Dressing Table

Ahh a dressing table... something I always wanted but never had room for. When I was a teenager I would get ready at my desk and now there is burn marks in the wood from the straightener. My Mother was not happy....

I always liked to sit down when I got ready .. mainly because it takes forever to do my hair so I would get tired of standing. 

When we moved to this apartment, I knew I was going to be able to put one in... I also knew that I had to get something because not only is there no counter space in my bathroom, there aren't any electrical outlets! Now 4 months after we have lived here I can finally post a picture of my dressing table!

This was when I first got it so I thought I would show you it in it's barest state. The dressing table is the Malm one from Ikea. The mirror is also from Ikea... and so is the uniform I'm wearing ;) 

I then got some con-tact paper and lined the drawer with it. This stuff is the most annoying thing to put down. Oh and I also forgot to mention... the mirror is hung by command strips because that wall is a dividing wall so it is concrete. We weren't able to put screws in it. Anyway, I will note the mirror is still there and hasn't fallen down!

Here it is with everything on it. The drawers beside are another Ikea product. I use them to store all my other beauty stuff besides makeup. This keeps all my stuff out of the bathroom. In fact, the only things in my bathroom are my facial care stuff and my toothbrush! The chair is a temporary staple until I can get a nice fancy one.

 

Moving onto the drawers, I won't show what is inside because I don't have drawer dividers for all of them. I will also share more detail into how I organized my dressing table on my business website. I use the first drawer for jewelry, the second for hair accessories and brushes, the third has hair products in there, the fourth has anything to do with skin care: moisturizers, body scrubs, etc. It basically has any excess that I am not using at the moment. And lastly, the fifth drawer has all my hair tools in there. The little white drawers on top hold my nail polishes. Eventually I am going to put little stickers on the top of the lids so I can easily see what color it is.

 

I got the mirror from homesense and I spray painted a regular cup to hold some of my lip products.

I will be doing a tutorial on the spray painting makeup holders next week. This is the other side of my dressing table. The frame is from Ikea and I made the print myself using photoshop. Pinterest is great for getting free fonts.

And of course I have to include Lady! If you don't know yet, I love Disney so you will see little Disney things pop up around my house. :)

So that is my dressing table so far. It is not complete yet but I figured it was time to show you. I still need to get all the drawer dividers for the rest of the drawers and I need to finish lining the drawers. I also need to buy a nice chair but that is not an immediate to do for that. Getting the drawers properly organized is higher on my list!

Hallway Reveal

So my hallway / entryway is official done! It is the smallest area in the house so really the easiest but it still feels nice to have one room done! Here it is:

We picked this up at Target. It is great holding our mail until we get to it and hanging up our keys. It keeps everything in one place so nobody is asking where their keys are!

I set up this little photo gallery as well. The theme around the house goes with my favourite cities. New York, Toronto in the small picture and San Francisco in the bottom small picture. The bench below is from Ikea. We desperately needed a place to sit when putting on shoes and this also adds storage for our everyday shoes.

Here is the dog I got for Christmas! (I mentioned this in my Christmas and boxing day haul video on my youtube channel)

Here is another gallery wall I did. When picture frames went on sale at Ikea I immediately jumped on it. When using Ikea frames, the photos inside the mat are never an exact size, so I went to Costco and got a 12x12 print of each which is just half an inch bigger on each side than the space inside the mat. Knowing this I just made sure to pick photos that wouldn't be affected by that. 

And there is my entryway. I plan to do an updated walk through of the apartment soon as well. That is still a heavy work in progress.

1 Month In: The Living Room

So last but not least: the living room. Here is the before:

The day these pictures were taken I was there to have the cable and internet installed. I was also really sick so that is why there is a blanket and Gatorade on the floor lol. Anyway. Here is the place now:

The view from the hallway. The bookcase is not even near done. I haven't organized it or anything really. I have just thrown stuff in there as you can see.

