The Mom Life: Let's Redecorate This Apartment! Part I

On Tuesday, I was super busy....which is probably what lead to exhaustion on Wednesday. haha Seriously though, it was a productive day. After dropping Abby off, I hit a local Goodwill store, then AC Moore, then Lowe's, and finally finished up with Target. Then I went home to unload everything, then it was time to get Abby.

What possessed me to try to fit so much in to one day? I'm so glad you asked because I've been wanting to share! Lately, our small apartment has started feeling even smaller. I think it's due to clutter. And on top of feeling more cramped, we've noticed an increase in unwanted apartment-mates....it's part of apartment living though and I'm told we live in a bad building anyway. Joy. But moving isn't in the cards for us so I was able to talk the hubby into letting me re-do our apartment in a way that maximizes the space we have while de-cluttering it. This should help the apartment feel a little bigger and help to keep the unwanted pests away. (Have I mentioned that I loathe apartment living? Because I do. I really really do.)

Back to Tuesday. I went out with a few things in mind that I was looking for second-hand and things that I new I needed to buy new. Here's my haul:

I stopped at Goodwill first. I scored big!

Abby needs a new dresser and that was one of the things I was keeping an eye out for. And I found one! The 4-drawer dresser was only $29.99! And luckily for me, it fit sideways in the backseat of my car. :) I also found a mirror that looks like it has a stressed frame...which is probably unintentional but totally fits in with what I'm hoping will be a beachy theme in the apartment. I had plans to buy a used window frame and put a picture of the beach in it for a focal point in our living room and I found something similar at Goodwill for only $20! I was stoked because it is so perfect for our living room! I also got a lamp, a couple of pictures for Abby's room and a little jewelry box for Abby. In all, I spent $78 at Goodwill -- not too bad.

I stopped at AC Moore next for 2 baskets for my bathroom...they aren't wicker, I think they are called reed baskets. And I picked up a wooden bin/drawer for the shoe closet. I spent $41 here.

Next was Lowe's, where I bought paint for Abby's dresser and flooring tiles for the shelving I'm planning for the shoe closet. I only spent $10 here! The tiles with adhesive on the back (the ones in the right of the picture) were originally $0.88 each and I found 6 of them on the clearance table for only $0.20 each! And the 2 stone tiles in the left of the picture were marked down to only $0.50 each. The two rectangular white stone pieces were originally $3.51 per square, but since they were cut down, I got them at only $0.50 a piece. I found everything but the paint on a clearance table! How awesome is that!

Lastly was Target. I picked up a ClosetMaid wire shelving cube and as I was walking through the lamps section in search of a lamp shade for my $9 Goodwill lamp, I found another lamp on an end-cap. This was one of those things that you have to buy because the deal is so unbelievable! It had a clearance sticker on it that said the lamp was bought online and then returned to the store. It was originally $32.99 and on clearance for $8.25!!!!! How can you not buy this thing!?! So this blue lamp with the squished oval shade will be going in the living room and the Goodwill lamp will be painted (as I had already planned on doing that) and given a new shade (as yet unbought) and then go in Abby's room because Kyleigh already has one. So altogether, I spent $35.12 at Target.

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PROJECT #1:

The first, and quickest, project I did was in my bathroom. We have this open space under half of our counter that acts as kind of a catch-all space. There's no organization to it and it just stays dirty. Our towels and linens are kept in our walk-in closet because there is no linen closet in this bathroom. So I cleaned out that open space and filled one basket with our towels for the master bathroom and the other basket with our sheets. **Neat trick here: I folded the fitted sheets and the top sheets so they were closer to being the same size when stacked and placed one pillowcase on each stack. Then I placed each stack into its second pillow case and folded the end of the pillowcase over. Now all I have to do is pull out one pillowcase when it is time to clean the bed! And it made for stacking it in the basket a lot neater!** And voila!

And then behind the dirty clothes basket...

So now that space is a little neater and there are two small shelves in my closet that can be used for something else! And those baskets fit in with the decor of the bathroom. :)

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PROJECT #2:

The second project took a little more time but had a more drastic difference. I was going to tackle the hallway coat closet! ::screams:: Well, maybe that's a little dramatic, but if you had seen the closet, you probably would have screamed too. :)

This closet had become a dumping ground for shoes, winter gear (such as hats, scarves, gloves, etc.), a tent, bowling bag, a broken chair, baby toys that no longer get played with, snow pants and suits (yes I live in the South but it does snow once in a blue moon...ya gotta be prepared! haha) and all that jazz. So I bought that wire shelving and assembled only 4 cubes of the 6 it made. I then used 3 of the remaining 7 wire shelves to "cut" each cube in half, giving me an additional 3 shelves. Of course I forgot to buy plastic ties, so I used pipe cleaners instead to tie the shelves in place.

Adding extra shelves with pipe cleaners as ties.

The 3 extra shelves added.

Then I left the fourth cube without an extra shelf because I was going to put the wooden bin/drawer in that space. And remember those adhesive flooring tiles I found on clearance at Lowe's? Those were place on each shelf to keep things from falling through and getting all tangle and messy.

The stone tiles I bought were going on top to round the whole thing out.

I forgot to take a 'before' picture, but I did take pictures of all the junk in the hallway after emptying out the closet.

I kid you not, all this stuff was piled up at the bottom of this little closet.

The girls were excited to help me go through all this stuff and sort through the shoes to see what we don't wear/use anymore so we can donate it to Goodwill. Here's what the closet looks like now!