The Interior DIYer
Uncategorized

New second hand stool

Last weekend Robert and I wandered around Mac’s Salvage Warehouse to quench our my thirst for vintage markets in lieu of the no longer Merchant’s Market. I was originally on the lookout for an old wooden ladder with some character for our living room [for blanket and throw purposes]. Unfortunately they didn’t have any ladders, but Robert did happen upon a behemoth stack of bar stools. Originally, I had my eye on some dark red stools, but Robert insisted there were some ‘lovely green ones‘ [vom]. See, gentlemen, he didn’t use the correct annotation. He should have said there were some ‘fabulous viridian coloured stools‘. I was sold. 

We settled on this stool as it had the least ware on the legs and zero visible ware on the upholstery. There was a minuscule issue with the fabric as the pattern had red, blue, yellow and pink details. “Not to worry,” I said. “I’ll just fix that with a Sharpie when we get home“. And fix it I did.

Not the most professional of fixer-uppers, but more times than I’d like to admit I’ve used a Sharpie on a project or two. Or seven. I use them to touch up loads of things [nicks on black picture frames etc], so I simply used my black Sharpie to colour in the colourful dots. 

TIP – if you decide to do this, make sure you don’t use the seat / fabric for at least half an hour after colouring it in, otherwise the ink may transfer. 

Something I am a bit stumped on is what to do with the wood legs. I quite like the dark finish that’s on them. It needs to be touched up in places, so I’m thinking of getting a varnish to fix the little scratches. But what do you think – would you just repaint the legs something entirely different? I was thinking black, but I like the colour of the wood too much. At the moment the wood doesn’t match anything in our apartment [other than our desk], but I keep reminding myself that we won’t be renting this apartment forever. I guess I’m still waiting to inherit that Victorian full of mahogany finishes. 

But for the moment, our new stool has been thoroughly approved by Juniper and Toshi. They take turns sitting, clawing and sleeping on it.

UPDATE: I painted the legs black! I was hoping to do it in high gloss black, but changed my mind at the last minute and chose mid sheen. I think it looks so much better. Except now I have my eye on updating my imitation Eames chair legs too. It’s a slippery slope, I know. But still … Can you imagine it with black legs?! Swoon!


Uncategorized

Operation de-uglifying our storage heaters

When I look back at all the work I’ve done to bring our rental apartment to where it is, I’m pretty proud of myself. Repainting the entire apartment. Updating the kitchen and bathroom. Sanding, prepping and repainting all the yellowed doors and skirting boards throughout our apartment was a tall task, but worth it. Even though we’re only renters and don’t own our apartment, I take pride in knowing our landlord is over the moon that we’ll be leaving our apartment in better condition than we found it. I like a good project, no matter how remedial and non-glamorous it is. 

Now that all the skirting boards and doors are no longer yellow, the only remaining major eyesores were the heaters. And boy, were they eyesores …

With the most epic of timing, Rust-Oleum got in contact with me and asked if there was a product of theirs I’d like to try out. I did a quick search on their site and when I saw their radiator enamel spray paint, I knew I had to try it. 

The most noticeably yellowed heaters in our apartment are the two in our living room and one in the hallway. There are two more [one in each bedroom], but they’re nowhere as obvious. Once my Rust-Oleum paint arrived I got to work. I asked Dad DIYer to help with dismantling one of the storage heaters with me so I could see how easy it would be to dismantle the rest of them on my own. Storage heaters are full of bricks and I as I explained in my upcycled vacuum cord pendant post, anything electrical make me all kinds of nervous. I felt a lot better knowing my dad was helping out. 

NOTE: please read all manuals that come with your heater / radiator before disassembling them and disconnect the mains where necessary. But you guys knew that.

We dismantled both the front and top panel on the storage heater for spray painting. Ideally, I was hoping to disassemble the entire heater to spray paint it elsewhere, but we were stopped in our tracks when we discovered the heater was on brackets that were bolted under the floor boards [which you can better see in the last picture]. So I was going to need to paint the side panels indoors. 

Before long the heater looked like a Mr. Bean special. As advised by Dad DIYer, I taped a giant plastic bag around the exposed side panel [not pictured] and spray painted within the bag so the overspray didn’t get everywhere. I then took the remaining panels outside and gave them 2 coats of  Rust-Oleum’s white radiator enamel paint, let them dry and reassembled the heater again. 
TIP: cover any text or instructions on your heater with masking tape before you spray paint. Because remember, you won’t be the only one using them now or in the future.

Since it took a bit of planning to paint the one heater, it’s the only heater I’ve repainted so far. But I am very much looking forward to our heater[s] doing what they’re supposed to – disappear into the background, not be a focal point and keep us warm. I for one am so happy with the result. No more fugly radiators! I know, I’m easily amused.

