Islandbridge Apartment – Page 33

Alex - The Interior DIYer April 29, 2015 Uncategorized

Flower terrorist revisited – Banksy cherry blossom

One of my first tutorials was my Banksy flower terrorist cross stitch. To this day, it’s one of my most popular blog posts and I get about an email a month asking for more details on it or for the Excel pattern. No word of a lie – another email just came in while I was typing this out. Ha!

For a long time I’ve not been fond of the colours I originally cross stitched into the tightly gripped bouquet. Blue, yellow, red, pink, green, brown – too many colours for me. I had the idea years ago to pick out the stitches and redo it in a colour I’d much rather prefer, but in true form, I never got around to actually doing it. Until this morning.

But what colour would I make the bouquet? A nice shade of dainty pink would look nice, afterall, it is cherry blossom season. That’s it! CHERRY BLOSSOMS. YES. Perfect! I picked out the previous colours and added dainty pink thread haphazardly to the pattern [as cherry blossoms are wonderfully floofy and out of control].

I love this pattern as I’ve had all kinds of people get in contact asking for the pattern. Rebel teens for their bedroom, a guy for his mancave, a lovely woman wanting to stitch it for her grandson, and many in between [Dev – if you’re reading this, power through the boring bits! You can do it!]. They always tell me what they hope to use it for and how much they love Banksy. The feeling is mutual.

For me, changing the flowers to cherry blossoms has given my tired old cross stitch [it’s five years old this year] a new lease of life. When I was finished restitching it this morning I really got excited about it all over again. Yes, it’s no longer true to the original graffiti, but just like the rest of us, it’s had to adapt a little bit.

Alex - The Interior DIYer April 27, 2015 Uncategorized

Master bedroom makeover update – Part II

Since I last blogged about upgrading our bedroom, I’ve slowly but surely made some of the changes. Not all of them yet, but some. I didn’t think I had made a big enough change until I looked back at my before pictures. Yeesh.

That’s the thing about updating your home. It doesn’t happen in 24 hours like TV shows lead you to believe. It happens slowly over weeks and sometimes months and THAT’S OKAY. It’s only when you look back at what it looked like before that all your hard work is put into perspective. Even if you’re only half way there.

Contrary to my original plans to completely flip the floorplan of the room, I didn’t. I was able to iron out a lot of the layout problems without having to change too much of the room. One of the biggest and best changes I made was swapping the bed frame in our room with the one in the spare bedroom. The frame in the spare bedroom was very low, so swapping it and having a low bed in our bedroom sorted issue #3 on the list of problems.

So here’s what I’ve updated in our room so far …

– Repainted the skirting boards, window sill and door WHITE.

– Removed the heater from the middle of the room.

– Replaced the heater switch with a socket so we can use our TV [thank you again Maria for that tip!].

– Replaced the light fixture.

– Bought curtains – nearly new! In their original packaging, but bought second hand.

– Bought a longer curtain rod so the curtains can hide the unsightly mirrors and vent in the corner [as seen below compared to the 4th last picture here].

– Disassembled the awkward AF shelves.

– Sold our IKEA bedside locker and bought two bedside lockers for 9 euro each, second hand!

– Got my hands on some red rasta pillows [not sure about the purple one though. It may go].

– Swapped the bed frame for the lower bed frame, and nearly decapitated myself in the process.

And here’s what’s left to do …

– Make a cover to cover or camouflage the current wooden headboard.

– Hang up / incorporate our [new-ish] mahogany mirror.

– Add artwork to the walls. I’m tired of boring walls. I’ll be DIYing some artwork too.

– Upcycle the bedside tables; possibly paint them and change the knobs.
– Find a pair of matching or semi-matching bedside lamps.

Above is to show where Dad DIYer helped me remove the heater from the wall [I’m not at all confident with electrics]. Having the heater removed means we can now place our dresser in the middle of the room at the foot of our bed; where it aught to be. For the moment, in the warmer months, the heater is stored under our bed as our landlord didn’t approve of it being placed under the window. So under the bed with it for now so we don’t have to put up with it. My old skip-salvaged desk chair sits next to our dresser and cleverly disguises the absence of paint on the wall.

And finally, what inspired it all – I saw these red velvet shoes in Forever 21 around this time last year. I bought them solely for their pretty factor. I like velvet and I like quirky takes on the classics, which as lame as it sounds, is an inspiration for our bedroom makeover. Inspiration strikes at the most unusual of moments.

In the mean time, I’ve also been working on updating our spare bedroom on a budget, which for the most part was ready for our guests earlier this month, but I’ll be adding the final touches this week to it and can’t wait to share it! Stay tuned!

Also featured – Mozart bust – revamped dresser – mahogany mirror – lush gold lamp

Alex - The Interior DIYer April 22, 2015 Uncategorized

Nearly new challenge – #EarthDay2015

As today is none other than #EarthDay2015, I thought it no better day than to write about a new [and sort of not so new idea] that’s been rolling around in my head for some time – a Nearly New Challenge.

Back in November I wrote about my Nearly New Wood Challenge which was inspired by Sophie Amoruso’s #GirlBoss book coupled with my panache for reducing, reusing and recycling. Since publishing that blog post I realized quite quickly that I apply this ‘nearly new’ challenge on a daily basis, but with all kinds of items; not just wooden. Therefore, my new Nearly New Challenge came about!

In the most simple form, this is what it’s all about; in stead of buying new the next time you need something, take a look around and see if you can repurpose something you already have, think outside the box and head to a local charity shop and see if you can find what you need there, or head online and see if someone’s selling what you need second hand [ie – Craigslist, Freecycle, Adverts.ie etc].

I’m not perfect. Yes, I still buy new things, for that I am guilty. But if I’m looking for a non-specific item, I will consciously try to find a repurposed or second hand item first ahead in favour of buying something new. To play Caption Obvious for a moment, I acknowledge there are some things we have to buy new, that it inevitable. But there’s an awful lot we don’t need to buy new.

I grew up with thrifty and creative parents so it’s all I know to be honest. By buying Nearly New, you’re not only contributing less to the demand to produce new products, you’re preventing another item from ending up in a landfill. You’re also getting something that’s bespoke [should you repurpose it] and you’ll be getting a unique item not available on the high street.

So what do you think? Are you up for the Nearly New Challenge? Will you opt for nearly new the next time you need something? If you do, I’d love to hear about it! And if you share it online, use the hashtag …

#NearlyNewChallenge!

GRAB THE BADGE FOR YOUR SIDEBAR: only if you wanna.

</div>