DIY Panel Moldings

I always admire the exquisite molding details in older homes. It's amazing to see how simple moldings can bring a sense of elegance and tons of characters to a room. Our apartment is not a new built, however its lack of architectural details makes the apartment looks really plain and boring despite how hard I tried to style it.

Earlier this year I got some big size pictures from Moveline, a hotel liquidation place in Oakville. The purpose of purchasing the pictures is to use the frames. (Originally I planed to do the framed wallpaper look by painting orange and white zig-zags by myself on paper and then put the painted frame on top. Apparently after almost 5 months, it's still not happening.) By taking out the picture and glass and paint the picture frame the same color as our bedroom wall color, I made my own panel moldings for the bedroom. After I taped the frames (by using heavy duty double sided tape) on the wall and all of sudden our rental apartment bedroom finally got the oh-so-charming look.

Hack Ikea Furniture

After

Before

I was looking for shoe racks for the longest time for my new apartment. When I spot this one in Ikea for only $29.99 I knew I've found the one. Forget about shoe racks. I will stick with the golden rule of tackling down all the mess around the apartment...hide it! I've bought enough of file storage boxes and kitchen storage containers to prove that rule. The only problem of this shoe cabinet is the ugly birch color which is also easy to be solved by just few coats of paint. I know that I have been talking about this project for a while and finally I got this done by last Sunday. Lesson that I have learned this time? NEVER forget that most Ikea furnitures aren't made of real wood and no wood stain or polyurethane is ever needed (and I'm truly thankful for Canadian Tire's return policy)!

Here are some more pictures:

Because the shoe cabinet is made of laminated particle boards, it would be hard to paint over the surface without any prep. You can either slightly sand the surface by using fine grit sandpaper (220grits) or using primer if you are like me that aren't too sure about your sanding skills. A guy from House Hardware store told me that I should be looking for a primer that's for vinyl. I used foam brush to apply the primer because I don't want to leave any strokes on the surface and I used foam roller to put on the high gloss black paint.

After two coats of primer

Project's done after two coats of primer, three coats of high gloss paint (for the first time that I actually strictly and patiently followed the instructions about the waiting period between each coat) and my leftover wallpaper again.

Easy Project

After

Before

Today I was supposed to work on the Ikea shoe cabinet that I got two weeks ago and I actually got quite excited for this little project. I've already picked up 120grit and 220grit sandpapers, a neat rubber sanding block, ebony color wood stain and polyurethane from Canadian Tire. This morning I jumped out of bed at 8am and can't wait to start to get my hands dirty...not until I opened up the furniture package...hmm... pressboards! How could I even forget in the first place that a $30 Ikea shoe cabinet wouldn't be anything made of real wood?!

After 5 seconds of self blaming, I decided to do a easy project just to cheer myself up. This Ikea Expedit Console table was bought for only $50 on a Wacky Wednesday Sale night more than a month ago. It is a nice piece considering the price. However because the lighting condition in the hallway isn't that optimum and the dark color of this console isn't helping at all. To make it alive again, I used some leftover wallpaper from my old bedroom. All I did just cut the paper and put it under the glass. No glue or water was even needed! There you go, an eyesore is finally pleasing the eyes now. And now I shall make another trip to Canadian Tire to do some exchange...arghh

Weekend Project - wallpaper

Okay, first I have to confess that neither my husband or I am a very productive person when it comes to our own home improvement. Hence the never quite finished painting job for the kitchen, unassembled other two dinning chairs that are still in a box because we still don't need them yet, unhemmed bedroom curtains, pictures sitting on the floor that need to be hanged...ah and don't even mention the messy study that needs to be organized desperately. So you get the picture. The fact that we actually put up the wallpaper that I have ordered more than a month ago is indeed a big accomplishment to us. This is the first time that I've ever tried to cover a whole wall with wallpaper by myself ( ...with a little help from Max). Minus the frustration and seriously more frustrations, I actually enjoyed the process and am very glad that the result turned out pretty good.

Oh by the way, something that you couldn't tell in the picture that we haven't cut the top part of the wallpaper where it meets the ceiling and also the pillow covers aren't quite finished yet. I still need to put on zippers...

Ah...the to-do list keeps rolling...