House by Hoarders

Thanks to a new addiction to HGTV and Hoarders, J place has seen a little facelift.

First came the curtains. It never occurred to me how ugly our sliding door had become (try to ignore all the junk on the table):

With some basic white curtains from Wal-Mart for less than $20, we still get light but no ugly tinting in view:

Next came a much-needed upgrade for our TV, DVD player, cable box and Tivo. Our old TV stand was a holdover from T's bachelor apt days:


$200 at Ikea later, our entertainment is a little more grown up:



And finally, we converted our old coat closet (aka junk closet) into a fully functional mail center. We no longer dump the mail on the kitchen counter or lose bills. We do need something in that little vacant space, so shoot me your ideas:

I'm thinking I need to take a break from all this TV, or I will 1) go broke 2) become some kind of crazy OCD lady who is terrified of becoming a Hoarder.

And now for something completely different

At long last, T and I have tackled the bedroom in our decorating derby. We saved it for last since it's a less-visible area of the house, which is sort of a silly strategy considering we probably hang out in here as much as we do the living room, and we don't have guests all that often. I digress.

Here is what the room looked like before the previous owners completely moved out. What you can't see in here are the giant holes on the wall from some failed project, and the phone jack that is currently duct-taped to the wall behind the bed.


I guess that doesn't really count as a "before" pic since it's not our stuff, but I like the contrast to our newer digs. What this post is really about is the new artwork furnished courtesy of my artist husband, who is amazing:


Materials included three canvases from Jerry's Artarama and paint from Michaels. Of course, the inspiration came from my favorite domestic bloggers: http://www.younghouselove.com/other-redos/ (scroll down to about the eighth picture).

Safe to say I love it and am so glad I married someone so talented.

Putting the FUN in FUrNiture!

This post is all about a labor of love called the Armoire For the Guest Room. I bought it for $50 on Craigslist. As usual, I forgot to take a "before" pic. But it kinda looked like this:

I armed myself with some Internet-based instructions and a dream to paint it white. The armoire was laminate pressboard, which I've always heard is difficult to paint. But after sanding and priming, the paint rolled on pretty easily. I was feeling great! So I followed my favorite bloggers' advice and moved on to the next step: coating it with a clear polyurethane. So easy! I left it alone to dry for extra awesomeness, and went out to the garage today to put it together and enjoy my new life as an armoire owner. But it soon became clear that the poly coat was not.


Can you tell how YELLOW it is? Can you tell how MAD I was by the use of these CAPITAL LETTERS? I ended up having to buy more paint and add two more coats. But I guess it was OK because it inspired me to repaint the dresser I've had since I was 5, which also lives in the guest room. (New knobs from Anthropologie made it even better!)



ANYWAY, after a long day and a slight setback thanks to some poorly timed sprinklers, I finally got the armoire into the guest room and started turning my life around:


Now, one more detail about this armoire. It came with a super lame feature designed to help you set up your TV:


At first I was just going to paint over it, but was inspired by a cool little product at Target -- a sticker made for college dorm rooms. With that and a roll of sticky white shelf paper, this is how it turned out:


I love it. I also need a break from painting furniture. Maybe my next piece will be purchased the way I actually want it.