Archive for the ‘before’ Category

Decorating!

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

l have a disease called decorator-itis. I’ve been futzing with my interior decor and can NEVER STOP or be happy. But I have made a few significant thrifty contributions.

Below are the dining and living rooms Before…this is what we call slow decorating…



And After…

Yes, it is the ubiquitous Ikea Stockholm Rand rug. Scored for $75 bucks in the as-is section. There are some small spots and I had to beat and vacumn the dirt out of it, but for its size (9 x 12′ !) and awesome graphic punch – it seemed like a great deal. It does kind of make your eyes go all wonky.

SHAZZAMMM! My new baby is this lovely vintage Danish expandable teak table. Found it at a thrift store and had to argue and LIE to get it. I may have used Christmas and dinner and FAMILY and the LORD to finagle this beautiful gem for $150.

Totally worth it for the surfboard shape and great condition. Oh yeah, and the tulip chairs are from the Long Beach Flea Market. I can have a real grown-up dinner party with matching chairs and actual room on the table for eating.

Get ready for some more of the After tour:

The Bertoia diamond chairs were a steal off of Craigslist. $40 a pop. A friend from Los Angeles picked them up and delivered these beautiful bad boys.

I’ve been installing new Ikea ENJE roller shades in the dining room and living room…and I’m still working on it. Eventually those horrible mini blinds will be GONE.

Here are the new roller shades in the dining room instead of the curtains.

Curtains:

Ikea ENJE roller shades:

These little windows are getting the Ikea ENJE roller shades as well. They had to be cut down to size to fit the 22″ width (which I will outline the fabulous: How to cut Enje shades!)

FILED UNDER: after, before, decorating, dining, fireplace, furniture, living, thrifting

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Exterior Door – Progress

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Making progress on the exterior doors. The entire back porch is a bit of a problem area. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with that awful water heater situation between the 2 doors. Maybe a tank less water heater is the way to go. Also, how do I cover up the stupid useless laundry room door? I’m stumped as to how to remedy all the weird structural issues.

In progress, it looks so ghetto.

After:

Benjamin Moore Toucan Black on the exterior and the Behr Ultra Pure White (semi-gloss) on the interior and molding.
I still need to add the screen and molding on the den door as well as finish scraping off extra paint on the glass panes. Still ghetto, but now the rest of the exterior is screaming for some paint.

Below is the interior of the kitchen door. So much nicer than the tobacco color and mysterious brown stained mess that we lived with for almost a year (we also lived with the foreclosure brass real estate doorknobs and a metal plate covering the deadbolt – how embarrassing).

We got a couple of sets of standard doorknobs from the Home Depot ages ago to replace the foreclosure knobs. They are not my number one choice, but sacrifices must be made for budgets…maybe one day something a little more mid century will replace them. We still have to drill out the holes for the deadbolt since the preexisting ones are about an inch to small.

The den door – before/after:

This door has been so gross and ugly for so long that the fresh paint immediately makes me happy every time I go in the room. We still need to replace the weatherstripping and clean the glass. To do, to do…it never ends.

I started working on the garage doors but it began raining and eventually snowing – in the motherf*ing Southern California desert! It was brief but so weird. Its been FREEZING lately, our heating bill is out of control.

Oh yeah, also the abandoned exterior lighting project. There are some weird things going on with the electrical wiring that may be a little above our skill level to problem solve. The lights all work when installed but won’t turn on and off – except for the one light still installed (but only when its installed alone). The Boy had a very rough time with that project and now refuses to look at it. I don’t blame him, I’m trying to ignore some things as well.

FILED UNDER: after, before, exterior

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Door Rehab

Monday, January 26th, 2009

I’m sending all the exterior doors to rehab!
I’m tired of them falling apart and dragging down the whole household – so hopefully this will clean up their act.

The exteriors of the doors are getting a coat of Benjamin Moore Toucan Black while the interiors / moldings are getting the standard Behr Ultra Pure White in a semi gloss finish.

The back door that enters the den (the one we use pretty exclusively) had a screen over the window in the middle that swings open (what is that called?). The screen had been torn to shreds at the bottom were my little dog Iggy loved to escape through it when we wanted a bit of fresh air.

You can see the hole down there on the right: that weird little bit of bright clear area.

We ripped off the molding and the old screen and started patching and painting. We need to get a replacement screen and molding and will patch it all up again like new!

There is obviously still more to do…

Oh and the deadbolts don’t fit. I guess we have to drill a big hole in my fresh paint. Urgh.

FILED UNDER: before, exterior

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