living vintage

this week i hope to introduce you to several new weekly features. today i offer up 'living vintage'. each monday i plan to share ideas, both from my own home, and the homes of others, that will hopefully inspire you to incorporate vintage into many aspects of your everyday life. i hope you will enjoy reading it as much i enjoy putting it together! and now for today's 'living vintage'...

our tiny bedroom-before

i am the first to admit that i pretty much hate our current apartment. like many old buildings, it has so many issues that will probably never be addressed by our landlord. from improperly laid flooring that bubbles up, to poorly patched drywall everywhere, this place can drive me crazy! the room i have had the worst relationship with since we moved in is our bedroom. first off, as you can see above- it's tiny. we only have room for our queen sized bed and two little bedside tables squeezed in on each side. secondly, the walls have apparently been patched countless times, each patch looking worse and worse. we have a popcorn ceiling, a bad paint job, random bits of trim that don't go all the way around, and a bare lightbulb for a ceiling fixture. all in all, it's the room i have the most hatred for and because of this, i hadn't tried very hard to decorate it- it seemed as though the flaws were so great that no amount of decorating would help!

recently though, i had a change of heart and decided to put a little effort into redecorating this room. there were a few ground rules: no painting (not worth it since the walls are in such bad shape), no expensive purchases (no new curtains, bedding, light fixtures, etc), and try only use items we already had. with these rules in mind, i schemed, dreamed, and finally tackled the project! and here it is- our bedroom, before and after...

from the doorway of our bedroom- before... 

and after

from the other side of the room- before...

and after

a collection of vintage frames that i started 9 years ago in wyoming- before...

and after! 

in my quest to use only items i already had, i decided to keep using the frames above the bed, but gussied them up with some fun spray paint colors and other little embellishments. 

closet door and bare wall by my side of the bed- before...

and after

this photo, taken at a coffee roastery i worked at, was hanging in the gallery of our wedding photographers studio. when she closed her studio she gifted it to us. it's so huge, but since this wall was so bare, i thought it would make a fun statement piece, hanging all by itself. 

when we moved in there was just an empty socket in the bedroom. i didn't want to rewire a fixture, so i had been using this old darkroom light cover as a shade. it's a cool piece, but looked terrible used this way. note our lovely popcorn ceiling! 

our new light cover, handmade from a vintage map, wire mesh, and an embroidery hoop. i love the colors with the light shining through. keep an eye out for the how-to later this week!

to increase the overhead light, i installed a converter to make a single light socket into a double. 

since the light bulbs would be visible from below, i picked out some great carbon filament light bulbs from rejuvenation. you can find them on their website. 

to add a little interest to this gilded frame i strung several shades of turquoise embroidery thread in a zig zag pattern. 

i made this bunting for a party i threw in the summer. the colors matched our bedroom so well that i decided to use it in this huge frame i found at a parking lot sale in my wyoming hometown. 

i hadn't put up any photos of the husby and i since we moved into this apartment over a year ago. i thought this frame made a nice backdrop for a few of our fun couple-y photos. they're clipped to more embroidery thread with teeny-tiny clothes pins. 

my mom originally found this lamp at an estate sale when i was in junior high. she was kind enough to let me use it and then when i moved out she gave it to me. it served as the original inspiration for the color palate in the bedroom. this is bill's bedside table- in spite of how much i love vintage clocks, he hates the ticking sound, thus the digital clock.  

a fun tufted pillow my friend abbi gave to me a few years ago. i love the faded color with the little spots of bright turquoise peeking out from the folds!

another turquoise lamp. i found this one at a tiny little yard sale in capitol hill. i'm not sure why the glaze is patchy like that (it's only like that in two of the 4 panels), but i've recently decided that i like it! i found the vintage big ben moonbeam clock at an estate sale in yakima, washington. the table was a craigslist find when bill and i were first married. it was already this color and matched everything else perfectly! 

well, i hope you enjoyed the first round of 'living vintage'. if you want a room or project in your house to be featured here, leave a comment and i'll be in touch! 

happy monday everyone!