Category Archives: Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun

Wall Art (for cheap)

March 25, 2015

I mentioned last week that we recently moved a large framed print from our dining room into our bedroom:

The print is from Pottery Barn, and I do really like it, but given that we’re about to have a child, our finances don’t really include an extra $200-$400 for “wall art” at the moment.

I don’t know if you have ever looked into large prints or art pieces, but man are they pricey. After scouring the internet trying to find a large piece to fill the blank wall in the dining room, I determined that we would either need to bite the bullet and spend $200+ (and likely close to $500) on something, or come up with an alternate plan.

I started looking through the photos on my computer, trying to determine whether there was anything “frame-worthy” that wouldn’t look terrible if it was blown up to a larger size. Luckily, our amazing wedding photographers had taken some photos of the foliage around the hotel where KC and I got ready on our wedding day, which ended up being a perfect blend of attractive and artsy.

I ordered prints through Apple, blowing up the images to the largest size available (20 x 30), then headed to IKEA to pick out some large frames.

Frames can be super expensive — especially large ones — so the fact that you can get a matted frame for a 20 x 30″ print for $24.99? Amazing.

The framing process was kind of a pain in the ass (because, hello, it’s IKEA), but the trouble was worth the huge amount of savings.

And check out our dining room wall now:

Pretty nice, right? And what a steal! Here’s what it cost:

20 x 30″ print: $17.99 (x 2) = $36
IKEA Ribba Frame: $24.99 (x 2) = $50
Total cost: $43 per print/$86 total

PS: The print above the crib in our room is hung on hooks and anchored to the wall, so it’s nice and securely fastened (and that crib is on wheels and will most likely be pulled over to the bed when the little lady arrives anyway). 🙂

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

Recent Projects

July 9, 2014

KC and I have been working on some projects around the house recently, trying to finish up our basement space and make it a bit more livable. Honestly, we had just planned on painting the spare room and installing some plank flooring, but that turned into painting the basement stairs and hallway and a plan to paint the ceiling as well (we haven’t tackled that project quite yet).

I’ll start with the basement stairs, because I don’t have great pictures of the spare room yet to show you.

Here’s how the stairs started:

Hideous, super worn and covered with weird rubber mats. And please notice the wall color — ugly avocado green.

Not pretty.

I painted the walls first — Glidden Silver Birch — then started in on the stairs. Step one: remove the rubber mats.

Spackled the nail holes, then did a once-over with the electric sander and cleaned the stairs to ready them for paint.

One solid coat of Glidden Gripper primer.

Two coats of porch and floor paint in Valspar’s Gulf Coast.

I painted the bannister hardware gold (obviously), and painted the bannister with primer and some of my leftover white paint from this project (Behr Oyster Shell).

And voila, the finished stairs and hallway:

How to Paint Stairs (or a floor)

What you’ll need:

spackling paste
sander + medium-grit sandpaper (I used 100)
broom, dust pan, clean rags
painters tape
paint brushes and rollers
Glidden Gripper Primer
Enamel Porch and Floor Paint (there’s also oil-based porch and floor paint, but oil paint tends to be harder to work with and smells awful, so I opted to use the enamel-based porch and floor paint) — I got my paint at Ace Hardware where they do custom colors for porch and floor paint, but only with a satin finish, so that’s what I used.

How to do it:

Fill in any holes with spackling paste and let dry.
Sand all surfaces, then clean with a broom and clean rags to remove any debris.
Prep the space with painters tape.
Paint one solid coat of primer and let dry for at least one hour.
Paint as many coats of paint as needed to get the finish you want (I did two coats + a touch-up). Wear socks on stairs between coats, only after the paint has dried.
Let stairs cure for at least 72 hours before subjecting them to normal use.

