What Else Is There?

Bedroom Update for REAL Cheapskates

2008-07-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, so one of my (least) favorite things about design mags, design tv shows, and websites for that matter is the jive they talk about "designing on a budget". Usually because the "budget" they speak of would be like winning the lottery for me. As someone in post-college, pre-grad school and pre-pre career purgatory the thought of spending $2000 to update, or even redecorate a room in my apartment is as realistic as me buying a summer home on "the cape" I don't even know what "The Cape" is! Cape Canaveral? That's the only "cape" i've ever heard of but I don't think rich WASPs want to vacation where NASA launches the Space Shuttle, but I could be wrong.

Anywhoo, ranting aside, after reading a couple of the latest issues of Domino, (which both featured crap like "High Style on a Real Life Budget!" and "Julianne Moore Decorates on a Budget!") I decided to do a play by play of my actual bedroom redo- on an ACTUAL budget.

Now, I realize my bedroom project is more of an update, a polish, a spruce up (if you will) than a full on makeover, but still it got the job done. So here we go. $250 is all I spent over the course of about 3 months. Just extra bits of cash that found their way into my life and eventually, my bedroom.

First, the real catalyst for the "update" was the nightstands that Lindsey and I found at the Kane County Flea Market. I had heard good things about the flea market out there, so we went. Lindsey called it her "junk dream come true" and was it ever! But, in the midst of all the junk were these great antique danish nightstands. Exactly what I had been browsing for, for months. They had drawers, they were pretty, they had to be mine. So, the most expensive item in the "update" came home. $160 for the pair. ($80 each) But I think we will have these babies forever.

So after we had these beautiful nightstands, some other things needed a face lift. We organized the tops of our dressers (and the insides) and basically any other visible surface in the room so that it didn't look cluttered. It is important to note however, that there was enough left out so that we could still live. I never want to feel like I live in a catalog. So, organize but don't even pretend that you are robots that don't need your jewelry or perfume or vibrator easily accessible. :) All of this of course was TOTALLY FREE and made a huge impact on how the bedroom looks.

Next, I bought some new bed linens. I have really like the faux bois look, so I bit the bullet and bought the Martha Stewart Faux Bois duvet cover in "egret" a butter-y color on ebay. (Second from the top in the photo) Buying it on ebay saved me roughy $110. I also then found the pillow shams at Macy's on clearance for $5. Saving me $70. (That's right, that bitch wanted like $142 for the duvet and $42 EACH for the pillow shams. No wonder she went to jail!) Then a nice brown blankie from Target for $20. Done-zo.

Last, I finally framed some postcards, photos, and other silly stuff we had been meaning to hang forever. The frames were a set I bought on sale at Urban Outfitters for $19.99 and two from Target for $4 and $5. I love how it came out, and left enough empty space so I can add to it as much as I want.

And then there were the dinosaurs. Lindsey and I had gone to the Field Museum last year for an extra credit project where she gleefully spent like $5 on the machine that makes wax dinosaur figurines. They were green, yellow, red and blue. All the colors that 5 year olds love and look great in your purple and brown bedroom. So, as she INSISTED on keeping them right out on her dresser no matter what, I thought, well why not make them just a smidge more attractive and spray paint them white so at least they sort of resemble something an adult might own one day. (maybe?) So that's what we did. We already had the paint (i think it was like $2) and now we have a faux-porcelain Jurassic Park in our bedroom.

So there you have it. Trust me that the room looks and feels alot better. It may not be ready for a glossy magazine cover shoot, but it does the job for a couple of broke twenty-somethings. And something tells me, if you're reading this, you can relate. P.S. Julianne Moore's bedroom makeover featured in Domino cost about $5000.00. Mine.... not so much.

BTW- I added more pics onto Flickr, of both the bedroom and my Soviet-Kitsch-en. Check it!

Inspiration Bored

2008-07-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

So, over the past few days I have run into some beautiful photographs of rooms that resemble (somewhat) my own home.... except waaay better. Like these from Desire to Inspire :

Same color pallet as my own living room (more green walls though) but still somehow cuter.

