My Craigslist Stalking Paid Off!

Finally!  After weeks of obsessively checking Craigslist, I came across an Ektorp chair (usually $250) for $50!  I know it looks gross in the picture, but that's because the slipcover was ripped in the front so I just went ahead and took it off  when we got it home, and I'm planning on buying a new white slipcover for $29 when we make our trip to Ikea soon. 

I probably should have waited to post of picture of my chair with a new slipcover for a more dramatic reveal, but I just couldn't wait to share!

Sooooo for all of $80 I will have come in waaaaay below my original $500 budget for a new chair.

Woo hoo!

Stripes and Chevron and Dots?

I'm finally finished with those stripes and it feels amazing!  I was kind of nervous about the vertical stripes because horizontal stripes seem to be so "in" right now.  

Evidence:

If you search "striped nursery" on Pinterest, 90% of the stripes on the walls are horizontal, and honestly...those are my favorite.

But then I saw this beautiful picture...

via

....and even though it's not a nursery or playroom it helped me settle on the vertical stripes.  Don't they look so cool?

I hope mine look at least half as cool when I get all the other stuff in the room.  Fingers crossed!

Now on to the chevron portion of this post....

 ....I bought this brown and white chevron from Allegro Fabrics (which I highly recommend!) and I'm going to use it, I'm just not sure if I want it on my curtains like I had originally planned.

These are actually the curtains that gave me the idea to just put fabric on the bottom of my white panels:

via

Looking at these curtains makes me think that I might need a pattern in a larger scale than the chevron I have for the bottoms of my curtains.  Yes?

Maybe something like this (here come the dots)...

via

 

...or maybe I'll just leave them white.  It might start looking a little busy in there now that the walls are striped.  

I'd planned on getting my curtains done as soon as that chevron fabric came in, but now I think I'll be holding off on them 'til most everything else is finished. 

So that's the playroom for now.  

I made some major, major progress in my hunt for a cheap chair (like $50 cheap) for our bedroom over the weekend and I'll share tomorrow!

New Prints and Free Shipping!

Just so you know.....

...this is available in my Etsy Shop.

So is this little monkey.

All prints are $12 for an 8x10, $20 for an 11x14 and $28 for a 16x20.  Thrifty Abode readers get free shipping with the code "FREESHIP"!

To make up for the self promotion I have another post coming up in just a little bit!

Crazy Pregnant Lady...

....that's me!  What did I get myself into with these stripes?  I had a plan...a very well thought-out plan, and I still found a way to do things the hardest way possible.

Long story short:  In an effort to not spend $20 more on white paint (I had enough for the white stripes, but not to coat the entire room) I went ahead and measured and taped my walls with just a coat of primer on them.  Then I thought it would be a good idea to add just a touch of brown to my white paint to make it not so stark.  Well, I spilled way more brown into my white paint than I meant to and ruined it.

SOOOO....not only did I have to spend more money on more paint, but I'm also going to be spending more time re-taping so I can paint my white stripes.  I'm a  DIY genius!

I just keep telling myself that I'm over half-way finished.  Also, we didn't get to Ikea this weekend so I have plenty of time to get these walls done before I have to worry about moving any furniture in.

Plus, anything is an improvement when compared to the state of the room just a few weeks ago:

State of the Playroom

We're not making a trip to Ikea for another week and a half, so I'm trying to get done what I can get done until then.  

I'm not making much progress...that picture is so sad.

I'm going to be painting during naptime today!  Hope you're doing something way more fun.

Kid Sized Modern Chairs

via west elm, pb kids, target

Yesterday, in my little Kid's Table DIY/Makeover Roundup, I mentioned that this post had inspired me to use modern style chairs for my boys' table and chair set in their future playroom.  The chairs pictured above are the most affordable ones I came across.

Keep reading or just scroll a tiny bit to see which ones I ended up getting...

The inspiration chairs were actually the set of Target chairs (pictured above) and they were originally $60 for a set.  That seemed a little high to me, plus I didn't really want to use white chairs, and I would have ended up painting them, so I searched a couple other places to find something similar and hopefully in a color I wanted.

I never, ever would have thought that I would have found a decently priced modern-ish chair at PB Kids.....and in exactly the color I wanted.  I think my jaw literally dropped when I walked in the store and saw them.  AND due to some gift cards and coupons (which is why I even bothered to look there and West Elm in the first place) I was able to get two chairs for $50! 

I picked up my chairs yesterday and then came home and started looking up links for this post when I realized that the Target chairs were a good $20 less than the ones that I had just bought.  Doh!  I considered returning the PB Kids chairs, but then realized that between shipping and painting the white Target chairs I probably would have ended up spending $50 on them anyway. 

Those Target chairs are a fantastic deal, but Little Man is already enjoying his!

Mini Kid's Table DIY/Make-over Roundup

I've come across some pretty great kid's table and chair DIYs/makeovers since I've been searching for a way to avoid spending $100+ a new set for my boys' playroom.  These are just a few of my favorites.

1.  A little paint and collected chairs from Carrie at Lovely Etc.
2.  Chalkboard paint plus a $10 garage sale find from Lolly Jane.
3.  From scratch and under $30.  Amazing!  Shanty 2 Chic
4.  Another table from scratch plus it's a PB Kids knockoff from Andrea at Strawberry Chic.

That little modern chair in pic number 4 inspired me to find something similar....so I did!  I'll share tomorrow!

Office Space Update

A couple weeks ago I started doing a bit of organizing and cleaning in our little office area.  This desk was usually so trashed because it was a space that I just had no idea how to fix.  Then I got my DIY pinboards up and I got a little motivation to get the area looking nice and functional. 

Here's a before that's actually a bit of a cheat.  I had already decluttered and dusted before I realized that I should take some pictures of how horrible our desk was...ya know for a really dramatic change.  Instead the picture below just shows empty pinboards and a junky desk organizer.

And here's a wider shot of our desk now:

Good, not great.  I still have mixed feelings about the black desk organizer.  Not sure if I should paint it or just get rid of it altogether.  Thoughts?

It's coming together little by little.  Here's a quick little list of the stuff I've bought so far to get my desk in shape:
-  Lamp:  $12 at Wal-Mart (Can you believe it?)
-  Glass sugar bowl to hold thumbtacks:  $3 at Target
-  Black Storage boxes for upper shelf:  2 for $14 at Wal-Mart
-  White magazine holder:  $7 on Amazon
-  Little wooden "R":  $1 at Michael's