Dana's Apartment

As I was moving furniture and taking apart the window seat in Lillabel's room on Saturday all while trying not to succumb to the morning sickness I was asking myself  "have I completely lost my mind"? I mean seriously, her room did not NEED to be painted. Sure, the baby pink nursery no longer seemed to fit my spunky little toddler but I certainly could have a waited a few more months until I was feeling better and I had family in town to help and made it much easier on myself. Unfortunately, though I have a disease. I read this post about decorating and rearranging on Home and Harmony's blog a little while ago and laughed out loud as I read it because of how true it was! For me, once I officially decided I wanted to paint her room gray I could not get it out of my mind! So, Dana and I painted away on Saturday afternoon while Jon took Lillie to the river and we got it done. I am so excited about it and really love how it turned out! I haven't taken any pictures yet, but will probably take a couple later today and show you one or two later this week, but am waiting until I find her "big girl" bed to take some real photos. I started looking on Craigslist this weekend and we are going to hunt through the antique malls and thrift stores this week to see if we can find one.

Not only do I have this lovely decorating disease, but my mom and sisters do as well. Although, I would think they would all like to say they do not have it as bad as I do and that I am a little crazy when it comes to this! Even my dad and brother love to organize and arrange things. I would NOT call what they do decorating, though. Jason has a very complex system in his room for all of his "collections" and my dad, well, I don't even know what to call his constant arranging of things. Pretty much his disease is more of an OCD problem, than a decorating one seeing how his constant need to rearrange things is seldom visually appealing - haha! My poor mom!

So, seeing how I don't have any pictures to show you yet of Lillie's room I thought I would share a few from Dana's apartment. (Also, I know I had promised to show some of Jamie's dining room and kitchen in her new home before I left NH but we were STILL waiting on a back ordered chandelier that was the finishing touch on the room and I didn't want to take pictures without it. It has FINALLY arrived so next time I am up in NH I will take pictures because I am dying to show you all!)

Most everything you see in any of our homes is done on a budget. Dana's, however, I think is by far the most impressive as far as being creative while using almost no money. What she did with a couple hundred dollars is truly inspiring and, in my opinion, gorgeous! She is really creative and I think it really shows in her space. In this post I am just going to show her living room and dining room. I will show pics of her bedroom in another post at some point.

What is most impressive to me is that except for the sofa and the mantel - which were Christmas presents, and the TV - which was a birthday present,  every other piece of furniture was free from other family members garages, basements and even barns. She painted it all and fixed everything up so it would look cohesive! I wish I could have shown you what everything looked like to start with. You would be amazed!

The lamp was from my garage and the ottoman was a hand-me down that completely didn't match so she covered it with a cotton shower curtain she had from her last apartment. It had water stains so she couldn't use it as a shower curtain anymore but instead of throwing it out she cut and sewed it so you couldn't see the stains!

Total Cost: $0

The tray was from Target and was $29 and the vase was on sale at Pier 1 for like $6

The rosette balls are made from about $8 worth of foam balls and about $20 worth of Silk Dupioni.

Total Cost: $63

The love seat was from my garage and Dana covered it with $10 sheets from Target so that it would coordinate with her white sofa from Ikea. The curtains were $10 panels from Target.

Total Cost: $20

The dresser was from my parent's barn. It was in Dana's room when she was really little. She painted it and two end tables that were all different wood tones. She painted them all black so they would look unified in her space. The artwork was from the Williamsburg Antique Mall and was around $29 or so.

Total Cost: $29

Dana made both of the rosette pillows from a set of $10 black sheets from Target! Don't they look so expensive? I think they are one of my favorite things in her apartment. She then stuffed them with some extra standard bed pillows.

Total Cost: $10

This pretty pillow was a gift our sister Jamie made for her (she made me some too in a silvery blue and white color  for my guest room that you can see on my sidebar)

Total Cost: $0

This chair was our great-grandmothers and had been in our parent's basement for years and to be honest, was quite hideous! It was a weird wood tone and had a nasty greenish cushion. Dana painted it a high gloss white and then used extra fabric from an old project to recover the seat! It was such a transformation! (And the pillow she stole frome me - haha!)

Total Cost: $0

The curtains were from her last apartment and the table and chairs were from her college apartment that we found in second hand store for next to nothing. She painted them a different color in her college apartment but painted it a high gloss white to go with everything here. We are still on the hunt for some cool dining chairs to reupholster or paint. It's probably the only thing in her apartment that doesn't quite look right but they work for now until we can find something cool! The mirror was from my garage  Her table setting were around $10.

Total Cost: $10

The miscellaneous candles and accessories are from Pier 1 and TJMaxx and were bought on clearance for a total of around $20.

Total Cost: $20

We found these cool napkins at Pier1 on clearance for $1.25.

Total Cost: $2.50

The trunk is from my garage. I found it about six years ago and I still love it but it didn't fit anywhere in our new house. =( Another rosette pillow and a bolster from Dana's last apartment. The picture above was something Dana found in Florida and paid around $10 for.

Total Cost: $10

It just goes to show you what a few paint cans and some elbow grease can do! It is so easy to find free or really cheap furniture. You can go to yard sales, look on Craigslist and often even raid family members garages and basements. And if you are just a little bit creative you can make it all work together! If you include the different paint colors (white, black and the gray for the walls) which were probably around $80 or so. If you add that to her other costs the total amount that she spent on her apartment was around

$245!

 Can you believe that?

And if think, well, you didn't include the cost of the sofa or the mantel because they were gifts so that isn't fair. Well, I think the sofa was around $400 and the mantel was $100 so even throwing those in her entire living room and dining room came to $745! (I didn't include the TV because I have no idea how much it was and it doesn't really have to do with the decorating, anyway!)

Well, Lillie is still napping so I had better get back to sewing! I hope you all have a fabulous week!