All posts tagged IKEA

our home: bathroom style on the cheap

 

On our latest apartment adventure, we set out to add some color and style to our bland, boring master bathroom. Every apartment we’ve lived in has had the basic bathroom features that are just bland enough to please everyone. Beige counters, basic cabinets and hardware, nothing fancy. But a room you spend your early mornings and late nights in should be at least a little pretty, right? Why can’t I brush my teeth and look at something colorful and happy? Of course, we don’t have the freedom (or resources) to go with a bathroom remodel, so I wanted to add just a few apartment friendly touches to spruce things up a bit.

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The easiest thing you can do? Add art. On the two walls that were big enough for frames, we added some color with free art! I cut an old floral print down to size for the frame by the vanity and, adjacent to the shower, I added some super easy paint chip art. We bought the two white frames from IKEA for $5.00 each. The great thing about them is that they are pretty thin, so they don’t stick out from the wall very much, and they are also plastic. Perfect to protect our DIY art from humidity, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if the frames somehow got damaged.

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One of the most exciting upgrades was buying new towels! We replaced all of our bath and hand towels with these fluffy ones in sky blue, navy, and white. They are also from IKEA and the quality is actually pretty amazing. Plus the colors lend to a more spa like feel and don’t clash with the cabinetry and wall color that we can’t change.

We also upped our bathroom organization! We bought these awesome corner shower shelves from Target that just suction cup right to the wall. We’re over a month in and they haven’t budged. Plus, the people that make them are smart enough to have slits in the bottoms, so they stay pretty clean as well! No fuss, no muss! (By the way, what it muss??)shower-organization-1

And on the counter, I put my extensive collection of glass vessels by turning a square vase and glass votive into storage for cotton balls and q-tips. Totally free and it is worlds better than having packages of bath supplies cluttering up the vanity.master-bathroom-makeover (4) copy

No, it’s not the fanciest makeover. Nor the most impressive. But, hey! We’re not trying to win a beauty contest here! The goal right now is cheap and making, what will hopefully be, our last apartment stylish without spending a ton of dough. (But when we get a house, oh man, y’all better be prepared for the paint and projects to be flying!)

What are some other inexpensive ways to freshen up a bathroom? Share ideas for storage and style below!!

our home: master bath updates

Wow, so it’s been a while right? It turns out getting back into the swing of things after a one week vacation is totally harder than it seems. But I’m back now and I’m ready for a lot of new projects and fun stuff on Two Live Colorfully!

Before we left for Oregon, we had been working on sprucing up our master bath. The before was pretty bland.

We’re not quite done yet, but we did finally get some new towels and I made some fun paint chip art to liven things up!

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We bought our towels from IKEA and they are surprisingly luxurious! We probably stood in the towel section of the store for a good 30 minutes trying to decide what colors to get. Of course, in the end, we went with the three colors that were right next to each other! Two fun royal blue, spa blue, and crisp white to balance out the colors.

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I also grabbed a few of these NYTTJA frames for both bathrooms. They are thin, light weight, and the front is plastic, so I thought they’d be perfect to stand up to the moisture and steam from showering.

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As for the art, I just raided the paint chip section of Wal-Mart, cut each chip into a square and then used double sided tape to attach them to white paper. It took less than 20 minutes and I love the way it looks! We had some pink paint chip art in the bedroom of our last apartment and I just think it’s a really fun look. It kind of reminds me of a photo that’s been blown up and each square is a pixel. Pretty cool and 100% free.

Still on the list of things to do:

  • add some art on the opposite wall
  • frame out the mirror
  • style it up

What rooms have you been making progress with? And what are your favorite paint chip projects? I know there are some really neat ones out there!

our home: new bedding makes my heart sing

Last week, we shared our new DIY upholstered headboard and today we’re keeping the train going with more bedroom progress! We’re still a long ways off from calling this room done but updating our bedding has much a huge difference! We replaced our chocolate brown quilt with a gorgeous, textured gray and white duvet and bought two new sets of sheets; one deep plum, the other white with a small blue pattern. The improvement is outstanding and, for real, the whole room is lighter and our new bedding is plushhh!

It actually took us a while to settle on this duvet cover. Countless stores and website turned up with zilch! While Josh and I have can usually agree on a similar style, we do have different preferences. I wanted something with a repeating pattern and Josh wanted something with a little more ‘freestyle’.

We actually contemplated DIY’ing a duvet cover by purchasing a plain white one and using fabric markers to add pattern (like a grown up version of this awesome one!), but we ended up deciding against that since we couldn’t settle on a design we both liked and that sort of challenge would not be a cheap failure! So, the search for a duvet to purchase continued.

Finally, a chance trip into Bed, Bath, and Beyond last Saturday turned up this beauty.

A lovely combination; a free style pattern, if you will. And, really, it was lucky because I usually try to avoid BB&B. The usual smell is way too much, but add those cinnamon scented pinecones they carry during the holidays, and I felt like running for a gas mask! But the dizziness was worth fining this beauty of a duvet cover.

