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After staring at our own four walls for twelve months, it’s understandable that you all want to jump ship. Cabin fever has set in for all of us at this point.
An easy, quick refresh of our spaces will rid us of the negativity from 2020, set us in a positive mood for what’s to come, and remove any reminders of any unhappy memories. Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot to be thankful for from the last 365 days. There’s also stuff we don’t need to take with us, & clutter to sort through so we can start off with a clean slate.
I spent the majority of 2020 renovating the house with my fiancé, but there was still little things here & there that we wanted to do & didn’t quite get to yet. Supplies at the local home improvement spots are limited & wood prices are astronomical, so we had to improvise. A few small changes were made & let me tell you, they made a world of difference. They’re also easy enough for any of you to do in your own spaces. Check it out:
DISCLOSURE: I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post. Rest assured that my recommendations are based on MY personal experience with them, I’m not being paid to write reviews for crap products. I will always keep it real with y’all.
Furniture Refurb: We have a few furniture pieces we want to replace, our entertainment center specifically, but we haven’t found one that we liked. The one we already had was ideal, but it was pretty beat up & the corners were reminders of when Bruin (our Rottweiler) was a puppy & chewed the corners. The color was also pretty dingy. During a separate project, we had bought Rustoleum Milk Paint ($22.98, and it lasts forever because a little paint goes a long way) & we loved how it came out, so I decided to use it on the entertainment center. I figured worst case, we want to get rid of it anyway, so if it looked like crap it wouldn’t matter. Welp, it came out awesome, & we’re keeping it.
**The cool thing about this paint is that it will kind of pull the original color through in spots, & it looks really unique once it’s all dry.
Pay someone to build something for you: I wanted to upgrade our coffee table for quite awhile. Although the one we had served us well, we needed something bigger. The one we had originally was $20 at Walmart which was a bargain, but I could only find it’s equivalent on Amazon for $40.00 (if anyone was interested).
We wanted a coffee table that was not only larger, but a little more interesting. (I don’t like boring.) We spend a lot of time in the living room, so we obviously spend a lot of time staring at it. I wanted something different, so we reached out to a close friend of ours (also a groomsman in our upcoming wedding), & asked him if he’d make one for us.
..& we were BEYOND thankful that we did.
Jon is the talented woodworker responsible for this gorgeous farmhouse style coffee table. He’s a veteran & runs his own business through Instagram, where he can be reached directly for commissioned work. (@forwoodmarch, or click the link in the photo above). I highly recommend doing so if you’re looking for something a little more original; we couldn’t have found anything to match the quality of this table in any store. His prices are reasonable & you’d be helping to benefit a great organization, because Jon is instrumental with helping other veterans like himself, as they learn to cope with PTSD & returning to normal life after coming back from overseas. Check out his page & shoot him a message if you have an idea & Jon can make it happen!
Repurpose old furniture: Seeing as we didn’t really have a reason for the old coffee table anymore & feeling inspired by how well our entertainment center came out, I decided to throw together my own little contraption. I spend a lot of time huddled into my own corner of the couch on my laptop, studying for school or writing blogs for you guys. I had a ton of textbooks & school supplies that needed to be organized; it was all pretty much in a pile next to the couch.
So, first I used the milk paint & painted over the old coffee table.
Then, instead of throwing out an older cube storage system that had been in our basement, I painted over that too.
Finally, I bought a wooden crate & painted that too. The end result was a bookshelf/table system to hold all my school crap. I loved the way it came out & it wound up matching the farmhouse theme I had unintentionally started throughout the living room. I also felt ten times better because I was no longer dealing with the clutter that built up over time next to the couch with all my notebooks & folders.
Switch up old wall decor: I realized that the one wall in our living room where we typically hang decor hadn’t been rearranged or cycled out in probably close to four years. I went back through the canvas pictures I had made over the years & created a new design for the wall, & hung everything up.
**The canvas pictures can get costly, but I found a work around because I love them so much & wanted to buy a bunch of them. If you go on Groupon or LivingSocial, they almost ALWAYS have deals for canvases. I’ve bought six or seven over the past few years, & I’ve never paid over $15 a piece because I’ll buy the Groupon first. Definitely check there first before you pay full price.
Just a quick & easy rearranging of pictures lifted the entire room, & I love how it came out. Ryan likes it too, because this time I didn’t ruin the walls with holes or rip paint off with command strips. 😁
Headboard Enhancement Pt. 2: Our final little project is one we’ve undertaken previously, as seen in my other blog post. We built a DIY headboard in the spare bedroom upstairs, but our master bedroom also needed the upgrade. We bought the same distressed wood as we did for the last headboard, just in a different color. Then, we got down to business.
All of these small upgrades really lift the vibe in the room, with minimal cost & little muscle. Try them out for yourself! 🤍
