Apartment Therapy |

    So... I had this great epiphany about 2 years ago.  We've been renting our entire married career of 5 years, and I'm always thinking that by the next time our lease goes up we're probably going to be moving into a house.  We've actually only moved once and that was from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom apartment.
    For some reason I've always imagined that whenever we moved into a house that things would magically be nicer, not only the house- but the paint colors in the rooms, the furniture, decor, the appliances, wood floors, tile, countertops, you name it!  It would be just like all the pretty homes you pin on pinterest.  It never dawned on me that when we moved that all of my crappy hodge-podge hand-me-down, got it on the side of the road/dumpster diving at the end of the school year, or for $20 on craigslist furniture was going to be what furnished our new home.  There are were actually holes in our couches and somehow it never really bothered me.  ?  or maybe it did, but at the time I didn't have a plan for how to fix it.
     I also had the reality check that any house we could actually afford is probably going to need a lot of up-dating... which we also probably couldn't afford.  Which brought me to my final conclusion, that I should probably just enjoy where we live and work on sprucing up the things that we have.
     I knew that I wanted to take our apartment from being so dark and hodge-podged to a new light, bright, and airy feel.  I wish I had more "before" photos of what our apartment has looked like the last 3 years.  I've made quite a few improvements throughout even if they were all still on the "dark side."  Here's a glimpse of what our 1st living area in our apartment looked like:  (yea, I know... random door to our hotwater heater.)

Here's what our apartment looked like before the remodel:

I also HATE the lighting in our apartment.  We only have 1 window for natural light in all of the living, kitchen, dining area.  Hence why I needed to try to "lighten things up a bit."

 I'm embarrassed at what used to be my gallery wall- HA!  I've had these black wal-mart frames since college and I've been making little photo arrangements with them for about 9 years now.  This particular arrangement was inspired from a pottery barn magazine.  (Pottery Barn are you flattered?)  Here's the Pottery Barn inspiration:

 
Anyhoo.  One of the 3 bedrooms in our apartment has been my "office"/our movie room.  I'm not sure how, but we crammed a desk, a couch, and a love seat all into one of our tiny bedrooms.  It was cozy.

 it was fun watching movies w/ friends

     We needed to make room for the new babe, so I decided to move my office to an armoire in the living room (you saw it in some of the before pics) and sell the desk and 2 couches.  I actually made money selling our furniture.  5 years later I sell this crap for more than I bought it for.  I guess that was made possible by the fact that some of our furniture was free... for instance, I found my desk on the side of the road.  :)  I used the money that I made selling our stuff to fund my decorating budget.
     Alright, let's just show the "After" pics:

 ...painted the bench white, ditched the old pad that was on it, and roughed it up.  painted the armoire "pool spa" blue.  recovered pillows with fabric from JoAnne's and Hobby Lobby.  (I made the window art in college.)

hung up some drop-cloth curtains.  whittled a letter "g" out of cardboard and wrapped it in twine.  painted my cheap walmart frames white and backed them with scrapwood that I painted patterns on.

it still looks dark b/c I didn't want to completely blow out the window with the exposure, but promise... this is a lot better.  ;)

painted my parents' old kitchen table white and sewed up some seat cushions.  I also had Corey build me a [wood] canvas and then during a naptime one afternoon I whipped up some lemons.

Recap:

     

Restoring a couple of good ole' soles | Dying my Toms

Lately, with all of this warmer weather we've been having, I've been ditching my boots and breaking out the flats.  I usually default to my Toms b/c they are the most comfortable, but I've been embarrassed to wear them this week!  I have the gray ones which are AWESOME looking when they are brand new, but they turn a puke, yucky, faded, gross color over time.  My kids at school have been saying, "Mrs. Granderson... (looking down at my shoes)....(pause)....I like your Toms." [When they say this they are only acknowledging the fact that I have Toms]  Then they say: "what color are they?"

Good question.  I'm not sure what color they are now, which is sad because I'm an art teacher... so I decided it was high time I did something.  Corey and I both agreed that I couldn't mess them up.  Anything would look better than how they looked now.

I spent an hour on the internet and couldn't find anything on the topic.  Not even a youtube video.  Come'on, has nobody tried this and documented it??  I'm sure I'm not the only pioneer, but here is my method using RIT DYE from Walmart.  (It costs like $1) 

I chose black for several reasons:  

1) In theory, it should overpower any other color.  

2) I wouldn't mind having black Toms.  

3) If it fades maybe they will look gray again!    OK... here we Go:

Before Shot.  This doesn't do it justice.  (They only look darker b/c I just washed them  (in the washing machine) and they are wet.  Oh, yea... that's STEP ONE: wash them.

STEP TWO:  Mix up the dye.  I used a 6 quart cooking pot.  I poured in the whole dye packet, filled it about 3/4 the way with hot water, added 3/4 cup salt and then added a tablespoon of dish detergent.  (The instructions are on the Rit Dye box, but I didn't follow them very closely.)

                                                                    
STEP THREE:  apply dye using paintbrush.  I didn't want to fully submerge my shoes because I didn't want to dye the soles or the tags, so I used a paint brush to apply the dye.  Action shot:

                                                  
 Notice the baggies on my hands.  Safety first.  I'm cheap resourceful like that.

STEP FOUR:  Let the dye soak in.... I don't know... say, 20-30 minutes?  (definitely more time if you really want the color to be dark.  In fact, I might even add another coat 1/2 way through.)  Below is a before and after shot... only not in that order.  (the one on the left has been dyed)

                                  
 STEP FIVE:  Rinse them out like the box says with warm water, then cool water, until the water is clear.   STEP SIX:  Wash shoes with laundry detergent.  Soak 20 minutes.  Rinse.

 STEP LAST:  Dry.

Here is the finished product.  They turned back to gray!!!!  This makes me excited.  I wish I had taken a better "before" shot so that you could REALLY see the difference.  Corey can testify.  In conclusion, if you want the color to be darker you may want to let the dye soak in longer and apply more than one coat.  If you are wanting to dye your Toms a color it may only work with white Toms.  In this case I just restored my gray Toms back to gray.