As for the actual duvet, I snagged Hotel Luxury one from Home Goods for a sweet $60.00 (more than half the original price!) I do have to admit that it has been an adjustment moving from our quilt to this duvet, it gets a little warmer, but I think once we get used to it, it will be totally fine. Plus the Texas “winter” months are coming, so it will be nice to have some extra warmth then!

Slowly but surely, this room is coming together. Just to refresh your memory, this is the other side of the room. Pretty empty except for our IKEA dresser which we still love!

Still on the list:

  • Make some throw pillows to add some more color
  • DIY some art for above the bed
  • Find a big mirror for above the dresser (hopefully a thrifting find!)
  • DIY a bed skirt (with no ruffles!)
  • Add some style to the nightstands and dresser

Any new purchases helping to pull your rooms together? Are there some things you’re more likely to purchase rather than attempt to DIY?

we’re not cool enough for this bookcase

A few posts back, I told the tale of our first ever trip to IKEA. It was pretty awesome and we got some really exciting stuff for our new apartment (1313).

Well, today I’m sharing our new completed bookcase, an IVAR combination from IKEA. This particular piece comes in unfinished, plain pine. Not exactly our style, but the shape is unique, functional, and stylish so we went for it with plans to hack.

I wanted to go with a bold color like navy blue to really make it pop against our apartment-dictated beige walls. It was Josh’s idea to leave the shelves the natural pine color (finished with polyurethane) and have the side support pieces painted. So, we combined the two and now we have a really hip feature in our living room.

The reason we fell for this bookcase is because it meets our joint general criteria for home purchases. It’s functional: the three-level shape gives us a dropping zone by the door but also lots and lots of shelving for our books and media. And it’s stylish: it’s a unique shape, it’s open, and the extra space would actually allow me to style it, not just pile our books in.

Once we got it standing upright, I set up my own little accessories bar to make styling a little easier. Since we’re still in the process of unpacking, it was really easy just to set all of my décor items in one spot.

And here is our IVAR bookcase all styled up and lovely:

I got these bright green magazine files from a Crate and Barrel Outlet to round up a few magazine and smaller books (like the vintage cookbooks my aunt got me a few Christmases ago). Chalkboard labels from bugaboo on etsy add a little flair and make things easy to spot.

We also have a game shelf now! All of our board games are out and easy to access.

All of our DVD’s and most of our CD’s are stored in these clear acrylic units from the Container Store. They efficiently organize our media without being visually obtrusive. Yes, visually obtrusive. I went there.

I’m so in love with this bookcase. And when you compare the IKEA stock photo:

With our styled-up hacked version:

I think you’ll understand! It gives bright pops of color with plentiful storage and even a new special spot for our rat, Scribble. It makes us look cooler then we really are.

our colorful life: megan and josh take IKEA!

We’re getting adjusted to our new apartment and things are slowly but surely coming together. Even though 816 is larger than our last apartment, the space is laid out differently, so our large matching bedroom set would not have fit into our new bedroom. Over the past few weeks we’ve been looking for alternative solutions and we decided to make our very first trip to IKEA to check out some options we liked online.

A quick 30-ish minute drive from our new place is all it took and we were there! We started off the adventure with some of the famous Swedish Meatballs, which were amazing and then we hit the showroom. We strolled through the whole thing looking for what we had found online (to make sure it’s what we wanted) and storing away inspiration for future projects. It was really a blast. IKEA definitely makes an effort to make the customer experience as comfortable as possible, but it still felt a little overwhelming at times. So many options!

After a few hours, we came to the end of the showroom and it was time to hit up the marketplace. We came home a lot of great deals!

1. JANETTE Curtains – $24.99
2. GRUNDTAL Towel Rack (for kitchen) – $9.99
3. RATIONELL VARIERA Iron/Ironing Board Rack – $9.99
4. GISLEV Rug in Gray $19.99
5. HEMNES Dresser in Brown-Gray $149.00
(*I know it looks like a whole lotta gray/silver, but it’s not all going in the same space! You’ll see.)

6. IVAR System $140.00

With the addition of a few other small things we spent just under $400.00! The number seems big, especially to us, but we got so much for the money. We’ll be sure to share pictures of where these items end up in our apartment. I will tell you that we have tweaked our IVAR system with some paint and stain so it will be a perfect fit for our new living room. It’s been curing for the past few days and this week, we’ll get it put together and styled for you to see!

After about four hours in IKEA, we were exhausted so we headed to the Cheesecake Factory (Josh had never been) for some celebratory “we survived IKEA” dinner. Let me just go ahead and recommend that you get the White Chocolate Caramel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake. It is seriously heaven!

Overall, we had a really great time and now that the first time at IKEA is over, I think any future trips will be a little less overwhelming and even more fun!

Have you ever been to IKEA? What are your survival tips? Share below!