Recent Project: Candlesticks

Over the summer, I picked up these discounted candlestick holders:

Needless to say, they’re just basic wood candlesticks. Well, I’m not much of a light wood fan (and I thought back to this post when I stained our barstools), so I decided to stain them much darker. The effect is nice! I like the richness of the darker stain, and it fits much better into our home. Plus it was an easy, cost-effective upgrade!

Much nicer, right? I applied a couple coats of the stain and one coat of sealant, then topped with brisk white candles. The only thing left to do is to find the perfect place for them!

 

Sunday Night Project

Here’s a little peak at our new in-home coffee bar! A couple housemates and I started cleaning up our living room on Sunday. That led to rearranging the living room, relocating the dining area, and installing this cool new homework nook! The best part? We did it all with stuff we found in the garage. The bar is composed of only cement blocks and a couple slabs of wood. Can’t complain about $0!

Living in the Wall Street Journal!

I’ve been in the new house for almost one week! Our house – called the Journal because we live on Wall Street in New York! Just kidding, we live on Wall Street in Spokane, which isn’t quite the same – is slowly coming together as more housemates arrive. The bulk of decorating my room was finished yesterday, though I’m sure it will be added to and changed throughout the year. I’ve been shooting for a shabby chic decor, which is semi-difficult to achieve on a college budget, but am having relative success. My favorite DIY project thus far was a collage of frames on the wall. The frames are all mismatched (picture coming soon!) as I have accumulated them throughout the years, but it was fun to arrange them in a way that makes them unified. I played many games of musical frames and pictures within the frames – this is my favorite combination:

This frame originally held a picture, but I replaced it with a beautiful card that my mom mailed to me last year. It is navy blue with a small gold fleur de lis in the center. The frame, along with a couple others, did not come with a hook on the back that allows it to be hung on the wall. To fix this, I busted out the staple gun and attached some sheer ribbon from which the frame now hangs.