Blessings

"What if Your blessings come through raindrops?
 What if Your healing comes through tears?
 What if a thousand sleepless nights
 Are what it takes to know You're near?
 What if the trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?"


Laura Story says this in her song 'Blessings'. I've been thinking of this song alot lately. I never used to like that song. because personally I adore rain, although I know it's a metaphor for hardships in this case. I just tend to get annoyed by songs that use rain as a metaphor for something negative. Silly, I know.


But here's the thing about my new apartment, it's still pretty terrible, and it's going to take alot of work to get it fixed and clean. For instance, last night a giant roach crawled across the bed. Yeah, it was pretty terrifying, and I screamed. I really have been trying to have a better attitude about living here. I've been praying about it alot, as well. I really don't do change well at all. It's going to take me some time. I do know that this is where God wants me. Since I applied to live here God has been sending all sorts of little blessings my way.

Here's a list of some of the blessings:

• I had enough money to buy some Ikea stuff for my new place
• I got an awesome hand sander for Christmas (perfect for fixing up my cabinets)
• Martha Stewart and Glidden sample size paints were on clearance at Home Depot.
• My gross neighbor, Nicotine Ned, you remember the one who apparently doesn't know how to clean AND smokes in the house? Yeah, he doesn't know how to password protect his internet, and so now I'm getting free internet. Do I feel bad? No. Because I have already put several hours, and hundreds of dollars into cleaning up his mess that he has not paid for. So some free internet really doesn't feel like a big deal to me.
• My nice, big, strong Army brothers moved my entire apartment, practically by themselves.



Here's the Ikea furniture. It is the Expedit line. I already had the eight square one, and I bought the four square one, and I have them set up next to each other, somewhat like the picture.





This is the rug I bought at Ikea. It's a great deal! Only $19.99. It's called the Gislev.





Here are the paint colors I got. The Martha Stewart colors were on clearance for $1, down from $4, and the Glidden samples were on clearance for fifty cents. The yellow one is Sunbeam, one of my favorite yellow paint colors. I bought every little sample they had left.






This is the hand sander I got from my parents.  Isn't it awesome? It's so much fun!

Fridge Fixer-Upper

So the fridge in here is ugly. Really ugly. Yellow and stained, with drip lines on it that look like someone tried to pour bleach down the front with little success. It's old and blocky and just all around ugly. With alot of scrubbing and bleach I could probably get it back to it's original color, but overall I don't really care to do that right now. It's not my fridge, and putting in the extra effort seems like too much work to me. The inside is clean, which is the really important part.

Here's the 'before' shot. Classy, isn't it?

But, I still have this eyesore in the kitchen. What could I do to cover it, that is not permanant. I thought of paint, but it's not mine, and it's dirty. so the paint probably wouldn't stick. So, I came up with a brilliant (if I do say so myself) idea to cover it in wrapping paper and use magnets to hold it in place. I bought some wrapping paper from Target for $1.50. It's technically Christmas paper, but I am okay with that. Especially for such a good deal! I measure the doors, and it turned out I didn't even have to cut notches for the handles. That was a small relief. I did have an issue with the bottom door being longer, and having to make sure that I matched patterns. I also had to be sure that the pattern on both doors went the same way. But, even still the whole thing only took me around twenty minutes. Not bad!

Here's a close up of the wrapping paper I chose. My intent in choosing the silver was to make it look almost like a stainless steel fridge. I love the little modern print ornaments on this!

Drawing a straight line on the wrapping paper would have been better with a ruler, but I was lazy and used a tape measure. Oh well, you live an learn. Now I have some slightly crooked edges, but it doesn't show overall. I was going to tape the two bottom pieces together, but in the end I just used magnets on both separate pieces and left it at that.

Remember my little square of carpet workspace? I will clear these boxes out soon, and I will be enjoying more floor space then!

To make magnets I bought a pack of 18 little round button magnets from Wal Mart. I think they cost about two dollars for the pack. They have stick backs, which made decorating them a breeze! I pulled out my scrapbook paper and made some cute little pinwheel magnets. Some are decorated with stickers, and some are not. Some of the papers are cut with a decorative edge, and some are not. But overall I'm pleased with the way they turned out. I also had some embellishment sticker that were the exact same size as the button magnets, so I used a couple of them as well.

