Fancy and Shiny

Pin It Today was our first day here that we really did nothing on the apartment! Four of Zach's high school friends came to visit and I spent most of the day cooking. It really was a lot of fun and I know the guys had fun at the local waterpark - apparently they have slides and diving boards (emphasis added by the 22 year old men) ha! :) So today I'll post a picture of a project that was recently completed.

Two projects in one picture - more for your reading!

I  messed up by not taking a before picture. The only picture I have of the apartment was when I first saw it and took pictures on my phone to send to Zach - needless to say, they're poor quality! Anyway, if you look hard you can get an idea of what it looked like before (with the previous tenants' stuff).

As I mentioned before, we painted - so that definitely helps change it up. I really wanted to jazz up the accent wall, but didn't want to spend a ton of money on it (think wall decals, wallpaper, etc). I made a wall stamp from a wood block and foam, but that failed. So as a last ditch effort I tried to make a stencil. I went on Google images (strict filters on! lol) and searched for stencil patterns. I printed off one I liked, taped it onto a left over piece of contact paper, and cut it out with an exacto knife. Peeled it off, stuck it to the wall and painted. We really like it!

As you may have noticed, that light fixture is really painfully outdated! A light wood, white metal, gold chain, and frosted white shades just aren't our style. I picked up a can of spray paint (Zach painted!), ditched the shades and bought new light bulbs. I think Zach did a great job on it, but you can judge for yourself! (We still don't have pictures hung up, so forgive that... maybe by tomorrow!)

Pretty proud of our very low cost projects!

Stencil Cost:
Left over paint: basically free
Left over contact paper: basically free

Light Fixture Cost:
Spray Paint: $3.42
Light Bulbs: $2.12 for a pack of 6

Definitely fits a teacher's budget! :)