Searching for a simple and cheap way to add a Scandinavian touch to your walls? Look no further. This minimal wall hanging is the perfect touch to any space in your home and only takes minutes to make, it's so easy!
Just because you live in a rental apartment doesn't mean that you can't rework it to fit your own taste - there are so many easy ways to customize it to reflect your personality. You just have to get a little creative! Here are ten great tips for making your rental living room feel like home. Your home.
As our kids are getting a little older, I thought it might be a good time to introduce a simple chore chart to teach them shared responsibility, goal setting, and following through on commitments. Sometimes parents can be so hard on ourselves (and others) when it comes to the idea of putting our kids "to work" at a young age. I've even heard the term "child-labor" thrown around...which is, of course, silly and even dangerous.
I never thought I would say this, but "when I was their age..." I did chores around our house all. the. time. I started helping to clean at six, babysitting when I was 12, and was expected to cook for the whole family as a teenager. (I began working at a fast food restaurant when I was 14 and I'm still alive to talk about it!)
I'm proud of those experiences, and they taught me a deep sense of gratitude and a positive attitude. I think those are all experiences we want to give our children. So! This is a super simple DIY to help your kids visualize their responsibilities and celebrate their little achievements along the way.
Living in a rental is not my ideal situation, but I’ve learned to make the best of the space that I have and still make the customizations that I want. One of the best ways to customize a space is with a fun accent wall, and for renters who cannot paint or apply wallpaper, removable wallpaper is king! I wanted to create a completely customized accent wall without painting it, so instead, I created customized removable wallpaper using a form of solid-colored contact paper.
Renting your home has some perks (no mortgage, no maintenance costs, no headaches), but there are downsides: apartment decorating can be a challenge, and limited storage space makes it hard to stay organized.
Many apartments are too small or don't offer much storage. Maybe the landlord won't let you paint or put nail holes in the wall. And rental properties are usually...
Painting a room with an indoor paint sprayer saves time and results in a more consistent finish. Here's how we used one to transform a spare bedroom.
One of my favorite things about interior design and home improvement is discovering tools that help us do our job better. Painting is one of those jobs. We paint things all the time - walls, furniture, floors, floor tiles, baskets. Why? Because nothing transforms a space (or an object) quite like paint does.
But painting can also be a chore. It's time consuming, messy, and unforgiving. And it requires careful prep work. A few months ago, Bruno and I took part in a painting event at Wagner Spray Tech. Wagner specializes in paint sprayers that are total game changers. We had always been hesitant to use a paint sprayer indoors, but the folks at Wagner took us into their painting 'lab' and taught us some tricks, and I painted two large walls in less than 10 minutes. Then I looked at Bruno and said, "I'm never rolling a wall again." And I meant it.
Not only did the indoor paint sprayer make the process go speedy-fast, but the paint coverage was flawless. No streaks, no thin areas that needed another coat, and no thick, drippy areas that needed to be retouched. It was the most satisfying painting experience of my life.
We recently completed a room makeover in our home, transforming an empty bedroom that served as a storage/play/catch-all nightmare room into a cozy den. The foundation for the whole room was a fresh coat of paint, and we were eager to experiment with spraying the walls vs. rolling and cutting in.
Spraying the walls of a room will save you loads of time - like, hours. But, you have to prep your room in order to ensure total success. And that prep work depends on having the right masking and surface protection products. We used a few key supplies from Trimaco to make sure our room was prepped correctly.
Trimaco makes all the painting jobsite protection products professionals use, and they have something for everything you can think of. When spraying a room, don't be intimidated by the prep work - the truth is, even if you're just rolling and cutting in, you'd have to do the same amount of prep (taping around windows, trim, and baseboards).
Here's how it all went down:
We taped around all the windows and baseboards using Trimaco's Tape & Drape painter's tape. This tape it the bomb! Why? Because it comes with plastic attached to it. You simply apply the tape to the trim, then pull the plastic out to create big swaths of coverage. We applied this same tape along the ceiling line.
We covered our floor with a giant, non-slip drop cloth from Trimaco. Adding a tacky back to underside of a drop cloth was somebody's masterstroke because it stays put!
Bruno is gaga for gadgets and he likes to keep his work area super clean, so he insisted we wear plastic coverings on our feet. This was not totally necessary for a job like this, but this floor guard for shoes would be a great addition to a winter cocktail party where people want to keep there fancy shoes on in your house. I'm kidding ... maybe.
