Depot to hand saw the rod to the correct length.  We did purchase the pole sockets ($6) and the bicycle hook ($1) to help support the rod in place.  Next step is to install some coat hangers and organizers on the other side of the entrance to the closet.  I can't wait to get organized!

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S100 ROOM MAKEOVER: THE UNDER THE STAIRS CLOSET

I'm excited to take part of another $100 Room Challenge hosted by Lemons, Lavender and Laundry.  Basically we have one month to makeover one room in the house for under $100!  This time I'm tackling our under the stairs storage closet.  It's very unglamourous and very small but our house does not have a coat closet (what?!) and so I have high hopes of transforming this space into something more functional even the space might not ever look as pretty as I would like.

Since I was too excited to get started on the project (New Year's goal to get organized) I forgot to take a before shot of the closet.

But the plan is to 1) Clean it out!  Right now it is a resting place of some unpacked boxes from when we moved in 6 months ago, lots of shoes, backpacks and basically things we just throw in to do a speedy decluttering of the house when we have guests over (mostly toys - sorry kids!)

2) Add a wall of hooks to hang said backpacks and maybe shelves to store all loose items like hats, sunglasses, etc.

3) Add a coat rod to hang all of our jackets.  What house doesn't come with a coat closet?  Apparently we were 'lucky' to find the only one without one.  =)

4) Spruce up the place with a bit of paint.  I would love to add artwork but the space is really small and it would ideally function as both a storage and coat closet so I doubt you would even see the walls after we get done storing our items in it.  But we shall see!

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DIY IPHONE COSTUME

It's almost Halloween!  We have a budding technophile who wanted to be an iPhone this year.  As this would be one of the least expensive and easiest costumes to make I was all for it!

All you need is a black foam board (I got ours at the Dollar Tree), a piece of black ribbon, and a printer!  All in it cost me, oh maybe, $1.50 to make this costume.  The most time consuming part was downloading the iPhone app icons and resizing them to fit the foam board on the computer.

We modeled the costume to be like my iPhone 6 and to include a full screen of apps with a bottom bar.  In total, we had 3 rows of 4 icons each and then the bottom bar which also included four more apps.  Leave room at the very bottom of your board for your home button and at the top for your screen graphics.

My son choose his favorite apps (hence lots of games - Pokemon being a favorite around here!) and we resized the images which are easily found on Google to be 4.5" x 4.5" squares.  Some of the images of the icons already included a rounded corner but those that did not we just cut the corners so they all matched.  The home button was a circle that was also 4.5" in diameter.  For the top of the screen we printed out some dots and bars to match the design of our iPhone and the screen bar which included our wireless carrier, the time, and the battery icon.  Once you have all your print outs, it is easy to lay them on top of your foam board and place them so that they are properly spaced out.  Then just use a glue stick or double sided tape and attach the pictures!

Truthfully the hardest part of the costume was just cutting out the little letters and numbers for the top of the phone display.  After the icons are glued on, I just rounded the corners of the foam board, and tapped a ribbon at the top corners so that you can hang the costume around your neck for easy hands free walkability.

And there you have it!  A walking iPhone!  =)

10 MINUTE CRAFTS

A COLORFUL PENNANT BANNER

This quick and easy banner took less than ten minutes to put together and cost about $1.50 to make.  That's my kind of project!  Plus this was an easy activity that my daughter could help with so it doubled as a good bonding experience for my sadly non-napping toddler.  While I like the extra cuddle time, I do miss sneaking in a quick afternoon nap when she does!  

We first started with some rectangular foam sheets that you can pick up at any craft store (we bought ours from the Dollar Tree and it came in a multi-pack of different colors).  Next we cut each sheet into six triangles and within each triangle just made a small cut at the top corners with a pair of scissors to make an opening to thread a ribbon.  This only took a few minutes (longer with my little helper!).  It doesn't have to be perfect since you don't really see the slits once the banner is hanging.

Next we threaded a thin ribbon through each triangle piece to make a simple pennant banner.  We used a 1/4" white ribbon which was thick enough to help the triangles stay flat and hang in one direction.  

And that's basically it!  Now your banner is ready to hang.  We hung ours in the playroom to add a bit of instant festiveness to our play area.  As my sweetie would say, it's like a daily birthday party.  I love how even little things can make a child light up with happiness.  Not bad for $1.50!  =)

$100 ROOM CHALLENGE - MY LIVING ROOM REVEAL!

The living room is now finished!  I spent basically all my budget from the $100 Room Challenge on a couch which I was lucky enough to find on Craigslist.  It was actually listed for $100 but I was able to negotiate ten dollars off and used that money to rent a pickup truck from Home Depot (which was actually twenty dollars so I am ten dollars over budget - oops!) to carry my new find home.

