Ceiling Fan

This weekend, we finally installed a ceiling fan in the extra bedroom! When my brother lived in that bedroom this summer, the light bulb in the ceiling lamp died. When we went to replace it, we realized that it was an odd double circular fluorescent bulb that was very difficult to find and cost at least $30. I didn't want to spend that much money on a light bulb so I figured it would be easier to install a nice light fixture that used cheaper and more standard bulbs. When I was looking at light fixtures, I realized that getting a ceiling fan wasn't that much more expensive and would be great to have in the bedrooms. I went to Home Depot and bought two fans along with two remote controls. I bought the smaller Hampton Bay Clarkston for the extra bedroom and the larger Hampton Bay Glendale for our bedroom. The remote controls were actually half the price of the fans but my parents have them at home in all the bedrooms and they are incredibly convenient (especially in the extra bedroom that has the light switches outside the door of the bedroom).

After my brother moved out this summer, we tried to install the fan, but the fan box was installed unevenly in the ceiling (seen in the top left picture where you can also see a black ring around where the old light fixture was on the ceiling). Therefore, we had to find a way to level the bracket (seen top right) that the fan was going to be hanging on. I achieved this by using lock washers along with regular washers and making sure everything was level after screwing it together. This took the longest time (say two months) mostly because I have been out of town quite frequently and we were waiting until we were both available on a weekend to get this done. The picture above is me being excited that the bracket was finally perfectly level!

Next, we needed to wire the receiver (I'm holding it down in the top left picture) into the mounting box and wire the mounting box into the ceiling (Nate is doing that in the top right picture). Finally, the blades were screwed into the box and then the lights were wired and installed (shown above in the bottom two pictures). The directions were very straight forward so the hardest part after the leveling of the bracket was putting together the wires of the receiver so we could stuff them between the bracket and the mounting box.

After we installed the lights, everything was done! We turned the circuit braker back on and tried it out and it worked!! The remote control is very nice (shown above left) and the lights and fan work great. The fan looks good in the room because it matches the bed, nightstand, and hardwood floors.

And it works:

We feel so accomplished that this is done and working (even though Nate won't admit it, I think even he is excited about this project)! The only thing left to do is touch up the ceiling where the old light fixture made a few marks but we can do that later. Now, we'll just have to install the fan in our own bedroom...

Hemmed Shirts

Now that I am finally caught up on current events, I am moving forward with a post about my new sewing machine...

I bought this sewing machine from IKEA. I know this sounds super sketchy, but it works AMAZINGLY and it was only $70. For the kinds of crafts I need to do, it's the perfect thing for me. My first project was hemming two shirts for my brother. He bought two cotton shirts and thought they were one inch too long so he wanted them shortened. I undid the hem and hemmed them using my new sewing machine (in a fun zigzag stitch).

It took me about fifteen minutes to learn how to use this machine but it was super straight forward and now I am ready for many new projects!

Bar Shelf

Partly inspired by this, I became completely obsessed with getting a bar cart. I originally wanted to put a cart next to the wall across form the window, but I wanted it to be small enough to not look awkward in that space. However, as I looked online for hours, I could not find anything that was within our price and size range, and most importantly, in my style (namely: modern, black with silver details). A week or two after the start of my obsession, I ended up in IKEA and I found a black shelf for $7 and I had an idea! Instead of getting a whole bar cart, I would get a bar shelf.

Once again, my lighting and the fact that these were taken at different times is making these pictures seem odd. 

I installed the shelf between the cabinet and window and made it even with the bottom of the cabinet. Along with the two nails in the wall, I drilled a nail through the bottom of the cabinet into the shelf to make sure everything was secure. 

On the shelf in these pictures there is some cognac and a bar set from IKEA. I like the black shelf with the silver touches because it matches the kitchen but is not too over the top. As the zoomed out picture shows, I have also put up a new curtain that matches the kitchen. This curtain used to be in Nadia's room (and was left in the extra bedroom when she moved out) but it matched the kitchen so well I moved it there. It is not obvious from the pictures above, but the dishwasher is new between the before and after pictures. The dishwasher broke down about a year ago, and we ordered a new one (dishwashers are surprisingly cheap!) and Nate installed it by himself. 

Another updated part of the kitchen is the wall opposite the window. We added a wine holder and a pan/pot holder (both from IKEA). As a wedding present, Christina used a picture of Nate and me and made a cutout of it in our wedding colors which is now hanging above the pot/pan holder. 

As you can see from the pictures, we also have a few more things on our fridge since we moved into the apartment! 

I didn't realize how out of focus this picture was. Oops. 

Now, we have a port and a red wine on our shelf and it's holding up just fine. I have been made fun of for this shelf A LOT but I am really enjoying it. I think it worked out perfectly and we ended up saving at least $100 on the bar cart we did not buy. 

Bathroom Facelift

My brother, Ivan, was living with Nate and me this summer and while our bathroom does have a lot of storage space, most of it goes to the massive amount of soap, laundry detergent, and cleaning supplies we buy from Costco (so much cheaper...I think; I just love Costco!). In order for us to be able to store all of our stuff comfortably, we needed to have some usable storage space outside of the sink vanity.

Lighting in the bathroom is far from optimal...

