The Hallway- Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 8, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Life, Tutorial

Welcome to the next room in Home Sweet Home: The Hallway!

Read each of the rooms below (links updated as I post):

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

Just like the rest of the apartment, it’s light and airy. It’s amazing what a little paint and paper can do!

This is what our hallway used to look like. It was basically a dumping ground for things which didn’t have another home. The craft area was particularly bad because every time someone offered me some kind of supplies I would just dump them there on top and not even think about it. The other problem area was the shoe rack which was never neat.

Photo spam:

The bathroom door is covered with mirrors in our colour scheme. I’m planning to add more to it too.

My shoe rack is organised and themed. The pretty paper makes it so much brighter, I love it! Now I just need to limit myself to not getting any more shoes… as if that’s going to happen >_<

Sneaker obsession partially survived my shoe cull:

Things now actually have their own places in the craft area. Again the lighter shelves make it easier to find things.

My absolute favorite part of the craft area is Quinn my mannequin. She was a gift and she makes everything so much easier to sew and display!

She looks super pretty when she’s doing it too!

My drawing and painting supplies are organised (no more empty pens that I keep because they’re pretty) and seeing them so often makes me want to use them.

All of the smaller craft supplies are organised in little containers so if I want to use them I can just take that container elsewhere then bring it back.

Over the other side the glass panels are decorated with James’ photography. There are only small prints there at the moment but I would love to get some really big ones. I also painted and added leaves to the tree here. I am changing the leaves every season so in Autumn they’ll be orange etc, it’s a silly thing but it’s a really fun way to mark the seasons 😀

Background information:

The hallway in our apartment is quite wide and unfortunately it takes up a lot of space which would be better used as living space. It’s an odd width because these buildings used to be offices a long time ago and were only cut into apartments later.  The apartments are quite small and don’t have a huge amount of storage space so we had to add in a lot more shelves. I think keeping this are nice looking wasn’t actually that difficult, it just takes a little bit of self control and making sure I put stuff away straight away rather than dumping it and doing it *later*. When I tell myself I’m going to do it later, later never actually comes and we end up with things like the “before” photos XD It’s amazing how much brighter everything looked after I painted and decoupaged the shelves (which was actually James’ idea!). It’s such a little thing but it makes such a big difference! My favorite part of this hallway is the bathroom door which now has the mirror installation. I love the colours that I painted everything and I am planning to get more and more mirrors to hang there until the entire door is covered.

Changes made:

• Shoes organised and cut to a reasonable number
• Shoe rack decoupaged with nice paper
• Clothes drying rack reorganised
• Craft shelves painted
• Craft shelves cleaned out and reorganised
• Photo wall fixed up and tree painted
• Mirror wall added
• Removed second clothes rack

Still to be done:

• Not 100% happy with the craft shelves, I’d like to do a little more with them
• Adding more mirrors to the mirror wall

Final thoughts:

I think the hallway is so much brighter these days. It’s function but it’s not cluttered and dark any more. It feels like a hallway that’s leading you somewhere nice rather than towards a hoarder’s house XD

Bonus progress photos:

The shoe rack was reasonably organised though the shoes were spilling everywhere and they weren’t arranged in any particular way.

The craft area went through a lot of different versions as I tried to organise supplies. Really what I needed to do was get rid of the useless things I was hoarding.     Various shelves on the craft area before they were organised.

Make sure you come back tomorrow for the next instalment: the bathroom!

The Kitchen – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 7, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Life, Tutorial

Welcome to the next room in Home Sweet Home: The Living Room! Read each of the rooms below (links updated as I post):

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

My kitchen today is light, follows my pink and green colour scheme and has some actual form of organisation!

Looking at the kitchen the way it used to be makes me cringe. I can’t believe it used to be so messy >_< We kept a lot of food here considering it was an apartment, the stupid thing being that it wasn’t stuff we needed. Most of the things that were on these shelves were there because we impulse bought or we had several half finished packets of things. It wasn’t needed!

Photo spam:

Starting with a shot of the whole kitchen/lounge area to get an idea of space. You’ll notice the sleepy puppy in the kitchen now haha!

The kitchen is very standard for an apartment this size. I’m very glad there’s an oven and dishwasher though as I saw quite a few that didn’t come with them.

The bench has my favorite change: the covered backsplash. I am planning to change that out for a green one a bit later though as I think the stripes aren’t exactly what I envisioned.

On the right side the appliances are now organised. I made a hanging hook thing to get some of the stuff off the bench. I love the idea of hanging hooks and being able to put things up and away because the space up there is pretty useless otherwise.

On the other side I created a little matching system of drawers in pink/green and stacked our other things over the top. I’ll be moving the hot chocolate etc into matching containers eventually so it will   be even more matchy.

I think it’s the smaller details that really made the kitchen. Having everything in similar colours and  with similar patterns really made a big difference visually.

The kitchen is a fairly functional place but having small decorated touches doesn’t take away from the functionality, it makes me very happy.