Here both cats have made an appearance. This is where Kitty hangs out 24/7 basically. The bins beside the media console are empty and are going into storage at some point in time... lol

The living room is set up into sections. On the left with the bookshelf will be my office area. The middle is the TV area obviously and then Brandyn's computer on this side.

And the empty wall that will soon be my office area. Those bins in the corner are full bins (childhood stuff) and are going into storage as well. The carpet is still rolled up because i just haven't put it down yet.

 

As you can see, not much at all has been done with the living room. It took forever to unpack mainly because we didn't have bookshelf so I was just unpacking things from one box to put in another. I got fed up and went and got the bookshelf I wanted. 

What we still need to do in this area:

• Bring those items to storage 
• Get some throw pillows for the couch
• Add some art above the couch
• Finish my office space
• Look for a rug that fits the room better (also another part of the reason I haven't put it down)
• Get a new couch cover (the cover ripped in the move but a new cover doesn't cost that much)
• Get a coffee table

That is basically in order of importance as well! lol

 

And that, my friends, is our apartment as it stands right now! You will see it again very soon though because on Tuesday we will be decorating for the holidays and the Christmas music IS coming on despite Brandyn's protests :)

1 Month In: The Kitchen and Dining

Moving along to the kitchen and dining room portion of the apartment...

Before:

Now:

The kitchen is slowly becoming organized. It is one of the rooms that takes the most work to organize so it definitely doesn't happen over night. I've implemented a few things here and there. Using your vertical space is one of the best ways to maximize on space in your cupboards so I got this shelf for my plates and as you can see a few of my soup bowls and mugs fit right in there as well. This one is from Target.

This is the little coffee corner. I grabbed one of these hangers from Home Outfitters. It just hooks on to the bottom of the cabinet. Mugs are easy to reach and the sugar is right there as well. 

Pots are one of the most annoying things. Especially the lids. I have this little shelf built into my cupboard so that makes it easier. I also got this lid organizer from Target. It is a life saver. As soon as I saw it, I grabbed it, no questions asked. Eventually I would like to install one of those pull out things (see here) for the pots and pans. They are kind of expensive so it may be a while before that makes its way into here.

For the kitchen, I still need to:

• Finish organizing everything
• Get some art
• Get a new microwave**

**The story behind the microwave: It is huge and it is heavy. There is no working plug on that side of the counter so not only does it take up a ton of space over there, it also needs to be moved every time we want to use it. Not convenient at all. We can't get around the moving it part but what we can do is get a smaller one. Can't wait for that day!

Now for the dining room!

Before:

And now:

The garbage is in the dining room because that is the only place we can put it lol. I also have that little island there with the mixer on top. That is my "baking station." The baskets underneath hold all my baking stuff. Pans, measuring cups and all that. I got them from Walmart (and the island thing from Ikea). It is actually a perfect spot because if I need more counter space or am baking, I can just wheel the island forward and place it in front of the kitchen doorway!

Say hello to the maroon blinds that came with the apartment.... moving on. The basket in the back holds blankets and wedding stuff. We got that at Target for a steal because the price was labelled wrong. I personally don't think it was worth $70 anyway....

And here is a closer look at my baskets. You can see I have 2 small ones at the top. I originally wanted wire baskets but I couldn't find any that were the size I wanted so this had to do.

Here is what I have left to do in the dining room: 

• Get the art I talked about in a previous post
• Do some DIY magic to the island (it probably won't be done until the spring because it involves warm weather to let paint dry)
• Replace the temporary fold up chairs with real (and by real I mean nice) dining room chairs

1 Month In: The Entry

First I will start with the entryway. It is almost complete! Here is what it looked like before:

And here it is now:

Since I already had this Broadway picture, I figured I could match the theme I am using in the dining room. Read about that here.  I didn't want typical pictures of skylines that are obvious so I after some searching I came across these two. Broadway street is of course in New York. My Mom actually picked that up for me when I was still a teenager so I can't help you with where I got that one. The upper right one is of Toronto's flatiron building. The bottom right is from the top of Lombard st in San Francisco. I got the frames at Ikea. 

