orange you glad you like turquoise?

A tour of my home. We (me, joey, winston(cat) and roxanne(cat)) moved into this 3 bed 2 bath place in April and then spent a furious week decorating on the cheap, which meant: painting galore, upcycling Ikea furniture, color-coding the bookshelf and being all around wonderfully creative cheapskates!... Master Bedroom. My splurge a while ago was this new bedding from Dwell Studio, I loved the combo of whimsical yet minimal bird/branch print with the old fashioned looking striped sheets. The walls we painted in a dusty blue color. The headboard we made from a piece of wood bought from home depot and nailed a wooden detail piece (usually for front doors) then painted the whole thing white. The art is a print from DallasShaw and the other is a chandelier silloughette that I painted on an old canvas in black paint to mimic the chandelier hung in the corner as a reading light and thus justify the asymetrical bedside lighting arrangement. The dresser I painted with a fresh coat of white paint. The rug is old from Ikea, the curtains are old from Target and all the rest of the furniture is hand-me-downs from my Momma. total cost $80 (headboard, paint, hardware, dallas shaw print). Dining/Living: I kept the walls white except for one accent wall which we painted a muted gray so that the wall art would pop. I had all this old art of mine and a bunch of frames, but the frames were all black and brown so I took the rugs (hand-me-downs from Mom originally Anthropologie) as my color pallet inspiration and bought corresponding spray paint colors and painted all the frames in a random order. The Cost Plus World Market throw pillows tie it all together. I knew I wanted turquoise as an accent color so I painted two old brown wicker chairs (originally Pier 1) that I used to use as patio furniture, a vibrant shade of turquoise. The dining room table we made from a big piece of wood from home depot, painted white with metal table legs from Ikea....total about $80 (way better than if we bought a table that big). The big globe lamp was $11 from an online party supply store from which I hung vintage chandelier crystals, that I have been hoarding for a while, for some sparkle and funk. The curtains were virtical blinds (ugh), that we took the plastic blinds off of, and put up sheer white Ikea curtains on the blind pulls. The media unit/bookshelf started out as my old cubed Ikea Expedit bookshelf but we broke out the saw...and Joey's muscles, and sawed out a portion of the shelves to fit the tv.... yes, my books are color-coded. total cost around $230 (paint, pillows, wood, table legs, lighting, curtains) Kitchen and Entry: the kitchen area is right in line with the dining area so I didn't want a normal table height and decided to break it up with a bar height table. We came up with this table idea and Joey did a construction masterpiece by taking an old Ikea saw horse, attaching a piece of wood (salvaged from my old Ikea tv stand), then stabilizing it with 2 spare shelves that we cut from the new media unit. Then everything got a fresh coat of white paint. The stools were old Ikea that I painted with the turquoise color and the other with orange spray paint. The entry hutch is a beautiful Victorian piece from my mom and the mirror above used to be silver that I got from Ross a while ago for $45 and it too, got a coat of turquoise. The shelves were old from a flea market that got a coat of pale yellow from our office wall color, with do-dads like my Buzz Aldrin autographed photo and my "don't piss off the fairies" plaque. total cost $7 (paint, hardware). Office: We are lucky to have 3 bedrooms so one is our office for my designing, etc. and Joey's designing and programming etc. We painted the walls a sunny happy yellow. The office unit it my old Ikea media unit that which used to have glass paned cabinets and my tv in the middle area but I didn't want to see into the cabinets so I glued removable wallpaper (on sale from Pottery Barn $38) onto the glass of the cabinets. Then, to make it look like one unit we wallpapered the space in between as well. My old Ikea desk-top is mounted to the wall with shelf mounts then the legs are from Ikea. My corner desk are salvaged shelves that we cut from the cubed bookshelf and Joey mounted to the wall with more shelf brackets. The two desk chairs are from Ikea, the suitcases I had and are vintage from flea markets and the picture table is my old dining room table from Crate & Barrel. The rug is made from recycled plastic ($43.99) from this great recycled and green site called Wedge Worldwide. total cost around $385 (material, paint, chairs, rug, wallpaper). Backyard/Patio: BBQ from Craigslist $40, old Ikea patio furniture, Ikea umbrella and stand $40, old outdoor rug from Target and antique Victorian candelabras from my Mom. total cost $80 Tour completed. Hope you enjoyed it!