We used the Flexio 590 Handheld Paint Sprayer. It's perfect for an interior paint job like this, because it can cover an 8x10 foot space in 5 minutes! Before spraying, we added our paint to the sprayer and mixed in a bottle of Wagner's Paint Easy additive to thin the paint and help it go on smoothly. Don't let the notion of thinning your paint fool you into thinking the coverage will be poor. When paint is applied through a sprayed mist, the super-fine droplets land and attach to one another, making the finish smoother than the voice of Barry White.
Despite the fact that it was freezing when we painted the room, we opened the windows a bit for ventilation. I think anybody who paints indoors does this, but it's especially helpful when spraying a room, because you have paint particles hanging in the air. Wearing a mask is also important - it keeps the misty-fine particles out of your lungs. That said, the Flexio 590 doesn't over-spray nearly as much as you might guess. You won't feel like you're painting in the clouds.
Bruno painted all four walls of the room in 20 minutes. That's it. 20 minutes and he was D-O-N-E. No second coats, no touch-ups. Can you even?
1. Keep a damp cloth in your pocket to periodically wipe the tip of the sprayer - it can get blocked as the paint begins to harden. This is important! You'll need to wipe the tip more often than you think ... but doing so will keep the sprayer from clogging and splattering. If your paint sprayer won't spray, it's often because the tip is clogged with dried paint. Keep it clean and you'll have great results.
2. Learn how to adjust the sprayer nozzle to change the spray pattern. A horizontal nozzle position creates a vertical pattern; a vertical nozzle creates a horizontal pattern. Putting the nozzle at a diagonal will generate more of a round spray pattern.
3. Stand close to the wall and keep your sprayer 6-8 inches from the wall. The further back you go, the wider and thinner your painted area becomes. Standing close to the wall helps you get a nice, thick coat on the first try. You want to keep the sprayer closer to the wall than you think; if you feel weirdly close, you're probably doing it correctly.
4. Apply the paint in strokes (we like horizontal strokes), and pull your finger off the trigger at the end of each pass to let the paint trail off (rather than doubling up an application by continuing to run the sprayer row-after-row). Overlap each spray pass by about 50% to ensure full coverage.
This video on how to use a paint sprayer was extremely helpful in getting us up and running:
We let the paint cure for an hour, then I removed all the painter's tape and plastic film. We folded up the drop cloth, and the room was a perfect blank canvas set to become all denned out!
Before we show you all the pretty pictures of the finished room and talk about the design process, I really want to make sure you understand how smooth and efficient the painting process was. I feel like we have a golden key to Paintsville, and we have an obligation to pass on the ease of this method. It is a game changer. It makes painting so quick and easy. Try it out. I promise you'll breakup with your roller and your old ways.
For years, Bruno and I have been unsure about how to use the empty bedroom on our second floor. When we first moved in, it served as our baby boy's nursery, because our house was still under construction and our master bedroom was not complete. Once our remodel was done, we moved him into a larger bedroom, and this little room met an ugly fate: The room where all the misfit toys and furniture lands. I know many of you have a room (or closet) that's befallen this same sort of fate. It's a luxury to have a room like this, especially because you can close the door and kind of forget about it. But, it's also a big bummer. It bothered me that this totally legit room was being used for such a lousy purpose.
Bleh... what a shame of a room.
We wavered between making it a guest bedroom (it wouldn't get much use that way) and turning it into a den. Bruno was fairly opposed to having a television on the second floor near our peaceful bedrooms. But, our current first-floor TV situation wasn't working. Because of the configuration of our sunroom, the only furniture we could sit upon to watch a movie was a loveseat. We did this for years, spending many Friday movie nights with kids on our laps. But, our kids are now way too big to do this comfortably, and it was becoming more and more apparent that we needed some kind of family-friendly sofa in our lives.
So Bruno got onboard with the second-floor den idea, and we made it happen in two weeks! We ordered a rug, chose a comfy sofa with a chaise (the best seat in the room), and bought a slightly larger television (but not a giant screened beast, because I'm completely opposed to them and don't ever want to feel like I have an actual movie theater in my home - I like going to the movie theater for that kind of thing).
Here's how the room came together:
I really love it. It feels a little more country/boho than anything we've designed before. But, this is exactly what I love about it. It's super cozy and understated, but a little hideaway-y and retro (the wall of wicker baskets is very 60s & 70s). And yet, it still feels like it belongs in our house.