Thank you again, Rust-Oleum! 

Disclosure – Rust-Oleum generously supplied radiator spray enamel free of charge to help in my never ending quest to update our rental. As always, all words and opinions are my own. I only work with companies I like and of course, think that you will too. Thank you for supporting the companies that support The Interior DIYer. 
Uncategorized

Kitchen update – reveal!

I’m actually quite excited to at long last share decent photos of our kitchen. For the 6 years we’ve been living here, I’ve rarely taken photos in our kitchen because, well, it was embarrassing. It was a classic case of trying to work around landlord [and builder] stuff and as much as I tried to make it pretty, it just didn’t work. To get you up to speed, you can check out what our kitchen looked like before, and then see the first round of changes I made to our rental kitchen. 

A few weeks ago Harvey Norman got in touch when they read my blog post about our kitchen and very generously offered to give a helping hand with adding some pizzazz to our kitchen. Um, woah. I had worked with Harvey Norman in the past when I was working on the Localise room at Sophia House, and to say they were a huge help is an understatement. They’re an incredibly down to earth group of people behind the name, and they have killer sales. Which is a giant plus. They’re a company I’ve been a fan of for a long time so I was incredibly excited when they got in contact to work with me directly. 

After all my work overhauling the kitchen last Saturday, I rewarded myself the next day by heading to Harvey Norman to accessorise our kitchen in style. And it was tough, I’m not going to lie. Because I wanted ALL OF THE THINGS … 

To the horror of poor husband, I spent almost 2 hours in Harvey Norman Blanchardstown last weekend. For our shelves, I couldn’t resist the sleek pepper mill [which we actually use for sea salt] and a mortar and pestle. Husband is a curry aficionado and has mentioned rather frequently, “hey, remember that mortar and pestle we had 5 years ago? That was nice. Before it smashed“, so Harvey Norman’s sleek porcelain and bamboo mortar and pestle was a must. 

I’m a big fan of mini versions of every day things, so when I spotted their mini shopping baskets, I had to get two. One of which is perfect for eggs. I also spied some mini espresso cups to support husbands caffeine interest. A perfect little black and white accent to our shelves.
I didn’t make any drastic changes to the shelves in our kitchen, I just paid a little more attention to them as they had been lacking some for quite some time, thanks to the yellow door taking the spotlight … 

I think the biggest change I made to our kitchen was removing the microwave. Our kitchen is tiny therefore we have very limited counter space, so removing the microwave gave us SO much more room. We didn’t use the microwave much anyways, so we can simply use the stove or oven to heat whatever we need, old school style. 

In place of the microwave, I created a little hot beverage station for husband. I had had my eye on the DeLonghi Brilliante kettle in black, but it was out of stock when I was visiting Harvey Norman. But to be honest, our old kettle [not pictured] works fine. It’s just ugly as sin and I was over excited at the idea of having a really fancy kettle. I mean look, it’s so angular! 

Both the tea and coffee boxes I found in charity shops over the years and spray painted in my favourite Montana winegum [the tea box was actually one of the centre pieces in our wedding]. I couldn’t resist picking up another mini shopping basket in Harvey Norman to perfectly keep all husband’s beverage accessories in line. 

Another change I made to the kitchen was that I removed the kitchen-roll-and-tin-foil thing that hung on the wall previously, as we only used it because it was there. To cover the wall studs in its place, I framed and hung one of my favourite food themed graffiti Instagrams. I think it looks much better, no? 

And on the far side of the kitchen, I simplified everything again. I got rid of our 8 year old chopping boards [ew] and replaced them with this bamboo and rubber board from Harvey Norman. It’s been a while since rubber got me this excited. When we’re preparing food, the chopping board doesn’t go all over the place like our previous boards did. It’s such a simple thing, but makes a huge difference with food preparation. 

I also couldn’t resist those giant BBQ matches I rather excitedly found in store. I bought 4 boxes of them, but immediately justified it because, well, look at them! I have more on display in the living room. I also picked up a bamboo bowl for the keys in our hallway and a giant vase that looks kind of like a bomb shell, for our bedroom. Both of which I’ll be sharing along with updates on our hallway and master bedroom. Speaking of which, that room is next to get the paint treatment. More #DIYDominoEffect!

Kitchen update – before – middle – after

Disclosure – Harvey Norman generously supplied kitchen accessorise free of charge for my mini kitchen makeover, but of course as always, all words and opinions are my own. I only work with companies I like and of course, think that you will like too! Thank you for supporting the companies that support The Interior DIYer.