Background information:

When we moved here we saw the kitchen and lack of storage space and thought “Pft, who cares, we’ll eat out all the time and we’ll drop by the grocery store every few days”. Did that happen? No. We did exactly what we previously did and shopped every few weeks and had no money to eat take away >_< Going to the grocery store? Pft no, we order online now and just pick up little things at the store when needed. So that’s how we somehow ended up with all of this crap. Our kitchen appliances and things didn’t fit anywhere either. This place had minimum bench space so it’s impossible to keep many appliances, the lack of actual storage space means you can’t even really keep them in the cupboards because they’re very thin. When we started here we didn’t have a proper fridge, just a mini fridge so it made things easier as the space where the fridge was could be used for extra appliances. The kitchen was one of my hardest areas to redecorate because no matter how I organised things the gigantic blue backsplash still wasn’t the right colour to go with what I wanted. It was the last thing I put in here and it really changed the look. This area is the place which still needs the most work but it’s stuff which will gradually be replaced and changed.

Changes made:

• Removed 2 sets of shelves
• Added coloured backsplash
• Made mini shelves for bench storage
• White board for fridge
• Reorganised benches and cupboards
• Started replacing broken things like crockery with the correct colours (green and pink)

Still to be done:

• Possibly replace pink backsplash with a green one
• Replace the rest of the appliances/crockery/cutlery so they all match
• Do something about ugly black bench

Final thoughts: We rent so there’s only so much I can do in areas which have been already decorated. When I own the house I’ll be doing bigger things like repainting or adding new backslashes but for now I’ve made a big enough difference to be happy with the kitchen. I don’t spend as much time in here as I want to (James does all the cooking) but as I spend more time baking, I find the changes are making it more enjoyable. I actually like being in the kitchen baking now… that can only mean good things as it makes me want to bake more 😀

Bonus progress photos: The Home Sweet Home page from my diary that I never actually posted.

With all of the cupboards open. The one above the rangehood is only a few inches deep so you can only keep spices there. The one next to it has blocks of wood drilled in so plates can only be a certain width. The one below the sink has a bunch of piping for the dishwasher so it’s very thin too. I think whoever designed this storage had never actually lived in a house before, don’t even get me started on the bedroom cupboards!!

These were the shelves we originally had in here, the white one on the right slides into the wall (super unhelpful) and is built in. The middle one was completely falling apart so I repaired it and gave it to James for his photography stuff. The black one was repurposed for our clothes.

It’s a bit ridiculous that I managed to fit everything from the two left shelves on to the the right one with some organisation and actually chucking out things which I shouldn’t have been keeping.

Make sure you come back tomorrow for the next instalment: the hallway!

The Living Room – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 4, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Life, Tutorial

Welcome to the first room in Home Sweet Home: The Living Room!

Read each of the rooms below (links updated as I post):

• The original Home Sweet Home post
• Welcome to our Home Sweet Home
• The Living Room
• The Kitchen
• The Hallway
• The Bathroom
• The Laundry
• James’ Area
• Violet’s Vanity Area
• The Bedroom
• What have we learned?

Before and after:

Finished:

Before:

Looking through my hardrive makes me wish I’d taken more photos before so I could show what a big difference there’s been. I didn’t take many out of embarrassment >_< This is a before but it was a lot worse than this for the first 8 months.

Photo spam:

I really suggest clicking the panoramas to get the full view! You can spot a very sleepy puppy in a lot of them 😉

The view from the kitchen. The cherry blossom windows look particularly awesome on the middle window.

This area typifies the theme I wanted to have for the apartment: Spring.

This is my favorite part of the entire house. This is the window I spend pretty much all day every day staring at. I wanted something to inspire me and I absolutely love it. Every time I look at this window it puts a smile on my face. It’s partially because that container is usually full of M&Ms and partially because it’s beautiful 😉

One more because I love it so much. It seems ridiculous but this just feels *right*.

My noticeboard and photo wall. For Christmas James bought me a gift to Printstagram so I will be getting our photos printed to fill this wall up with happy memories!

The new couch with the rug I spent months crocheting. I made all of those pillows other than the green one too. The speakers I recovered are on the sides.

I crocheted the spiral cushion and the others were made of old dresses. I am most proud of the rug though, it took me so long and I was basically making it up as I went along. If I could stand the idea of spending the next year crocheting I would make one big enough to cover the carpet in our room. It took 10 balls which we got half price at just $2 each!

The tv area is now no longer a mess of cables. Everything has a place.

Background information:

So the lounge is the most important part of the apartment, it’s the area I spend the most time in and I like it to be nice and relaxing. When we came from Brisbane, we didn’t bring any furniture at all. Everything that came down with us was in our car. Not much fit in the car! We bought appliances like the tv, fridge etc when we moved in but didn’t have much left for furniture. Luckily we had some very kind friends who gave us a desk and a folding chair as a start. Even luckier, our apartment had a hard rubbish removal day a few months after we arrived and we were able to salvage some really awesome things including our tv table, rug and a big table we used for a while as my desk. We managed to get the antique couches from a family downstairs who were collectors but also out of room. They were my favorites for a very long time but they were in very bad shape. I wanted to restore them completely but they were too far gone for me so I  ended up having to give them away in favor of something newer. I hope the lady that has them now can restore them to their former glory!

