Showing posts with label Renovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renovation. Show all posts

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Furniture Reno - Chest of Drawers

When it comes to covering books with adhesive contact paper I am the bees cankles...dismal!

Maybe contact paper was never really meant for books anyway.
It is great on furniture though as I recently discovered.



The Bargain: I picked up this brand new chest of draws, which was reduced to $30 (from $100) due to the damage on the front of the drawers.



 The Process:  A quick trip to Reverse Garbage for some contact adhesive for $4.
I took off the handles. Traced around the draws on the contact and then added some extra  to fold over the edges. I started on one end of the draw and used a squeegee to push out the bubbles as I pulled away the the backing. After trimming of the excess with a kraft knife, I folded over the edges. Reattached the handles and  finally I put the drawers back in. 


The Verdict: The contact is so glossy it looks like a 2 pack finish.
Now I have some storage space in my studio - all for $34.   I'm wrapt! (literally)





Linking up this Elle and Lou post with:

Release Me Create

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Filthy to fabulous - Bathroom renovation

There are a lot of things I take for granted.
 But my bathroom isn't one of them...
and this is the reason why.

A Sad Beginning.
When we bought this 100 year old cottage back in 1999 it had been a rental. 
The poor neglected thing had been let to uni students (like myself) for the better part of 20 years.  Our house was known as "the party house".
That is 20 years of uni parties...drunken, naughty, nasty uni parties.
I'm pretty sure it didn't get cleaned..EVER!

Tiny filthy steps.
In any case, we made BIG improvements and  so the bathroom looked like this...



Hours and hours were invested in this room to make it look this good-honest!


Despite our best efforts it still leaked in all directions. Visitors thought that the ceiling was grey paint,  but that was actually the bleach resistant mould silently pervading the room.


We lived with with this fungal freak-land of a  bathroom for 10 years...10 long years! 
The low light was spending hours and hours in this room with my toilet training toddler. Uhggg! As a tribute to this special time, in this special room, I made a feature of the Cushy Tooshie as you can see in the photo above.


Fabulous at last.
Two years ago we counted our saved pennies, took a deep breath and dove into an extension and renovation project.


We moved our bathroom to the west side of the house and positioned it facing the backyard. It is now a room with a view.


It is so relaxing to lie in the bath, almost nestled in the tree tops, and gaze out at the view.

As for the loo?
I was proud to hang the Cushy Tooshie on this wall when toilet training our 2nd child.



Incidentally, the ceiling is white... like a ceiling SHOULD be.

I never get tired of noticing the small things...
 like the light hitting the wall through the shower curtain creating patterns,
 or the still life outside the window...

I know it took over a decade to get it
 (and it actually isn't quite finished there is still some tweaking to do)
 but it certainly was worth it the wait!




Linking up this Elle and Lou post with:
Whipperberry
Chicks on a Shoestring