We're in love with our sweet, little den and thrilled with the ease and swiftness of the room's transformation. I hope you'll give spraying a try the next time you paint a wall because it'll save you so much precious time, and the results will be stunning!
Thanks to Wagner and Trimaco for sponsoring this post; all opinions are mine alone. And thanks to you, for supporting Curbly and the brand partners that help keep us going!
When I think of wall treatments, wallpaper usually comes to mind. Or paint. But sometimes I forget that you can paint a wall to actually look like wallpaper. Here are some unbelievable examples of hand-painted walls. You'll be inspired, I promise!
To recap--it's unauthorized succulent week here at Curbly. Monday: Cactus Watercolor. Tuesday: Gumball Machine Turned Succulent Planter. Wednesday: A Cactus Pincushion in its own DIY Geometric Planter. Today: A Paint by Numbers Succulent Pillow. To be honest, I vacillated over highlighting this project. That's because the original maker, Lindsay, used a service that provided
Apartment-living, like anything in life, comes with its own set of pros and cons. Con: the walls are so thin you can hear your next door neighbors breathing. Pro: when the 20-year-old fridge in your kitchen inevitably breaks, you're not the one who has to replace it! I've been living in rentals for about eight years now, and while one day I'd like to buy a little fixer-upper of my own, for now I'm figuring out how to enjoy the temporary spaces I inhabit. Here are a few tricks I've learned that can help you put your own mark on your apartment. Bonus - everything is reversible, so you don't have to worry about a disgruntled landlord!
When we moved into our current apartment, we decided to mount our TV on the wall. Mainly, this was because our cats liked to stand in front of it, but we also just liked the look! Now, it's over a year later and there's nothing on that wall except a TV, which is the eyesore of the room. I'm a BIG TV fan, but I don't like the look of a giant black screen singled out on my wall. Because I was in need of some eye candy myself, I rounded up my favorite ways to decorate around your TV to incorporate it into your decor, or completely transform it into a hidden TV. Now I can't wait to finally decorate around my TV to make the room look a million times better!
I can't get enough of graphic grid patterns. It's a clean, less busy version of plaid. Add a grid pattern to a space, and it instantly seems modern and current. I few months ago I hand drew an entire wall in a grid pattern. Ever since, I've been on the hunt for all for more grid patterns to add to my home. These bold pillows in a classic black and white grid are sure to stand out in any space.
Our basement family room was recently given a much needed makeover! The space was totally out of date, dark and uninviting. I started with giving the walls a fresh coat of white paint and brought in some new pieces for the room. Still, the space was asking for something a little more modern and one-of-a-kind. Since I love plants SO much and I try to have one in every room possible, I created a fun this super simple plant wall to show off my little green collection and add some serious life to the space!
I've been itching to do some DIY art for our home that could involve my kids, but still be stylish and modern. This family silhouette art is definitely a blast from the past! I remember doing this in elementary school and coming home proudly displaying my rather odd-looking silhouette for my parents. This time around, I decided to have it more large scale, keeping the colors simple and the frames clean. It took less than an hour by the time I...
I'm not sure about the healing power of crystals, but I am sure enchanted by their beauty. Thanks to their weight, these shining amethyst crystals are a natural fit for great bookends. Purchased from a high-end boutique, you're in for $300+ for a pair. But crafted at home, you can make a beautiful set for around $50, and a couple hours of your time.
Add them to your shelf, or wrap them up as a holiday gift. Either way, they'll bring some serious style to any bookshelf.
The widespread appeal of nautical and coastal decor makes a lot of sense when you consider the primal and ancient connection humans have to the sea. Being attracted to the water is hardwired into our very cells. Scientific studies have proven what we already know anecdotally: spending time near, on, or in lakes and oceans make us happier and healthier. It's no wonder that so many of us respond to the colors, clean lines, and natural elements of coastal, beach, and nautical decor. It makes us feel good to be reminded of the sea.
If your initial reaction to the term "coastal decor" is negative, it's probably from witnessing too many cutesy and heavy-handed thematic rooms. We are not advocating buying and displaying any and all items that have a sailboat or seahorse on them. Good decorating never grows out of an overly simplistic theme, and, "Put an anchor on it" is not a valid design philosophy!