With my husband laid off, we have all this time on our hands.
So, we've been doing some of the projects that either I can do, but need his help watching the kid, or have been on the list forever.
One of the tips I received from my MIL to me, and I would like to pass onto you is really quite ingenious and simple...
Mistinted Paint
I'm not kidding. We go to Lowe's or Home Depot (and sometimes even Walmart has some decent ones) and just check out the paint that they tinted wrong for someone else. What was someone else's "2 shades too dark" could be your perfection.
We just did this today...I've been wanting to do my living room in a sage green. I've been fiddling with colors on the wall...you know the routine, pick up one of those paint chip samples, tape it to the wall, decide you hate it, leave it there until you decide on a different color, than take ALL of them off the wall, curse yourself for leaving them there in the first place and start painting.
Well, when you have a specific color in mind, sometimes it can take a lot of stops. We never go on special trips for these cans of paint. But if we pass, say, Lowe's and have some extra time, we may quickly stop in and check what they have.
Today was one of those days. We stopped into Lowe's and I looked and they had a great shade of green for my living room...a gallon of it for $5! That would have normally been about $22!
So, our housewarming party is on the 7th, do you think I can get my living room in order before than?
Showing posts with label home decor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home decor. Show all posts
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Functional Home Decor
Good Morning!
One of my big interests, as you may have gathered from the previous post about those that I nominated for the sunshine award is interior decorating. I work hard to make my home look nice for cheap and use whatever I can to make it more functional.
My latest concern was my love seat. The way that my home is set up, I find myself most often sitting on the love seat that my brother gave us. When we bought our home, we were moving out of a temporary interim of living with and taking care of my parents. Prior to that, while I was pregnant, I nannied for a couple who we lived with-all the furniture was either theirs or the homeowners (they rented), and stepping even further back, we lived with my husband's old room mate when we were dating. We left the couch behind as I hated it, and we had no where to put it.
So, when we bought our house, we put out a call for furniture and wound up with a couch and love seat from my big brother. It was perfect timing-he had someone moving in with him that had better couches. They didn't match, which is something I had always wanted but not enough to put us in debt getting there. There is nothing I love that much! So, since July, we've been using these couches. The love seat has a bottomless pit of hunger. Things would slide off the back of the cushions and right down into the bottom of the love seat.
Soon, I also began to notice that if I were sitting in the love seat the correct way (I often sit with my back to the armrest) there is this lovely board in the bottom of the back that hit me right in my lower back--talk about painful!
This tax season, we knew we had to do something, but agreed that if we bought a replacement for one, we would also have to replace the other at the same time. I searched and searched. Every day for a month, I was on craigslist, just watching for a good deal. A few came, but always either too far away or at the wrong timing.
I am on a forum website, and asked about slip covers. Someone mentioned they were trying with no luck to sell the brand new set they bought on their local CraigsList. After some talking and looking into them online, we decided to purchase them.
So, I bought from this lady a nice khaki colored set for $75 including shipping. The part that makes it a heck of a deal? The love seat one would have been $90 on sale and the couch one would have been $110 on sale at JcPenney, where she bought them to begin with. The reason she was selling them? They didn't fit her own couch.
So, I now have covered the desire to match my couch and love seat-frugally. Also, the love seat is prohibited from eating things--at least them going all the way down the back. Next, we are going to go to the fabric store.
I have 4 throw pillows already, that I am going to re-cover to fit the decor. I am going to make a large pillow or two for where that wood sits in the back--this didn't work previously because the couch would even eat the PILLOW!
I am very excited about this for many reasons-a.) the love seat won't go to the landfill, b.) we are managing to cover it frugally c.) No more flipping the love seat when my phone or computer mouse (or anything else) goes missing d.) I feel like an adult with the way my furniture "matches".
One of my big interests, as you may have gathered from the previous post about those that I nominated for the sunshine award is interior decorating. I work hard to make my home look nice for cheap and use whatever I can to make it more functional.