And this red wall like my dining room:

Then, to add insult to design injury I find out that Orla Kiely is coming out with a line of bed linens. I can't even imagine how untouchable these will be considering an Orla Kiely wallet will cost you like $100. But her stuff is soooo beautiful I may have to sell my soul for a throw pillow. Anyways, back to the topic at hand, one of the promo pics for this new line of linens looks exactly how my bedroom SHOULD look. From Homebug:

Same layout, (replace the wallpaper accent wall with a deep purple accent wall) and colors as mine, but still this room just sent my bedroom into a shame spiral.

But, before I go "shoulding" all over myself I have to remember an Apartmenttherapy post from just yesterday about Design mags and blogs making you feel inferior about your own space and place. Good call AT! I mean a significant percentage of my credit card debt comes from the self loathing i feel about my home design which can be attributed to blogs etc. In many ways these types of media almost force you to buy (no pun intended) into the disgusting consumer culture of America. But, as the 4th of July approaches i wonder, if that's just what it takes for me to be a good American? :) A good, obsessive, neurotic, perfectionist American. I guess my apartment is a work in progress, and as we all know, it will NEVER BE DONE.

P.S. If you really want to feel bad about your whole life, then take a peek at Desire to Inspire because pretty much everything on it is GORGEOUS.

are you in or are you out?

2008-06-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know that wall decals have gotten obnoxious, and are definitely on their way out, however I can't resist loving these HUGE birch tree decals from the etsy shop "Shanickers" http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5720663

First, I think the scale of these makes them cooler than regular decals. Second, on the red wall in my dining room they would be an amazing edition to the Russian Winter Forest theme. (Or as my friend Sara calls it, the "Dr. Zhivago Room" Since I threw down a truckload of money paying bills yesterday, I have sometime to think about it before I can buy them, but I mean c'mon. I have to buy them. They even come in a white "faux bois" pattern. I mean really. Who can resist? Probly not me.

I'd rather be blogging...

2008-06-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's really stormy right now, which is awesome when you have a room of windows, The Books, and blogging to do.

First up, there are some new pics on Flickr in "The House That Funk Built" like this one:

Secondly, I have been working (not very hard) on our bedroom. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks I can actually move this project from the conceptual phase into the "off my ass and doing it"phase. It involves a cluster of artwork above Lindsey's dresser, a new reading chair, and a painting I am buying from local artist Nikki Jarecki. So we'll see. The chair will hopefully be something like this little ditty I am trying to get from someone on Craigslist:

Thirdly, I checked in with Derek Erdman's website yesterday (since I hadn't in a while) and since he is one of my favorite local artists I felt ashamed that this actually exsists and I don't own it:

I love this painting so much, there really are no words.

I did buy this though from a great website called "Supermarket" http://www.supermarkethq.com/

Pretty cute if I do say so myself. Anyways, I hope this long post makes up for a terrible month of weddings, bridal showers and other such ridiculous obsticles that kept me away. Oh yeah, and this happened:
Pictures like this of Mixmaster DJ Sheba-tron (i made up that name myself) and a few others taken over the course of a year has inspired me to do some sort of portraiture display in my house somewhere. Of course that would mean actually getting the photos printed, which for some reason seems impossible for me. Oh well, someday........

Organization-envy.

2008-05-07T09:22:00.001-07:00

So i think the fact that i feel such a high level of "organization-envy" towards this Apartment Therapy post secures a spot for me in some sort of crazy-yuppie-martha sterwart-obsessive compulsive club. I remember a time when I was cool. However, I realize that time is over FOR SURE when my heart started racing with jealousy over these pictures.

Check out the whole post here: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/organizing/top-10-organizing-tips-from-chez-larsson-050026

maybe you'll see what I mean, or maybe you will be to cool to care.

NYC beat me up

2008-04-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from NYC, and I am wrecked. I uploaded a bunch of pics on to my flickr account, (link on the right) The hellish pace they had us on wasn't very condusive to blogging or even enjoying design. Plus I got a headcold. booooooooo. Anywhoo, here's a little of what went on.

go to my flickr page. just do it.

