Nail polish

Over the last few years I've collected a lot of nail polishes. I used to store them in a little box and I hated it. I couldn't find what I was looking for and it just looked plain messy. What to do, What to do. One day I was walking by Söstrene Grenes and saw an inexpensive display shelf. Finally it came to me how I could store my polishes beautifully.

The shelves they sell come in a verity of sizes and are made out of untreated wood. I painted it with some left over paint an used decorative paper to make it my own.

- Before -

- What it looks like now -

Thanks for stopping by.

-A

Forcing tulips

- Beautiful Tulips -

In February I got a bunch of tulip bulbs for cheap since it was way to late to plant them outside. It was like 90% off! I've been wanting to force tulips for some time now because I love the minimalist look of simple glassware with flowering tulips. Also tulips are the most beautiful of all flowers.

Here's what I did; I started by going to a thrift store to get some cheap glassware. Score! got some simple glasses as well as a nice pitcher. Next thing I got was some pumice rock to hold the water, it's much cleaner than soil, ugh muddy. When I got home I put the rocks in my new pots and laid the bulbs on top. I water them so that the water level was just below the bulbs without touching them. Then I put them in the refrigerator for ten days. This is what it looked like:

Now usually the instructions for forcing say leave the bulbs in the refrigerator for at least 4 weeks but I think because I bought them so late they rooted very quickly.

- This was soon after I had taken them out -

- And the final result again because I am very proud -

I was very happy with this experiment and how it turned out. It was cheap and it gave me pleasure to watch the flowers grow. Currently I have yellow tulips in the fridge for Easter.

Thanks for stopping by.

-A

My Home

Hello on this sunny Saturday! In Iceland it's very dark during the winter months so I, and many others, get very exited when the sun decides to make an appearance. Today was perfect for taking photos of what my apartment currently looks like.

 The pictures above show the entrance and from there the storage "room" that now serves as my makeup corner. On the opposite wall the the makeup area is an actual storage, maybe I´ll blog about it later.

Like I mentioned in my first blog one of the first things I did was changing the counter top as well as the sink and faucet. Ahh. Much better. Notice the Pictures on the wall? I got those from some sort of online advertisement library (something like this http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/ ).

-Kitchen plus dining area-

- View into the living room - 

- Living room (it's the same cat..) -

- Bedroom on the wall opposite my bed I put up a shelving system to store my clothes -

Thats it! Hope you like it :)

Thanks for reading

-A

First DIY

New post and the first DIY I´ll be sharing.

Yesterday I spray painted old wall hangers my mother gave me some years ago. Here's a picture before:

I am quite fond of them but at the time they where given to me I was living with my parents. My room was in natural and light brown colors so they fitted great there but not so much where I live now. The easiest color to match is black so I went and bought black high gloss spray paint (also I though this would be the color I´d be most likely to us again). I set up an old box and newspapers in my bathroom as protection for the surrounding interior,I also used painters tape to cover the ceramics, can be seen below:

When every thing was ready I open the window and started spraying. If the weather had been cooperative I would have done this outside and that is where I recommend something like this being done. But when you just have to finish something this is how it can be done inside, just be aware that there is a very strong smell that comes with the paint so at least do this in a room that can be closed off from the rest of the apartment and has a window. Anyways I allowed the hangers to dry overnight and hung them back up this morning. Here is the finished product: 

I am very pleased with the final result! Much more in line with everything else in here.

Although this is nothing groundbreaking in the world of do it yourselfs there is a point to this post. Spray painting is a very easy and cheap way to reuse things you already own and it gives old worn items a new life. 

Thanks for coming by

-A

Drum roll please..

This will be my first attempt blogging, wish me luck. I have for some time now wanted to log all the, do it your self, I have been doing. Since I moved into me own apartment I´ve been crazy running around painting walls, buying furniture, changing lights (I mean the light fixture not the bulbs.. well also the bulbs), sawing shelves, changing flooring you know the usual stuff one does when moving into a new apartment. The thing is I´ve lived here for 2 years now and I´m still at it! My apartment is 50 square meters (roughly 540 feet for those so inclined) so by now I thought I´d have used up every possible space for these experiments. Oh well I guess I´ll just have to keep at it :)

So for my first post I thought I'd show the state of my home when I first moved in.

This is the first room coming into the apartment. You can see into a small storage area through the door and behind from where I am standing is the bathroom.

Inside the storage.

The kitchen. One of the first things I did was change the countertop.

The living room, taken from the kitchen area. Around where the ceiling light is suppose to be is a dark circle, the former owner had lights with very strong light bulbs so the dark circle is actually burnt wood. This was the case all over the apartment.

 

Bedroom.

In the bedroom one of the walls had some wires sticking out of it and this nice box in one of the corners.

Its nothing terrible but a little this and that had to be done.

Thank you for coming by

-A