Wednesday, February 16, 2011

where did all of our space go?

 Things in our apartment are constantly changing, furniture gets rearranged  household swag gets added and taken away. We are blessed with an issue that not too many newlyweds have, we simply have too much furniture, and it's all quality furniture. I mean we have a complete bedroom set, a dinning room table and hutch, a huge solid wood bookcase, a couch, an entertainment stand, side tables, a desk...the list goes on and on. Joel moved into our apartment with a bed- in less than a year we've filled it to capacity( well not really because I always seem to find something else). We are rapidly outgrowing our one bedroom apartment, and with Joel starting his own business even more space is needed, space that our apartment lacks. Even if we scaled down our furniture we would still be lacking in room. I've gotten to the point where I am hesitant to decorate anymore because I want to move so badly, and Joel does too. We've been debating if we should break or lease or not since at least November. I wish that space was the only factor in this debate--but it's not, we are also beyond frustrated with our landlords. They can never fix things that need to be fix, or maintain things that they should maintain. We rent a managed property, yet so many things go mismanaged. It takes us months to get them to fix things, or to get them to send people to do the tings that they are responsible for, our outside goes unmaintained. The most frustrating thing is that every time I inquire why something still hasn't been taken care of (there are things STILL needing to be done that we're to be completed prior to us moving in) they say that they are just trying to keep rent down. We are good tenants, we pay our rent on time every month, we live up to our end of our lease, but we both feel that they don't. Renting is so frustrating right now!!!(thanks for letting me rant)

Now onto more fun topics...like bulletin boards.
I have had an obsession with looking for a decent sized, quality bulletin board since May. However, bulletins of decent size and good quality are outrageously overpriced. So I tried to dismiss my dream of a beautiful bulletin board in my living room. Well in one of my many random trips to the various thrift stores, I found the perfect one.
Joel and me stopped into the Habitat for Humanity store one day after lunch, and there in the isle of frames was my bulletin board! It had a solid frame and solid cork, not the cheap stuff! It was also priced half off for the day, it cost me a grand total for $2.50. Of course I could never have a plain bulletin board in my house, so I set off to find some spray paint, and had the perfect color in my collection at home. I began by lightly sanding the wood frame, then I spray painted the wood frame green (I taped off the rest of the board).


I had decided to use the fabric that I had leftover from recovering my dinning room chairs! I used a special spray adhesive that Joel had in his collection that worked on fabric. I adhered the fabric:)
 I'd still like to add some ribbon...I'm debating if I should paint the frame a different color as well. This project essentially only cost me the $2.50 that I payed for the board, since I had everything else on hand/leftover from other house projects.