NYC-ya

2008-04-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

So, I am leaving for New York for a biz-nass trip tomorrow. Naturally because of this I have been pretty short on time this week, hence, no new posts. The one day I tried to post, there was something wrong with blogspot and I couldn't insert any images, so booooooo.

Anywhoo, i'm sure NY will bring plenty of inspritation and so forth, so I will try to post either while i'm there or alot when i get back. Until then, enjoy this little nugget that I ordered a few of for the salon from urban outfitters.

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/

BTW- why don't I have these?

2008-04-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

These are the most awesome Matryoshka Dolls I have ever seen. They are called "Stress Reliever Nesting Dolls" but they should be called the "Erica when she's PMS-ing Dolls". I need them. PERIOD.

http://www.goldencockerel.com/shoprussian.asp?object=store&id=110057

Letters

2008-04-10T16:49:00.000-07:00

Okay so, at first I saw this print from Granada Lifestyle and was like, "Oh man, should I just put this on my credit card now, or wait the 5 long days until I get paid to buy this?" I was instantly in love and needed to aquire it asap.

In the middle of imagining all of the glorious places in my house that I could hang this, I fell out of love. I dont know. Maybe it's too generic? Maybe i feel like it will be everywhere soon? Where did my love go? Anyways, maybe it will come back to me. Oh yeah, they make 9 other cities, and for $45 it's a pretty good deal, if you can stay in love with it for more than 10 minutes. http://www.granadalifestyle.com/index.htm

Then I was snooping around some other blogs and came across these little ditties from Lush Designs:

These are pretty good deal too, 22 British Pounds or about $44 yankee dollars. I really like them, and they would go really well in our bedroom, but am I really a girl that has "LOVE" pillows? I mean I love the letterpress design, and the way the word is split up on two pillows, but c'mon. Maybe I could buy them and just reverse them, I mean who doesn't want the word "VELO" across the top of their bed? http://www.lushlampshades.co.uk/index.php?page=0

The color of ENVY can be yellow too....

2008-04-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

So Designsponge just posted a sneak peak of Zee's (the author of blog "Homebug") home in Dublin. Wow. Georgeous. And it's in the U.K. Sooooo jealous...

More pics here: http://www.designspongeonline.com/2008/04/sneak-peek-zee-of-homebug.html

Stuff I want... today

2008-04-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

So I have been trying to take more pictures around the house but with my camera the lighting hasn't been great when I've been home, which is discouraging. However, I'm hoping with the daylight sticking around longer soon I can put up a proper "house tour" on my flickr account. Anywhoo, making the rounds on my favorite blogs today i found some awesome stuff:

Just when I started getting the feeling that the wallpaper trend was on it's way out the door, (mainly I was just trying to make the fact that I rent and will never be able to have wallpaper okay for myself) I see this on Apartmenttherapy. It's by Eren Demirci for Studio Nommo and I think it's the cutest ever! I love the idea of this wallpaper how they picture it in a kitchen or breakfast nook, or even a little reading room. A little part of the old country... ahhhh the old country.

And then there was this print “Birch Forest” Print by Karin Akesson on allthingsoriginal.comI would love to hang this above my bed, it is so simple and beautiful. However, the pricetag is a little high (45 british pounds= $90) and it's only an 11x15 print. Not to say it's not worth it, just not in this gal's budget.... for now anyways.

Anywhoo, off to watch Indiana Jones, and hope the lighting in here will be better tomorrow....

What I have and what I ache for...

2008-04-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so everyone else is doing it....

Now that my live journal is unofficially a dead journal, I am starting this blog to document current projects, mostly interior design, inspiration and other such productive elements of my life.

Mostly, there will be pics of my house with commentary by me (mainly me talking to myself about projects and improvements) for the sake of keeping some sense of sanity while I continually decorate and redecorate my house. These will be posted under the title or section (i haven't figured all of this blog stuff out yet) "The House that Funk Built" Mainly because i think it's a funny title, and it drives my wife crazy.

Other than that, I suppose some pics from vacations, inspirations, and actual historical projects will go here, so that the mania of my life has an outlet. And hopefully, If ANYONE actually wants to read this than some constructive critisism and/or encouragement will come in handy...

Sauce EM.