You guys will remember that I made some removable curtains for the middle window. We struggled with them for around 6 months before I decided that they just didn’t fit with the look. I absolutely adored them but with the door being broken behind them and therefore very hard to open in Summer they had to go. I actually prefer it this way now that the cherry blossoms are up because it gives a complete view when all of the blinds are up. I reused the fabric from one of the curtains in the bedroom which you’ll see later and once the window is properly fixed I will think about putting something similar back up again.

Changes made:

• Couches replaced
• Rug replaced with handmade crochet rug
• Everything rearranged
• Side table painted white
• New table cloths for all of the side tables
• General cleaning
• New decorations for the sliding doors
• Tv table rearranged
• Inspiration area added
• Broken speaker system fixed and covered
• Tv area reorganised
• Curtains made then removed
• Stars on windows replaced with cherry blossoms

Still to be done:

• Not totally happy with the tv area, need something else, or something less or a better set up.
• Debating whether I want to keep the sliding doors the way they are or whether I would prefer a different set up.

Final thoughts:

I love my lounge room now. This is possibly the room I love the most. This room has gone through the most changes since we moved in but it’s the one I’m the most proud of. When I sit and look out the window at my special flower area I feel relaxed and that’s really what this was all about!

Bonus progress photos:

The tv area with the first version of the inspiration area on the left. The table next to it used to be just full of whatever junk I was using at the time and needed to clean away quickly.

The day our new couch was delivered the whole place was super messy and trashed. They delivered the couch broken too so we had a week and a half trying to fix everything >_<

I was so happy to get rid of the red rug, it made the room so much brighter!

The end of couch moving day, enjoying being comfortable. Lottie totally approved  of having her own place on the couch now ^_^

My pretty area started out as Lottie’s area while we were toilet training her XD

Everything was very Lottie-centric at this point ^_^

Make sure you come back tomorrow for the next instalment: the kitchen!

Welcome To Our Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 2, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Life, Tutorial

So almost a year ago I started The Home Sweet Home Project. It was my aim to stop procrastinating about decorating my house and actually do it. We rent and because of that I had a tendency to not bother with decorations or actually making places feel like home as I didn’t know where we would be in 6 months or a year. It didn’t seem like a good mentality and almost a year later I can say that I’ve made a lot of really positive changes both in our home and the way that I look at things.

The day we moved in, I was so excited:

You can read the full original Home Sweet Home post over here but I’m going to go through my original goals and show the progress I’ve made.

The first meal we ever had in the apartment, James got Subway and I had Okonomiyaki. Note the lack of furniture and the cardboard boxes next James which will soon be turned into furniture XD

So what was I trying to get out of this project and do I think I’ve completed it?

• To make every part of the house pretty without losing functionality.
  With our budget and time allowance, we’ve done amazingly well. There are still areas which need improvements but I am really proud of the progress we’ve made so far! The house looks like a completely different place. When we moved in, I had to make our furniture out of cardboard. How times have changed!

Me putting together my cardboard furniture right after moving in. Having to cut up all of those heavy boxes really cut up my hands too:

• To spend as little money as possible.
  We stuck to our budget because we bought as we found things cheaply and made most of the big things from scratch. The biggest purchase we made was a new couch for the lounge room and that was actually a gift from my Mum so I was very lucky in that area!
• Regain my creativity and problem solving skills.
  I feel invigorated. I lost my inspiration in some areas (mostly drawing) but I found it in others. I think that’s just the nature of inspiration though isn’t it? If we were inspired all the time it wouldn’t feel as awesome coming up with something new!
• Replace all ugly things.
  We’ve made some real progress on this. Most of the things which now need replacing are in the kitchen and as I have no intention of wasting things I’ll be replacing them as they wear out.
• Practice decorating for our real home.
  No matter where our first “real” home ends up being I know that the lessons I’ve learned here will allow me to decorate it with ease! I’m absolutely looking forward to moving there too and hopefully it will be this year!
• Stop procrastinating!
  I’m not completely sure I managed this one >_> I mean I’ve stopped several times while writing this post to watch Poirot over the top of my laptop… but I have gotten a lot of things done! I have worked very hard this year at making our house nice. I guess a little procrastination isn’t really a bad thing as it gives time to relax when you haven’t scheduled it. I tend to schedule everything so perhaps embracing procrastination (to a point) as my brain’s way of saying “Enough is enough!” is the right thing to do at the moment.
• Surround ourselves with beauty .
  I think I’ve checked this off very well!
• Stop waiting and start DOING!
  Well and truly DONE!

So overall I think I’ve made a pretty damn good go of this project and while I know it’s never going to be completely finished I can be comfortable at calling this finished 😀

For the next week I’ll be posting one room per day with before/afters and everything that’s happened in between. I hope you enjoy them!