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

DIY: The Finished Trunk

April 15, 2014

Our newly-updated trunk is fully cured and now brightening our new downstairs space. There’s still more work to be done down there (adding artwork to the walls, painting the ugly wall pipes gold), but I think the mint and gold masterpiece is a nice little addition for now. (Although it does make me think about swapping out some of the pillows on the couch to make the space a little lighter and more on the blue/green scale…)

I think the gold hinges really make a difference with this piece. But then again, I’m sort of obsessed with gold spray paint, so…

PS: The stack of records on the trunk were my grandpa’s, and yes, the one on top is Mr. Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” 🙂

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

DIY: Trunk Update

April 14, 2014

As expected, once I got the idea to update the trunk in our new downstairs laundry/family room, I knew I was going to have to follow through on my mint green and gold dreams.

Here’s where things started:

On old, dinged-up trunk that I got for free (and I think was maybe originally from Cost Plus? Who knows.)

I removed the hardware from the trunk (2 back hinges, 2 side handles, front closure, and unscrewed the internal hinge) so I could paint those separately. Removing the hardware also made painting the trunk a lot easier, because I didn’t have to tape and paint around anything.

Here’s the trunk with the hardware removed:

First I primed and painted the hardware, using Kilz spray primer and Rustoleum metallic gold spray paint.

Original hardware:

Primed:

Painted:

If you’re thinking that metallic gold spray paint is awesome — well, you’re right. It totally is.

Next I got to work on the trunk. First I sanded down the surfaces I wanted to paint using an electric sander. Like I’ve said before, I hate sanding, so I just did a quick once-over with the sander to rough up the surface to make sure the primer would adhere.

I then did one solid coat with the primer (Glidden Gripper, you are amazing), and let that dry:

I didn’t bother to paint the inside of the trunk because I a. didn’t want paint to potentially get on any of the 47 blankets I like to store in there and b. I didn’t think it was necessary since no one was really going to see that anyway.

After the primer dried, I started in with the paint. I used a small roller and brush to apply 2 solid coats of Behr Kiwi Squeeze (allowing time to dry in between), and did an extra coat on the top of the trunk, since that would likely get the most wear and tear.

All painted:

After that dried, I screwed the (newly gold) hardware back on, and left the trunk in the basement to cure:

Once the paint had cured for 7 days, I sprayed the top with a couple coats of indoor water-based polyurethane to seal it (since it will likely have drinks sitting on it, food/water/whatever).

And now, the how-to:

How to Paint a Wood Trunk

Materials I used:

Trunk (obvi)
Screwdriver (to remove hardware)
Sandpaper (I used 100 medium grit)
Optional: electric sander (makes life so much easier)
Clean dry cloth
Drop cloth
Paint brushes (1 for primer, 1 for paint) and small roller (for paint)
Glidden Gripper Primer in white
Paint (I bought a quart of Behr regular semi-gloss in Kiwi Squeeze)
Kilz Original Primer Sealer Spray (for the hardware)
Rustoleum Metallic Gold Spray Paint (for the hardware)
Indoor Water-Based Polyurethane Spray (semi-gloss finish — the seal the top)

How I did it:

Remove hardware with a screwdriver and place on a drop cloth. Spray with 1-2 coats Kilz Original Primer Sealer Spray and let dry. Spray with Rustoleum Metallic Gold Spray Paint — as many coats as you need to get the coverage you want, allowing time to dry between each coat.
Sand the surface of the trunk where paint will be applied with medium-grit sandpaper. A quick once-over with an electric sander should do the trick — you’re just looking to rough up the surface a little so the primer will adhere.
Wipe down the trunk with a clean, dry cloth to remove any dust and then transfer it onto your drop cloth.
Paint 1-2 light coats with Glidden Gripper Primer, making sure that all surfaces that will be painted are well covered and let dry. Don’t worry if the coverage isn’t opaque yet, the paint will take care of this. You want to just make sure that the primer is covering all surfaces so the paint has something to adhere to.
Paint trunk with at least 2 solid coats of your paint of choice (I like to use semi-gloss for furniture), allowing time to dry between each coat. I do more coats on surfaces that will get a lot of use — like tabletops, the top of the trunk, etc. Using a roller for this step is helpful because you don’t end up with brush stroke marks on your piece of furniture.
Once the paint has dried, reattach the hardware and let the paint cure for at least a week.
Once the paint is set and cured (it no longer feels at all sticky or tacky), spray the top of the trunk with at least 2 coats of the Polyurethane Spray to seal it, allowing time to dry between each coat.