Boxes are still there! I am being honest about these pictures :) lol

The closet beside the bathroom. I used the boxes from my dinnerware set. They fit perfectly in there. As you can see I haven't quite gotten to organizing it yet.

Same with this one.... 

 

This is the door obviously... I got the mat from Ikea and the key/mail holder at Target. There is a little chalkboard space on it. We don't have a chalk pen yet though so nothing is written. Also, if you have noticed the mail slot in the door.... we do get mail right to our door! It is amazing. We also have a garbage chute on our floor which is also just amazing. 

And our coat closet. I don't like the look of having a shoe rack showing so I have it hidden in our closet. It impedes our coat space but that is OK with me as long as it is hidden! We also store the vacuum and steam mop to the side there. And the bag holder is from Ikea. Love that! Such a neat way to store the bags (excuse the pun). The only thing I need to add to the entry way is a little bench that will go underneath the art on the wall. I already have it picked out it is just a matter of buying it. We need somewhere to sit when putting our shoes on!

1 Month In: The Bathroom

Our bathroom hasn't really had much done to it. This is the before:

Here is what it looks like now:

 

The medicine cabinet is really helpful for storage. I love it. All I have in the bottom cupboard is cleaning supplies and women supplies that need to stay by the toilet :) lol

 

And for the most unsightly thing in our bathroom: the litter box. We unfortunately have no place else to put it. Can't wait to live in a house!

I still have a few more things I want to do with this room but it is mostly done. I mean... what more can you do right? I want to:

• Get some art for above the toilet 
• Get a matching towel set (in white) - this one isn't necessary to be done any time soon
• Get a little shelf for above the toilet
• Get some jars to put in cotton pads and q-tips for that shelf
• Also some little decorations like maybe a little plant for that shelf as well

Products you see in these pictures:

• Shower curtain: Target
• Over the door towel hanger: Homesense
• Litterbox and mat (if you would really love to know): any big box store

1 Month In: The Bedroom

As of tomorrow, we will have been in our new place for a month. Our place is far from finished and I have hardly even got started on some rooms but I am going to share with you what things are looking like now. I have 5 rooms to show you which I will space out over the week. Today, we start with the bedroom!

We started with this:

The blinds came with the apartment. I hate them but they will probably stay. Anyway... here is the now!

Brandyn's side of the bed. 

And my side... I couldn't get far enough away to get a picture of the bed in entirety lol. 

 

This is the closet. The bins on the top shelf hold my purses and Brandyn's work clothes. The blue bin holds seasonal decor (aka Christmas stuff). The drawers beside it hold my work stuff, bathing suits and winter accessories. There is a blanket on that blue bin because the cats like to go in there and sleep.

Here is a little basket. You may remember it from our last apartment. It was used to hold the toilet paper. It doesn't fit in the space between the cabinet and the toilet in this one so I re-purposed it. It now holds all of our slippers!

This is the view when you first walk into the room.

These drawers are the start of my dressing table. Each drawer holds something different.

... like my hair tools....

and hair products.... It also holds my make up, anything for the body like lotion or bath salts, and my makeup.

Gizmo was being extra photogenic :)

What we still need to do in this bedroom:

• Buy a dresser. While the nightstands are working for now, my clothes are busting out of there. There is no room for any wardrobe expansion which is just not acceptable.
• Buy my dressing table, mirror, chair and all other accessories to go with it.
• Get the little DIY magic I'm doing to my dressers done.
• Buy duvet, duvet cover and sheets (our mattress is very thick so we need deep pocket ones)
• Get art/pictures for above the bed 
• Do some DIY magic on the drawer system for my dressing table

Products that you see in this picture:

• Bed: Ikea (Svelvik)
• Sheets: Ikea
• Comforter and Pillow Shams: Home Outfitters (but I wouldn't reccomend buying these pintuck type ones because as you can see, a lot of it has already come undone and we have had it maybe a year?)
• Drawer system: Ikea (Alex)
• Nightstands: Ikea (Malm)
• Lamps: Homesense