Decorating on A Shoe String Budget part 2

What a coincidence! I was ready to unveil a laundry room makeover on a shoestring budget using toile and http://prettyorganizedpalace.blogspot.com/2009/03/toile-party.html is having a toile party today. How fun is that? Please go check it out and see all the wonderful toile love going on over there.

Hello and welcome to my home. Please do not be offended that I am taking you in through the side entrance. This is the room we are going to be looking at today! That's right, my laundry room. In the previous post I talked all about decorating on a shoe string budget so I thought I'd put my money where my keyboard is. So I did a laundry room makeover. This will be a two post edition because I have lots of pictures and I didn't want this post to be a mile long.


Would you like to see the before?




In January I decided I hated what I had on the walls in here and moved these two picture frames (which I sell at my store) and the pretty bird picture in here and hung them on existing nails planing to paint the following week and put everything where I wanted it. Well, life happens and the painting never got done because a gallon of paint is expensive (when you don't have money anyway) and everything was going to cost around $100 that I wanted to do. So I just didn't do it........ and it made me crazy. Do you know what else makes me crazy? That little box cut out into my wall for the intercom system my husband was going to put in 8 years ago that never got done. That hole really bothers me.




This is the bottom part of that wall. It is all scraped up from kids scraping book bags across it and me scraping past with handfulls of grocery bags. Now, that really bothered me because it looked dirty. What to do? My 2 year old Braxton spends lots of time in this room with me becuase with four kids, hey, I have lots of laundry to do and I like to keep my laundry room neat and clean. And ORDERLY. I know, I'm a freak.

This wall really got me. Braxton took a pencil to the middle part of this wall and it drove me crazy!! Like I said, Braxton likes to spend a lot of time in here with me.

So the question became "What can I do to this room with practically no money to make it look beautiful and make it a place that I can enjoy being in?". Right after I asked myself that Braxton toddled in with a crayon and tried to color on the wall and it hit me. Chalkboard paint! So I headed to Wal Mart and purchased chalkboard paint for $7.97. Okay, now I will have a lot of black in the room so how do I tie all of that in? With no money. I know all y'all have some frames with old prints or pictures that you don't like anymore or they are sitting in a basement or closet because you might want them again right? Well, I had 2 prints hanging in my dining room that I really didn't love anymore.

So here is what I did.

I already had black paint in the garage. Love me some black paint for accents. Do you have any extra paint stored that you can do something with? I can paint these frames black and it will tie in with the black chalkboard walls, yes!! But what to put into the frames? Surely not these greek hunks.

Yes it's true, steak knives can be used to creat beautiful home decor. I'm such a professional. Just cut the back of this paper backing off if your frames are covered. But be careful with it....

Because in my case this paper backing made the perfect mat background for my new fabulous print. The mat that was in the frame had a peach tone to it and it just didn't look good at all. I was going with black and gold accents to tie in with the light green and black walls. So the paper backing was perfect! And it was FREE! I simply used blue painters tape to attach the two together. BUT..... I did have to cut down about half an inch on each side for it to look good. No big deal.

Stephanie over at http://www.notesfromthesoul.blogspot.com/ is always mentioning the Hobby Lobby so last week I happened to drive by one. I already knew what I was going to do with the frames but I had no idea what I was going to put in them yet. So I decided to go in..... I went straight to the scrapbook section and look what I found!! Some black and white toile, oh how I love me some toile. They were only 59 cents each!! So I bought 2 papers for my frames. Total cost of new artwork: 1.18. I already had the frames and the paint.



There she is all put together and I love it!! Finally I can have some toile in the house. The hubster hates it but oh, it must be a woman thing because don't all women just love toile?




Hello big boy...... $10.00 on sale at the Hobby Lobby. Was $19.99 x 50% off = $10.00.

Entire cost of this wall: $19.20.



Now I have a room I love and Braxton has a whole huge chalkboard wall that he can play with and enjoy. Bookbags and grocery bags can't hurt it and it will always be beautiful. And might I say.... I think my laundry room looks updated and elegant. Very soothing. Now I have some good stuff going on on the other wall. But that is for tomorrow's post so stay tuned!!



Before

After

Before

After

Did you notice that I hung one of the print frames over the big hole in my wall? Bye bye ugly wall. I love it! It's different, which I like to be different. How many people have black walls in their house? But I think it looks pretty and it will be covered over and over with Braxton's colorful drawings that will keep him busy instead of pulling my clothes down off the folding tables ha ha. I used what I had and was creative about using inexpensive items to give me a look that I really love. The other wall? I love it too and it really brings the whole room together. I can't wait for you to see it. I'll give you a few hints of what is to come. The total cost of the other wall? $12. Here is a sneak peek of what you will see:

The point: If I had another $50 plus dollars could I have made this room look even better?

The answer: YES! But right now I don't have $50 extra and neither do a lot of people. Don't wait to live a beautiful life. Be happy where you are right now with what you have. Use what you have or can afford (I spent $1.18 on new artwork) to make your home the one place where you can relax and feel good. If you are waiting for whatever reason to make your home the place you want it to be then stop waiting. Because whatever it is that you are waiting on may never happen and you are worth more than that.

Don't wait to be beautiful.