And voila! Brand new trunk.

Finalized pictures of the piece in our laundry/family room will be up tomorrow!

Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY

Laundry Room DIY: The Big Reveal

March 24, 2014

Alright, I won’t keep you waiting any longer. I’ve got the after shots of the laundry room coming up in this post! Exciting!

This room is crazy hard to photograph (it’s only got one window, it’s almost perfectly square and the entrance is stairs — I mean, it’s a basement), but I did my best.

Penny is the number-one photo bomber in our house.

You can see that we left a non-carpeted space by the back door. Since we go in and out to the backyard here, we opted not to carpet that area to cut down on the dirt we’d be tracking in, and opted instead for an industrial welcome-mat to wipe muddy feet on.

The carpet squares we chose are seamless and a bit multi-colored. Since there’s a bit of foot-traffic in this area, we thought that having something that wasn’t all one color would help hide dirt a bit better. We originally were considering installing plank flooring down here, but determined that because the floor was so warped that it would be too much hassle or look crappy. The carpet tiles ended up being a perfect solution because they were super easy to install, cover the flaws of the floor, make the space much cozier and act as a bit of soundproofing as well (always important when you’re renting and have neighbors!)KC has been using the space quite a bit to get work done lately.

We chose to paint the walls white because the room only has one window (which gets zero direct sunlight), it’s not the brightest space. The green walls, in addition to being ugly, sucked a lot of the light out of the space and made it feel very basement-y and unwelcome. I wanted to brighten up the space and make it a bit warmer, so we chose a creamy white with just a hint of a yellow/peach undertone. It offsets the bright white trim nicely, and makes the space seem larger and lighter as well. (Note: I did take home at least 3 dozen paint cards from Home Depot and Ace trying to find the “perfect” white for the space. It was really helpful to hold the swatches up against the trim during daylight hours to see how each would look on the walls. It’s amazing how different whites are — some were “too white” and looked like paint primer, others were obviously pink when held up against the bright white trim, others were way too yellow or a tad green. In the end, I narrowed the choices down to three, and eventually went with Behr’s Almond Cream.)

We opted to hang a (cheap) mirror over the couch to help the space look a little larger and to reflect the overhead light in the room — another trick to help lighten up the space on the cheap.

KC loves to be photographed.

Not bad for a budget redo, I think. We’ve got some plans to spruce things up a little more with some pictures/artwork for the blank wall above KC’s head, and possibly the relocation of a TV (for extreme lounging), but that’s all down the line for now.

Here’s what we did to the space and the materials we used:

KC patched the giant hole in the wall using some kind of purple board patch and patch kit from Home Depot.
He filled in all the random holes with spackle and let it dry overnight.
We painted the walls Almond Cream by Behr (flat finish, paint + primer in one) — hooray, no more pukey-green paint!
Installed 2 packs of seamless carpet tiles in Toffee Tranquility (which I hated when I saw it in store, but like it now that it’s installed — also from Home Depot)

Notes — we bought a gallon of paint for this job, and opted for the paint and primer in one. The paint and primer in one is clearly the way to go, especially if you’re trying to cover a dark color with a light one (or vice versa). We did two solid coats of paint on the walls + some touch ups, and were left with barely any paint. If you’re planning on painting a room that’s any larger than 10′ x 12′, you’ll probably need more paint than we bought.

If you have any questions about the materials we used or how we did the update, feel free to email me or leave me a comment 🙂