The Interior DIYer
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Cardboard monogram, round 2

Way back when I worked on my broseph’s Canadian man cave one of the many things I made for his room was a cardboard monogram that I carved from a giant cardboard box I had laying around. I really liked the way his turned out so I made a mental note to make one for our own home. And then a year happened. Quite possibly exactly a year to the day [I blogged the office reveal on January 9th 2015, photographed it the day before and would have worked on the last few projects the days leading up to it]. I love when coincidences like that happen. 

I wanted to make a monogram ‘C’ for our own home after I made my broseph’s. My maiden name began with C and so does my married name so it conveniently represents both. A giant lump of cardboard may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s something I like and enjoyed making. I had set aside two cardboard boxes that were just the right size to make enough C’s. If you’d like to make one of your own or for someone else, feel free to check out my full tutorial here! Happy reducing, reusing and recycling xx

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2015 in review

The end of most years I’m not too keen on the idea of a roundup post. But if you make the mistake of scrolling through the past year of your blog, it’s near impossible to not pick some favourites to write about. I’ll try to keep this brief, so I’ve picked a handful of my favourite memories and projects from this year. 
2015’s game started strong with the completion of the Canadian man cave office I designed for my Broseph [above]. I really loved taking that theme and running with it. I still spot pieces I’d love to add to his office, but I really have to stop myself. I still have serious office envy.

We traveled near and slightly less near this year to Edinburgh, Scotland and San Sebastian, Spain [also Bilbao]. I love seeing new places and crossing new countries off my list, but I’m also not the best with traveling so I’m a bag of emotions at the best of times. Over the next year I’d love to visit Iceland, Netherlands, Poland and Japan, but we’ll see how far my nerves get me.

One of the biggest, most time consuming and monotonous projects I took on this year was conquering the disgusting yellowed doors and skirting boards throughout our entire rental and repainting them white. It may not seem like a big deal, but to us it made a huge change [you should really see the before pics]. I’m still deliriously happy with how much it’s changed our home. Projects like this don’t make an impression on anyone else but you. I like those changes though. When people eventually go “Oh! I just noticed the ugly yellow is gone!” Clean and fresh and not gross.

My mind was fairly blown this year by the people that got in contact to work alongside with. I teamed up with Woodies and created a huge variety of DIY tutorials for them, I became Image Interiors & Living’s DIY Expert, conducted interviews and corresponding blog posts for Colortrend paint twice, wrote for the Irish Independent and the Sunday Times, created some fun posts for Harvey Norman’s blog and partnered with Wayfair.co.uk again for some Star Wars goodness to name a few [all of these and more can be found here].

But if I’m honest, my favourite projects this year [and TBH, always and forever] are projects where I upcycled and updated otherwise unwanted or unloved pieces. For example, the upcycled vacuum cord pendant light in our spare bedroom and the updated faux marble bedside tables in our bedroom. Things like that will always be my passion. That’s what gets me really excited and wanting to scream from the roof tops that style and the contents of your home don’t have to come with a hefty price tag. And sometimes, no price tag at all [if you wanna see all my DIYs, check out my DIY Tab]. And if you’re stumped about upcycling or upgrading a piece and want some help, get in contact! I would just die to help other people out with making the most with what’s already available. I’m hoping 2016 will be the year everyone becomes a bit more conscious of where their stuff comes from and at what cost. 
At the very least, I hope you had a lovely 2015. Even if not all of it was perfect, it got you to where you are now. And from me, a massive thank you. If you’re reading this or ever read any of my blog posts, thank you. I know it won’t be translated fairly well through a screen, but it really means a lot to me xx
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IKEA Bekvam step stool gets a faux marble makeover

After a very welcome few days with no agenda other than eating, remembering to occasionally change position so I don’t get DVT, more eating, drinking and throwing my sleep routine into complete chaos, I decided it was time to actually do something. Something not too challenging that could be done whilst watching endless seasonal movies and Top Gear. Queue the need to repaint something.

After updating our bedside tables, I had plenty of Rust-Oleum paint left over. Our IKEA bekvam step stool was looking mighty haggard after I used it while sanding and repainting all the doors and skirting boards in our hallway last spring, so I had the idea to give it the same treatment as our bedside tables. Marble-ise it. It’ll be marbleous! [sorry / not sorry].

I took it through the same steps as our bedside tables with the exception of using more coats of white paint to cover the dark grey. Ideally I would have disassembled the stool, except that long ago I painted over the hardware the first time I painted it [now 3 colours ago]. I know, bad DIYer. But that was in my hasty youth and I have since learned. 

Once I had enough layers of white paint all over, I used a really subtle marble effect on both steps. It shows up incredibly subtle, so I may paint the rest of the stool black to really make the steps pop, but I’ve yet to decide on that. For now, it’s miles better than before. And if the steps get scuffled, I think it’ll only just add to the marble effect.

So what about you? Have you made use of your time off this season? Or are you still hiding under the duvet? I actually didn’t realise today was Monday until about 13:00, soooo … 😀

Disclosure – while this blog post is not sponsored, the paint I used for this update was leftover from paint I received free of charge from Rust-Oleum. Just FYI-ing you so you’re in the loop. I only work with companies I like and of course, think you will too. Thank you for supporting the companies that support The Interior DIYer.