My latest concern was my love seat. The way that my home is set up, I find myself most often sitting on the love seat that my brother gave us. When we bought our home, we were moving out of a temporary interim of living with and taking care of my parents. Prior to that, while I was pregnant, I nannied for a couple who we lived with-all the furniture was either theirs or the homeowners (they rented), and stepping even further back, we lived with my husband's old room mate when we were dating. We left the couch behind as I hated it, and we had no where to put it.
So, when we bought our house, we put out a call for furniture and wound up with a couch and love seat from my big brother. It was perfect timing-he had someone moving in with him that had better couches. They didn't match, which is something I had always wanted but not enough to put us in debt getting there. There is nothing I love that much! So, since July, we've been using these couches. The love seat has a bottomless pit of hunger. Things would slide off the back of the cushions and right down into the bottom of the love seat.
Soon, I also began to notice that if I were sitting in the love seat the correct way (I often sit with my back to the armrest) there is this lovely board in the bottom of the back that hit me right in my lower back--talk about painful!
This tax season, we knew we had to do something, but agreed that if we bought a replacement for one, we would also have to replace the other at the same time. I searched and searched. Every day for a month, I was on craigslist, just watching for a good deal. A few came, but always either too far away or at the wrong timing.
I am on a forum website, and asked about slip covers. Someone mentioned they were trying with no luck to sell the brand new set they bought on their local CraigsList. After some talking and looking into them online, we decided to purchase them.
So, I bought from this lady a nice khaki colored set for $75 including shipping. The part that makes it a heck of a deal? The love seat one would have been $90 on sale and the couch one would have been $110 on sale at JcPenney, where she bought them to begin with. The reason she was selling them? They didn't fit her own couch.
So, I now have covered the desire to match my couch and love seat-frugally. Also, the love seat is prohibited from eating things--at least them going all the way down the back. Next, we are going to go to the fabric store.
I have 4 throw pillows already, that I am going to re-cover to fit the decor. I am going to make a large pillow or two for where that wood sits in the back--this didn't work previously because the couch would even eat the PILLOW!
I am very excited about this for many reasons-a.) the love seat won't go to the landfill, b.) we are managing to cover it frugally c.) No more flipping the love seat when my phone or computer mouse (or anything else) goes missing d.) I feel like an adult with the way my furniture "matches".
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Home Improvements
My husband and I save a ton of money on our home improvements by simply doing most things ourselves. When we need more shelves, we run down to the home improvement store of our choice, have them cut down the cheapest available wood that will work for our situation, and head home, and put up our shelves.
Last night, we were working on such a project. My daughter's closet is more than a 16 month old needs so we were trying to put up shelving on one end for my canning and for extra small appliances that we use occasionally.
That is where it all went wrong. My brother in law was over helping and drilled right through the waterline. 5 minutes after the nearby hardware stores had all closed up for the night. It was frustrating, we had to have all water shut off to the house to avoid flooding my daughter's room, and it is still shut off. Fortunately, there is a cheap way to fix it. Looking at it, I was afraid they were going to have to go purchase a whole line of copper piping and run it all the way through, fortunately they are able to just patch it for a few bucks.
Anytime we do any "DIY" projects though, we try to have a few buck "just in case" for times like this. Things go wrong. It is a part of life. If nothing had gone wrong, we would have allotted that fund to something else if we needed later. However, we do not have to "break the bank" to fix it because you always need to plan ahead.
Last night, we were working on such a project. My daughter's closet is more than a 16 month old needs so we were trying to put up shelving on one end for my canning and for extra small appliances that we use occasionally.
That is where it all went wrong. My brother in law was over helping and drilled right through the waterline. 5 minutes after the nearby hardware stores had all closed up for the night. It was frustrating, we had to have all water shut off to the house to avoid flooding my daughter's room, and it is still shut off. Fortunately, there is a cheap way to fix it. Looking at it, I was afraid they were going to have to go purchase a whole line of copper piping and run it all the way through, fortunately they are able to just patch it for a few bucks.
Anytime we do any "DIY" projects though, we try to have a few buck "just in case" for times like this. Things go wrong. It is a part of life. If nothing had gone wrong, we would have allotted that fund to something else if we needed later. However, we do not have to "break the bank" to fix it because you always need to plan ahead.
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