We already had this bathroom console in the bathroom but were not really using it for storage. I decided to buy some baskets for this area. I looked everywhere online for hours and at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (I think you are quickly seeing my regular patterns: searching internet for hours for the perfect thing and/or go to BBB). I was first imagining the wicker/woven baskets but quickly realized that I was not actually a fan of those and they didn't really work for the bathroom. Also, wicker baskets are surprisingly expensive ($10-20 PER basket). Finally, I stumbled on these, which were $12 for four and seemed right. Interestingly, I couldn't find the size (even after intense searching), but decided to order them anyway. They came and were PERFECT!

A brighter and more organized bathroom!

Along with the baskets, I also decided to get a new shower curtain and liner. The new bright colors are super fun. I also put up a picture (in a white IKEA frame) to the left of the mirror that completes this more vibrant almost beach-y vibe:

Yay more exciting and practical bathroom!

Accent Wall

The first major change Nate and I made to the apartment is painting an accent wall in the living room! We (and by that I mean, I) wanted a sage color to match the colors we had in our living room. We went with Sherman Williams' Leapfrog. It came out a bit brighter than I imagined but it keeps the room light and cheery!

It totally looks photoshopped here, but I swear these pictures were taken 2.5 years apart! Also, the pillows are moved! 

We painted this in one weekend. We started getting everything ready on Saturday afternoon.

We used garbage bags on the ground to keep the paint from dripping on the floor. 

Once everything was ready (~1 hour), we painted a first coat on Saturday afternoon and let it dry overnight. It took us about an hour and a half to paint the first coat which was much longer than we thought it because we were under the impression that it would take us 20 minutes. Nate did all the large sections with the roller and I did the details with a small paintbrush. On Sunday afternoon, we painted another coat which took only about 30 minutes. We ended up using a whole 872 mL can of paint for this! That seemed like a lot to me but I just looked it up and that is supposed to cover 80 square feet and our wall is actually closer to 100 square feet. Oops! 

Yeah, we used our dining room chairs to get up to the ceiling!

After letting the second coat dry for 6-7 hours, we moved the furniture back on Sunday evening. Here is the finished full result! Yay! It makes me so happy every time I walk in the room. Nate couldn't care less, but that will always be the case with any home improvement project.

Yay! So cheerful!

Apartment Tour!

Before I start going through the many home "improvements" (those quotes are there because Nate always tells me that I need to leave well enough alone and stop trying to improve things... but I don't listen and here we are!), I wanted to show what our apartment looked like before.

Floor plan: The top is the room layout and the bottom is a more detailed layout of all of the furniture. This is not perfectly to scale, but it is close. 

We have a two bedroom apartment, but I do not have any pictures of the bedrooms, so this is only the common areas, which we spend pretty much all our time in anyway (Nate may have an office in a closet right now but that is because we're trying to install some lighting in the second bedroom... long story which will be explained in a few posts!). These pictures were taken 3 years ago, but very little has changed other than the stuff I have in the following posts!

Living room

The bookshelf, coffee table, side table, and TV stand were from Target. The rug was from Overstock (I searched for that carpet for HOURS! 3 years later, and it still looks perfect!). The rest of the furniture was from CORT. The details (window decor, placemats, pillows, napkin folder, coasters) were from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The picture on the wall is by this guy and was a gift from my parents for my college graduation. The last picture is the view from the window of our 3rd floor apartment (lots of trees!).

Kitchen

Here is the kitchen -- the classiest part of the apartment! It features all stainless steel appliances and my $100 trashcan (I got made fun of SO badly my first year of grad school for getting a $100 trash can, but 3 years later, it's still good as new and I've never had any problems!). Pretty much all of the items in the kitchen are from Bed, Bath, and Beyond (as you can see by the coupons on the fridge!). Instead of the toaster, we now have a coffee machine that is used constantly!

Bathroom 

The nicest thing about the bathroom is the built in washer/dryer! Such a lifesaver! Other than that, it is a pretty average bathroom, but with a good deal of storage space. Pretty much all the accessories are Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but I have updated some of the accessories since these pictures have been taken and will show you in upcoming posts.

That is it. I will use some of these pictures in before/afters to show some of the "improvements" we do so you may see them again!

Cute Crafts

I really like quick crafts that are cute and simple. Most of these are paper crafts I see around the internet.

The left card is from here and the sphere is from here. 

The card requires a razor blade but is super fun to do. I sent a bunch of these as Valentine's cards this year. The sphere is really fun to weave but does require a bit of glue and tweezers at the end to secure. 

Stars & stripes!

I have done a few other paper crafts around lab for decoration (you can see the fact that there is only one type of neon paper I use for all of these... :). The one on the left was just stars cut out of paper and hung in the window of my lab bay, and the one on the right is from here made for my bay mate's birthday! 

These cute felt decorations were inspired by this.

Other than paper crafts, I like other simple felt and bead crafts. Nate and I made these for Nate's relatives for Christmas. Nate helped me cut everything and I sewed the felt together. 

Beads and bears, oh my!

The bead animal patterns I make are largely from here (this site has not changed in ten years -- it has frames! The Horror! -- but is still super useful!) but I use seed beads and wire instead of pony beads and yarn. I sent these to Nate for the summer were apart, and after the first two letters with critters, the rest of the letters were carefully cut open and the critters removed. I hope they are making someone else very happy! These earrings were put together from materials from my favorite bead store!