Design Inspiration

I’ve found a few photos on the internet over the years, and instead of brushing them off as something cool, and just kept browsing, i’ve saved them into a file for future inspiration. I also have 2 full, jam packed binders of photos i’ve ripped from magazines that I can use for inspiration when I’m looking for new ideas. But from my internet collection, I’d like to share a few with you…

Parisian Apartment

Sunlit Hallway

Open Kitchen

Bright Kitchen

Cool Headboard

Dark Kitchen Cabinets

Paris Apartment

Anton Photo from Flickr

The Drawing Room

My Dream House- From “Practical Magic”

The “Practical Magic” Kitchen

The “Practical Magic” Kitchen

Peacock Wallpaper

So there’s a few things that bring me inspiration! I hope you can find and compile your own, it’s a great reference when you have “writer’s block” of being a designer, or just need a little boost in creativity. Happy Designing!

I Bet You Didn’t Think of That…

So in my article searching, I came across one about “New Uses For Old Things” and compiled the COOLEST ideas for things you can do with stuff you have laying around. (Most involve cleaning… get ready to break out the elbow grease)

1. Use Lemons to whiten your fingernail tips by rubbing a lemon wedge on your nails or to brighten your laundry whites by adding 1/2 cup of lemon juice to your wash cycle. You can also keep your apples from getting brown after cutting them by using a little lemon juice.
2. Use Baking Soda to unclog a drain by pouring 1/2 cup down followed by 1/2 cup vinegar 5 minutes later. YOu can also scrub pans, brush teeth, deodorize, and clean a grease spill.
3. You can use a Dryer Sheet to freshen your stinky shoes by placing them inside, clean pet hair off furniture, and to dust wood furniture. You can also keep your clothes smelling fresh by putting them inside of your dresser drawers.
4. Use Newspaper to wrap around tomatoes to ripen them. You can also use it to clean a window instead of a paper towel, and wrap a gift.
5. White Vinegar is an amazing all natural cleaning product. You can use it to remove coffee and tea stains from a cup, deodorize a garbage disposal (drop some orange peels down there while your are at it too), remove sticky price tag stickers, and kill weeds in your sidewalk cracks.  We are about to try to use it to clean a water fountain in the house with mineral spots.
6. Coffee Filters can be used to diffuse a flash on a camera, strain the broken cork from a wine bottle, keep leftovers from splashing into your microwave, clean glass (use instead of a paper towel) and act as a little bendy plate for pitas and popcorn.
7. You can use Salt to melt ice outside, remove red wine from washable items, and chill ice for wine faster (place ice around the wine bottle, sprinkle with a few tablespoons of salt, and layer with more ice. Fill chiller with water. Wait 10 minutes, serve.)
8. Ahh. I love Velcro. Especially double sided sticky velcro. Some of it’s (many) uses are to hang art on a wall, keep a rug in place, keep track of your TV remote, keep your dining chair cushions in place, and keep a picnic table from flying away with your goodies.
9. Olive oil isn’t just for cooking… You can use it to shine stainless steel, remove eye makeup in a pinch, moisturize cuticles, dust wood furniture, keep the lid of honey from sticking, and keep a squeaky door quiet.
10. Ziplock Bags are one of my favorite things. I use them to pipe colored frosting onto a cake by cutting the corner off of the bag. I do the same with transporting peanut butter for crackers and sandwiches, and dispensing it through the corner of the baggie. You can also break up crackers for crumbs cleanly, break ice, and keep your makeup and squirt tubes of toiletries safe while traveling.
11. You can use a Garden Hose Holder that has a crank handle on it to keep your christmas lights in check. Who really wants to untangle those things every year anyways?

There you have it! Some great tips on new uses for household items! I hope you use wisely, and I hope they help you like they helped me!

Inspiration From Craigslist?

If there ever wasn’t a reason to love Paris and Italy from afar, aside from the food, the movies, the romantic music and the way of life… it’s the design. One of my favorite things to do, when I find myself browsing the web is to go onto Craigslist, look up apartments with photos in Paris, (tiny and elegant), and Italy (rustic and elegant…) and shop around. I love to see how people in these countries decorate their tiny apartments with the coolest accessories, fabrics, furniture and best of all, the most spectacular views. They manage to take a 400 Square Foot apartment with a washer and dryer in the kitchen where the dishwasher should be with a 2 burner stovetop and a bathroom with hardly any standing room, and make it look comfortable and livable. Maybe it’s the loft beds, the straight lines, the crisp feel or maybe it’s just that they have a very “less is more” mentality. Here’s some of my favorite Craigslist finds…

Hallway in Paris

I like this small hallway, small kitchen that has just what it needs, and cool chandelier.

White Kitchen

I like the crisp white kitchen with the neat little patio outside.

Italian Kitchen

I like how there’s a fireplace in this Italian kitchen.

Italian Loft Apartment

Small loft, crisp modern colors, and a wood floor. I’m guessing there are many like this in a unit, and it’s probably still very expensive. (I didn’t see the price, just the picture)

Italian Villa

I love how in most Italian “Villa” style apartments and homes the walls were washed with a golden yellow color, beams on the ceiling, and stone floors.

The View!

If I rented the apartment with this view… I would be in European heaven!

All in all the apartments in some of these European countries were tiny, cramped, and neatly styled. I guess you’d spend less money on the decorations, and prepare to get really comfortable with any flat mate you choose. I’d take it!

The Lampshade Garden

So, growing up I never really had a home. I moved about 30 times total by graduation. (Of High School) But there was always one place I liked to call home. My best friend from middle school’s mom’s house. I recently lived there for the last year before moving in with my boyfriend, and call the back porch one of my favorite places on earth. Shari’s house is my safe haven, and her sense for creative decorating is uncanny and awesome. One of my favorite things about the back porch is the lampshade garden. It’s a collection of antique glass lampshades, placed in the ground with a string of light bulbs underneath. I hope that when I have a home of my own I can collect lampshades and have a little area of my own.

The Patio

This picture was taken a few years ago when Shari had red christmas lights up around the built in patio. There is a lower patio/deck and there is also a little upper patio that she had built in on top of a set of antique wagon wheels.

Lampshades

This is just a small portion of the lampshades in the Lampshade Garden.

Shadows on the Garage

I took this photo on the back porch of the shadows of some neat antiques on the garage.

Garden Inhabitants

Next to the Lampshades, is the Gnomes. They live in the trees. Living in an apartment right now I don’t really have the kind of creative license I would if I lived in a house. But someday, I will. And there will be Gnomes.

 

The Abandoned Dresser- Part 2

With a light breeze and warm sun, I thought today would be a great day to give the old abandoned dresser a  facelift. My boyfriend had found this by a dumpster just a few weeks prior. You can see that post here. It was coated, heavily in black gloss spray paint. I own a palm sander, had a bunch of sandpaper, some left over paint, so I was good to go.

The dresser before… in it’s glossy glory.

During the sanding process. 

I knew that there was SO MUCH spray paint on the dresser that I would go through a ton of sandpaper, and I was right. Every now and then the spray paint would even melt from the heat of the palm sander, and get all gunky and smear instead of sand off.

After a few coats of white cabinet paint. I LOVE and vouch for Sherwin Williams Pro Classic. Best and smoothest cabinet paint ever. 

Lucky for me the paint dried so fast once I started painting it that I could do a second coat almost right away. I had a quart of trim and cabinet paint left over from probably 4 years ago. But i’ve taken care of it (never letting it freeze) and with a little stir, it worked just fine. Now I use the dresser for t-shirts and tank tops, it’s a perfect little thing.

Happy sanding!