Baby Steps

As I formulate my game plan for accomplishing the items on my To-Do List, I have a couple small improvements to share, which will hopefully get the creative juices flowing and motivate me to tackle some bigger projects.

Just over a week ago, I turned...sigh...30 (I guess that means it’s time to update the About section, since I’m no longer “a newlywed, dangerously-close-to-30, Architectural Intern”)!  My aunt gave me these beautiful flowers for my birthday, which the kittens promptly destroyed.  

 

This photo's a little blurry, but it shows the crazy
look in Selma's eye when she was near the flowers.

After cleaning up flower remains, I was left with a lovely vase that reminds me of a smaller version of my Palmetto Vase, and I decided to keep it out as a decorative piece. Unfortunately, our apartment’s lack of functional space leaves little room for displaying items like this, so I placed it on the kitchen counter in between the plethora of kitchen appliances.  It’s not ideal, but it freshens up the counter a bit.

 

The test tube spice rack next to the vase is a
previous DIY project.

I also placed two metal trivets on two metal hooks, all from Ikea, on the wall above the kitchen counter.  This backsplash area is much larger than it should be, as I have mentioned before, so the trivets help break up this openness.

I have also thought about adding a removable backsplash similar to the two examples below (each with tutorials on how to make it removable), but I worry that it’s not worth spending the time and money on a big improvement like this in our current apartment. I might save that project for our next apartment.

via Door Sixteen

via Four Generations One Roof

To-Do List

While this apartment has always felt temporary, the longer we live here, the more I realize I need to make some improvements that I would otherwise pass off as being something to do in an apartment we plan on staying in for many years.  It would be nice to bring this place up to our standards, making it feel more homey and comfortable and less like a temporary stop before finding our “perfect” apartment.  Obviously, because it’s a rental, any improvement I do has to be removable, but there are plenty of options out there now to make a rental apartment feel like a permanent home.  I also want to tackle projects that I think would be more universal; in other words, ones that could probably work in any other apartment we rent in the future.

I’m hoping that putting these projects in list-form on my blog will help get them out of my head (and out of Pinterest!) and into reality.  Plus, who doesn’t love a good list?!

• Make new shades for the living room to replace the venetian blinds that the kittens destroyed.
• Add a “feature wall” behind the bed using removable wallpaper.
• Reorganize the nightstand, remove the table lamp, and add wall-mounted light fixtures on either side of the bed.
• Customize my closet.
• Find a new use for the wine crates that have been sitting on the floor in the office collecting dust for the past year and a half.

Pat destroying the blinds

Removable Wallpaper via Chasing Paper, DIY Lamp via Bungalow 5,
Closet via Take the Side Street

Laundry Time

Vincent and I are very spoiled.  All three apartments we have rented have had a washer and dryer in the unit.  No lugging clothes to a laundromat, no scary basements with shared washers and dryers, no worrying about whether someone will remove my wet clothes if I forget to switch them over to the dryer. Just pure, private, laundry laziness.

Our first two apartments in St. Louis each had the laundry in a separate closet, but this apartment oddly has the washer/dryer in a nook off the kitchen, without a door to close it off if we have guests or to minimize the noise.  This laundry “room” is a cramped space that leads to a storage closet and the back door, and it has become the dumping ground for everything that doesn’t fit in the rest of the apartment (eg. golf clubs, clothes needing to be taken to Good Will, old electronics that we’re holding onto for no particular reason).  It’s also where we keep the recycling, pet food, cleaning supplies, and clothes drying rack.  When you consider that it cannot be larger than 4 ft. by 6 ft. -- and that’s a generous estimate -- it’s amazing the cats haven’t gotten stuck back there!

This photo doesn't do the clutter justice.
It's a mess, I promise!

After my recent trip to Ikea, I decided that I couldn’t stand the mess any longer.  I had purchased the Grundtal Drying Rack as a space-saving tool to replace the clunky, traditional drying rack that always ends up in the way (because, let’s face it, clothes stay on it for days after they’re dry).

Grundtal Drying Rack from Ikea

It folds flat against the wall to save space.

I also picked up a cheap-o trash bin from Target for recycling cans/bottles/glass. Woohoo, no more brown shopping bags sitting out in front of the washer/dryer!  The pet food bins are now pushed farther back so I can actually stand on the floor in front of the laundry machine, instead of standing in the kitchen and leaning awkwardly over the clutter just to put clothes in the wash.

At one point during my Ikea shopping trip, I had the Dignitet Curtain Wire set and a curtain in my shopping cart, thinking that I could hang it in the doorway to the laundry nook.  Ultimately, I decided that this particular curtain system is specific to our current apartment, and I’d rather buy things that will most likely work in future apartments as well.