The Interior DIYer
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Master bedroom makeover update – Part III

Sometimes I find the best way to get my ass in gear a project done is to indulge in some embarrassment and self- induced internet shaming. My humiliation ammunition this week – the feature wall in our bedroom.

Way back in November when I was updating our second hand bedside tables I wanted the after picture to look exponentially better than the before, so I grabbed a tin of leftover paint from the cupboard and quickly painted the wall behind our bed. Very quickly. I painted the wall properly behind the bedside table I was photographing [Robert’s side of the bed] but the rest of the wall – I wasn’t so careful. 

It might not look too bad from these pictures, but trust me that in real life, it’s bad. And not the Michael Jackson type of Bad which is quite good. The bad bad. I painted just one coat of paint everywhere else [as you can see from the haggard brush strokes] and then kinda just left it. For like, four months. So here’s hoping sometime soon I suck it up and paint that second coat. With a roller. Never mind getting around to painting the rest of the room white, hanging up some artwork and rig up some proper wall-mounted bedside lighting. Slow and steady.

Bedroom before – Update II – Update III

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DIY Friday – contact paper table top

To backtrack a little, I had been thinking for a while about a renter-friendly way of updating our landlord’s coffee table. Importantly, in a way that could be undone easily in a matter of minutes. The wood on the table had a particularly awful orange undertone to it, not to mention hadn’t been looked after so it had aged rather disgracefully. I decided to cover the table top with contact paper to not only protect my eyes, but to also protect the table from being ruined further. 

There were two other changes I wanted to make to this area [paint the cat basket and table tray] which I shared a couple weeks ago a peek in a little gif mock-up … 

There was a resounding response to painting the cat basket black, faux-marbeling the coffee table and a majority of either painting the tray in either black or burgundy. I was the most unsure about the tray as I wanted it black and burgundy. Then it struck me – the inside was already burgundy, so I just sprayed the outside black. Boom. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts! It really did help. I am massively indecisive sometimes.
I painted the tray and cat basket, rushed out and got some marble contact paper from Woodies. I bought one roll of d-c-fix’s black and white marble contact paper and within 20 minutes, the table was covered. But I wasn’t happy. 

I really like the strong black and white marbling effect, but for some reason it wasn’t working in this situation. It was too strong in such a dark space. If our room was brighter it would work perfectly, but it kept catching my eye and in a bad way. It was fighting with our rug. It made the [ancient IKEA] TV unit look yellow. I didn’t like it. I went back to Woodie’s to see if they could order in a lighter shade of the marble paper [light grey veining vs. the darker black], but unfortunately they couldn’t. We checked B&Q and alas, they had the exact role I wanted! We went home and I peeled off the darker marble contact paper that was already on the table …

As you can see, some splinter-like pieces of wood from the coffee table peeled off with the contact paper. I panicked. Using a piece of fine sandpaper I lightly sanded the coffee table, wiped it clean and it was as good as before. PHEW. It was a damaged coffee table from the previous tenants to begin with, so I’d say that’s more so why the wood peeled off. It was incredibly minimal damage and totally fixable, so it’s not something I’m worried about, but for the sake of being transparent, I wanted to share this. I was hoping to reuse the darker contact paper to cover a couple of books, but thanks to the little flecks of wood, it was rendered very unsticky. Welp. It went in the recycling at the very least.
There was such a difference in the shades of the two contact papers [as seen below]. I waited for the coffee table to dry after I cleaned it, then got to work. Here’s how I applied it. For a second time …

What you’ll need …
– Contact paper in a colour of your choice
– A card to smooth any bubbles from under the paper as you apply it
– A pair of scissors to trim
– Something heavy to make sure the contact paper doesn’t scooch while you’re working [ie – a toolbox]

1. Remove the top of the coffee table and place it top-side-up onto something, like our storage box shown, so you can easily work on it. 
2. Centre the contact paper onto the table top and if you’re working alone, place something heavy like on top so it wouldn’t move. Peel back the paper backing about 6 inches and stick a strip of the contact paper onto one end of the table, smoothing the bubbles out as you go.
3. Continue in this manner by peeling the paper backing from underneath bit by bit, smoothing with the card as you go. If you encounter a stubborn bubble, just peel back the contact paper a bit and reapply it. Do this until you reach the end of the table top and trim the roll leaving a couple of inches overhang. 
4. When you’re happy all the bubbles are removed, flip the table top over and secure the edges underneath using your card again to ensure it sticks securely. Screw the table top back onto the legs of your table, et voila! 

I’m actually overjoyed with how it turned out. It doesn’t make my eyes want to bleed anymore and the softer marble effect really brightens and adds to our living room and doesn’t fight with anything. This is one DIY I foresee happening over and over again. And our landlord will be none the wiser. 
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Little living room updates – cast your vote

Back in November while I was editing the photos I took of our new rug, the first picture I included in that post kind of made me uneasy. It was all the colours. And that end of the living room. It didn’t really work anymore. There was too much burgundy, there was too much wood that didn’t match and the rug made it more obvious. It all looked too thrown together and nothing worked. 

Since we’re renting our apartment and are stuck with our landlords furniture [I wish I could burn it to the ground and start over trade it in for more comfortable and practical pieces], I’m forever hitting road blocks in our own home. Of the many pieces of furniture, our landlord’s coffee table has been driving me up the wall. It’s not the same colour as the ‘wood’ floors and it’s quite distressed thanks to previous tenants. And I don’t mean the good kind of distressed that’s trendy. The bad kind. 

When Kimberly updated her vanity and then Linda updated her kitchen counters, both ingeniously using faux marble contact paper to do so, I filed that nicely in my brain [even check out my comment on Kimberly’s post. Ha!]. Contact paper is beyond perfect because when we move out, I’ll simply peel it off and it’ll be immediately reversible. As with most things I’m a bit unsure of, I did a mock up to help me make up my mind. I edited the cat basket to black, slapped some faux marble on the coffee table, and as anyone who has updated their home will know, the design domino effect came into play so the tray on our coffee table got edited too. Many times. 

Here’s what the above GIF is showing, frame by frame …
1. Original living room as it is now
2. Cat basket edited black 
3. Coffee table marble-ised
4. Tray edited black 
5. Tray edited burgundy
6. Tray edited viridian
7. Tray edited pink [for the hell of it]
And to think, this was all done without disturbing Juniper in the slightest.

Here’s where I need your help. Genuinely. Tell me what you think. Marble? Yes or no? A solid colour coffee table instead? And what colour tray should I go with? Or just leave it all alone? Srsly. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while, but a change is defo going to happen. At the moment I’m going for the black basket + marbled table + black tray. But nothing’s set in stone. Or faux marble.