In my own little corner
Warning: I’m about to show you something gross. Okay, not really gross, but sort of pathetic, and a little embarrassing. Are you ready?
While the rest of my house has, fortunately, moved away from “university student” decor over the past few years, a few leftover clues remain (our bedside table is a rubbermaid container with a scarf over it). This corner still looked like it was inhabited by a 20-something college kid who was either jacked up on coffee or hungover from a night of smoke machines and dollar beers.
Over the holidays, I was newly inspired by my mom’s thrifty solutions to decor problems, so I decided to attack this corner with the same strategy. The result:
Much better! Wouldn’t you say?
The room renovation began with a hunt for a vanity. My first stop was the trusted Salvation Army. I didn’t come home with a vanity. I did, however, come home with the cute lamp and big mirror you see above. Both $4.99. A few days later, I paid a visit to the Bibles For Missions Thrift Store. They usually have a larger selection of furniture, and lo, they had this charming dressing table! The vanity cost me more than I wanted ($35 plus a delivery charge of nearly as much). However, when you’re shopping at a place that exists only to further missionary projects run by the Bible League, you can also consider your purchase a donation – and that should make anyone loosen their purse strings.
I also picked up a small stool for $10, and a whack of stripey yellow fabric for $2.50 (I originally picked out a totally awesome hippy-dippy paisley pattern, but when I asked my husband how much he hated he, he said “I hate it so much”. If he had responded with “I hate it only a little” I would have taken it).
So, once home, I recovered the seat with the stripey fabric. Note: I don’t sew, I don’t craft, I don’t even staple – I used thumb tacks. Don’t judge. It worked! I also had enough fabric to make a neat little jewelry board out of a frame I picked up from a church garage sale. You might recognize it from this post. Now I won’t have to spend ten minutes unknotting my jewelry after pulling it out of a drawer. Small victories!
I grabbed a few other items from the house (a flower pot for my hairspray products, and a wicker box to house my makeup) and suddenly the forgotten corner didn’t look so scary.
Any forgotten corners in your home you’d like to tackle?