Look What I Found!

Apologies for the weeks of nothingness on the blog! Nothing's really happened on the home front except... Ikea came to my house! They came for a little interview and to take a look at my home. It was a team of three wonderful gals dressed in those not so wonderful yellow Ikea shirts. We ate J's famous snickerdoodles and went over some questions, took some pictures, had an amazing time, blah blah. They probably say it to everyone, but they said our home was the BEST! I'll take it.

Other than that, the real meaning of this post is to go over my lucky garage sale finds. I forgot to take a picture of the items as they were on the street, but this is one of them:

They were two for $20! The seller's grandma lived in Japan in the 40's and 50's. Everything is solid wood, although the finish on them was bad, the metal was tarnished, and some hardware (those decorative circles) was missing. I wanted to modernize it a bit so I took off the handles (there are tiny knobs on the circle plates in the middle) and the decorative circles and painted it charcoal. All those metal details were hammered in so I had to painstakingly paint around every edge. Each one took about 90 minutes. Below is when the paint was still drying. 

Good ole' after. 

Total cost for this project was $20 but if you don't have paint and a brush, those would cost you about $15. Have you found any bargains lately? 

Pieces of the Living Room

Fireplace, rug, swan textile via topshop (no longer available but could be replicated on Spoonflower), and Richloom Dixon fabric in graphite

The tripod lamp is already in there with the modern black sectional. I'm going to pick up on the orange bills on those swans and get a few solid orange pillows just so things aren't all black on black (which I LOVE - check out my closet). That Dixon fabric you might remember from the bedroom post where I'm using it in black against my upholstered bed so as you can see, my spaces are pretty monotone. I'm still working to get some basic pieces like a rug which I always go neutral just because it's easier to change out accessories or pillows later when I suddenly have a fascination with a new color. 

Oh, and I went with a large white shade - the Ikea Jara shade which was just $20 for an 18" drum shade! The white lights it up better since our living room has no overhead lighting, plus the larger shade just makes the entire lamp look so much more expensive. 

Curtain Call

When I moved in, there were no curtains anywhere and on a time crunch and limited funds, I got these for $3.74. I know, cheapest curtain rods ever. Of course, when the curtains went up it was only a matter of time before the weight of the fabric was too much and the whole thing bent and I had saggy curtains. Last week we headed back to Target after some time researching on the internet for the best option.

Umbra Loft Drapery Rod. 

It's clean, simple, modern and comes in an ORB finish and looks way more expensive than what I paid for. Plus, it holds up to 25 pounds! I can hang a hollow core door off this thing. Seriously. That's all we have in this house, crappy hollow core doors with holes in them from previous tenants. Anyway, up they went. 

They match the patio door frame finish and the middle piece totally helps with the no-bending-rod thing that was going on before. Sorry for the lame photo, it's from the phone and it was oddly bright here in Seattle last week. Happy Tuesday! 

It's Mine!

Two days ago, World Market had a lighting sale, 30% off any and all lighting. The telescope lamp I wanted was now $83 down from $120 and because the very last one available at our store had a screw that wouldn't thread correctly, we got it at a further discount for $70. On top of that I had a member's coupon for  10% off and a previous store credit for $30 so in total, I spent $35 for this giant floor lamp!

But alas... we came home and tried to assemble it but it also had a broken screw at the top where the bulb was supposed to go so it just kept flopping around. Determined to make this lamp a part of my apartment, I called another World Market, told them the situation, and put one of theirs on hold. I told them I got mine at a discount cause the unthreadable screw but they were super nice since we had to go through all this trouble to get a new one which we would have to pick up from the next city over that they just exchanged it right there. Now I just need to buy a lamp shade a la Nate Berkus.