Monday, February 11, 2013

Welcome, Introduction, And My First Project

Welcome to Laurel Lane. Here I plan to catalogue the many various DIY projects I've got in store for myself in my new home. To start i'll do a little intro of myself and lay out some projects I have planned for these next few months! Enjoy.


My name is Julie and I live on Vancouver Island with my dog Noodle and my partner Andrew. We share a love for Victorian and French Provincial style as well as Modern and Eclectic decor. Mixing the two has proved to be an enormously fun challenge and with a low budget as well as existing furniture to work around and living in an old Victorian flat we can't paint I have set out to make the most of what I have and to make it awesome.

There are a few goals I want to set for this blog so I might as well list those here. First i'll budget as well as I possibly can so that I can categorize projects by cost. Second i'd like to have at least a project per month. Any kind of project. I want to do crafty things and DIY decor as well as interesting recipes etc and I want to be able to share them all here. Third i'd like to improve my clothing style while still relying on cheap thrift shopping but maintaining a cute look for myself. Well I think that's it. Now onto the projects!


The first thing I did when we moved into our apartment was to look all over our local used website for attractive storage/organizing options. Since Andrew has Ikea furniture left over from his past apartments we already have a few great items like our book case that can double as an organizer if we used baskets. But i'm not really a basket person. In fact, they are probably one of the things that started me on my list of things I have no clue how to make attractive. So that leads us here.


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Say hello to Peter (He came with a name tag, promise). I picked him up for 10 dollars despite the broken hinge, obvious wear and tear, and only one working lock. Pretty much anyone these days knows how wildly attractive a trunk is, and the more beat up the better! But this is less of a treasure trunk and more of an 'ooh possibilities' trunk. I'v seen old trunks like this used as coffee tables, benches, even dog beds but I had something better in mind. I wanted a DVD cabinet. I have a huge collection and after some measuring I worked it out that I could make two shelves to hold 70 or so DVDs. Unfortunately I don't have a power saw/table saw/....saw at all so we did this bit over at my in laws home. It's so simple though, really, you can do it all with one piece of wood just measure, trim, and nail in our shelves. Mine slide right in thanks to my crafty fiance. Looks good huh?


 

As you can see there where existing dowels which I simply used to stabilize the shelves themselves. Since we did this project on a cold concrete floor the wood has actually expanded and fits into the trunk so snug now that I can't pull them out...(Maybe that's just my sissy woman hands ha!) Once the weather improves however I will be taking them out and either staining them or painting them. Grey? Brown? Ideas? I'm still searching for direction with this room but I think for it being my first decorating project it's coming along quite nicely. Here's the finished product:



Don't mind the shelves...we still haven't moved it all in yet! I'll get the hang of this. For now my walls will have crooked art and i'll be taking everything off my trunk whenever I want to watch something. See you soon!


-Julie.


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I did say i'd share projects didn't I. Oops. Well In the back of this photo you can see two chairs which will be featured in one of my next posts<3

2 comments:

  1. That turned out great and looks beautiful!

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    1. Thanks so much Christy! I'm sure if I had the money and time I could have a store full of re-purposed old trunks and suitcases. Love em.

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