The rest of the room is furnished from the rest of my home.   We were lucky to start with a blank space since we just moved into this house, which always makes it nice when designing a new room.

My favorite part of the challenge was filling in the space on the shelves.  Finding ways to keep the items balanced and simple was definitely a challenge.  I posted some tips in my previous post on styling bookshelves.

Am I crazy to think about the next phase to update the room???  I would love to put a rug in to soften up the room and replace the artwork over the mantel with a mirror.  the blank wall behind the piano could also benefit with artwork as well.   One can always dream right =)?  But overall, I am very happy with how the room turned out!

Here is one last before and after of the room.

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5 Tips for Styling Bookshelves

This is week three of the $100 Room Challenge and this is where I tackle my favorite part of the room: the built ins.  

I love love love the look of built ins but styling them can be much harder than you think.  Making the shelves look organized, interesting and functional all at the same time is quite a challenge.  If the shelves were in my office or bedroom I would definitely just be cramming them with my beloved books but for shelves that are in the open, you want to make a statement without overwhelming anyone since that is usually the first thing you see when you enter into a room.  Here are my five simple tips for styling a bookcase.

Tip 1:

Have a clear and consistent color scheme.  You don't have to go crazy and make everything monochrome, but arranging items that are within one or two harmonious colors helps to greatly unify things.

Tip 2:

Layer and stack.  Grouping items in twos or threes give your eye direction when looking at the shelves at a whole.  You do not want to have items the same height grouped together so place vases in two different sizes together or books stacked vertically on one shelf but then horizontally on another shelf.  This adds interest to your shelves and keeps things from looking too uniform.

Tip 3:

Add art where you can.  Pictures of your family, or framed pieces of artwork that you like are great to put behind objects as it adds depths to your shelves.

Tip 4:

Think about balance.  I like to think of the shelves like scales.  You want to have similar groupings of vases or art or books on one side as well as the other to unify the whole room.  You want to balance both the number and types of items as well as color of the items.  The shelves should be filled in but not feel to overwhelmed with items which leads me to my next tip...

Tip 5:

Edit, edit and edit.  It's easy to try to pack everything you own onto the shelves but you want to highlight the items that you really love and find beautiful or sentimental.  I am the worst when it comes to this because I love to keep everything.  But if it is not something you really cherish, or find beautiful then you can place it somewhere else in your home (I have boxes in the garage that my husband can't wait for me to get rid of!).  

And there it is!  I finally have a place to put the decor and books I have collected through the years.

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$100 Room Challenge Week 2

Over the weekend we finally moved into our new house.  While we still are in the midst of unpacking, we did find time to place our piano into the living room.  The piano feels a bit big for the room, but it's the only real place to place it unless we want to forgo our dining room.  Hopefully with the right decorations the room will feel cozy and bright.

My goal now is to use my budget to purchase a couch for the other side of the room and then utilize some of our current decorations to fill in the mantel and bookshelves.  Since it's summer, we place a few of our bird on the mantel for now.  

And here is what the room looks like for now:

It's still pretty bland with all the blank walls but some artwork and with a styled bookshelf that should hopefully change!  Now off to find a couch for less that $100 and maybe hopefully have some money leftover for a mirror to go over the mantel place.  I am definitely feeling that Craigslist is my friend for this project!

Some mirrors that I am eyeing if budget was not an issue are shown below.  I definitely am a fan of a round mirror, preferably with a gold or wood frame to add some warmth to the room.

Stella Mirror - Pier 1 imports

Industrial Round Mirror - AllModern

Stockholm Mirror - Ikea

Wood Octagon Mirror - Cost Plus World Market

And here are some other very talented bloggers who are part of this challenge.

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$100 Room Challenge

I know I have been MIA from blogging recently but I have good reason I promise!  We are actually moving this week.  Between running around packing and dealing with contractors (we  are trying to refinish the floors before we move in) and trying to squeeze some summer fun playing with the kiddos, it's been hard to find time to post.  If that wasn't enough, I threw my hat in to participate in the $100 Room Challenge hosted by Lemons, Lavender and Laundry.  I am super excited to be part of this challenge and hopefully I can actually make something happen!

Since we aren't actually moving in until next week officially, I took a quick snap of the room I was thinking of updating.  I'm super excited about the built ins since I have always wanted them.  With only $100 to work with, we are definitely filling in the room with our existing furniture from our old house, but there are some fun things I think I can manage to DIY if I can wrangle some time away from packing and cleaning and of course playtime with my little ones!

I can't wait to fill this space!

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