Here's the magnets I made. Didn't they turn out cute? And so easy! All you do is take a strip of paper, accordian fold it, pull it into a circle, and stick down on the stick side of the magnet.

The whole project cost me around four dollars, and I find the finished product to be a welcome change to what it used to look like. I may decide to scrub it down at some point, or change out the paper, but for now I think it looks great, and it's a definate improvement!

Here is the finished product. Turned out pretty cute, I think. Now I just need to cover those hideous brown handles. Why was that ever a style?

Nicotine Ned

So I met my next door neighbor last night. Turns out he used to be the occupant of this very studio apartment, but has moved to a bigger apartment. All I can say to that is if I had been the one to leave a place this dirty, I never would have admitted it to the new resident.

I hired one of my friends who cleans to come clean the bathroom for me. She did a great job, especially considering the 'Before' picture. It took her an hour to clean a space that is about twelve square feet (if even). Meanwhile, I worked at cleaning the window ac unit. The entire the was COATED in nicotine. Who would've guess that under all that yellow was gray plastic? While we're cleaning (with the front door open. The sole window has an ac/heater unit, and does not open), Mr. Next-Door-Neighbor saunters over and says, "I'm sorry you have to clean that motherf***r. They gave me a week to move out, and I work 53 hours a week, so I just couldn't clean it." Um, excuse me, but this is not an issue of 'I didn't do the last once over to make sure the place looks okay for the next person.' This is an issue of him never cleaning the place EVER in the three years he lived here. There is a thick layer of nicotine on EVERYTHING in this apartment. Hence the reason I secretly nicknamed the neighbor 'Nicotine Ned.'

Here's a 'Before' picture for the ac unit. Disgusting, isn't it? And probably a health hazard.

Anyway, at least the bathroom is now clean, and so is the ac unit, for the most part. I will have to go back and do some more work on that. And even better, after cleaning said ac unit, much of that awful cigarette smoke smell has disappated. Sweet! I can finally stop holding my breath all the time!



Here's an 'after' picture. It still needs some more work, and probably a good dose of bleach, too. My cleaning lady friend suggested putting the car vent air fresheners in, and that is helping with the smell, too.

 
Another small thing I did to make the place look better is to paint the shelf in the bathroom. It is a little built in shelf, and is actually quite cute. Like everything else it was covered in a thick layer of dirt, dust, and nicotine, so I wiped it down, then just painted over it. I used a sample size of Martha Stewart's Sea Glass green, which I already had. You can get these sample size paints for three or four dollars, and they work great for small projects. I originally used this for  painting a chair, and still had some left over. Now I know I'm a renter, and painting this green without permission is probably not allowed, but I figure it's a small shelf, and I can paint it back to white before I move someday. After all, I have my useful new hand sander from my parents for Christmas. This thing's going to get a lot of use! Having the shelf this pretty color makes me happy. It looks so much better and brighter!

The 'before' and 'after' pictures of the shelf. I think the green really makes the shelf look cute. Doesn't the little, vintage, pink swan look adorable with the green shelf? I love it!

Day Two

Day two in the new apartment. I put together a new bookcase from Ikea:


This is the four square Expedit from Ikea. I already have the eight square one, which is standing on end next to this one completed. A picture will follow when I have room to take on! This is literally all the space I had to assemble this shelf! Good thing it was only the four square one this time!

Getting all my books unpacked really helped make some room in the place. Plus, books are one item that once unpacked essentially stay right where they are. Unfortunately, I am a HUGE bibliophile, and have way too many books for such a small place. I have four loaded bookshelves. This means I need to get rid of some books, not an easy feat for me! But I must be brutal.

Here's all my stuff. It is not as messy as it looks. This is mostly just stacked up boxes of stuff. Yeah, I know. I have way too much. This will probably be the last shot of my place all disorganized. (Hopefully, that is!)

One other thing I did which makes a huge difference for a very low cost was to replace all the switchplates for new ones. The old ones were yellowed and gross (like pretty much everything else in the place), and the new ones are fresh and white. Plus, I really didn't want to touch the old ones. I wash my hands alot in this place.

You can tell the difference between the old, dirty plate, and the new clean one. The new one looks so nice and shiny!

Move In Ready?

So I just moved into this little tiny 290 square-foot studio apartment from the 1,001 square-foot two bedroom apartment that I had shared with my cousin. This new place is better for many reasons, one of them being the fact that it is all bills paid, and quite a bit less than I've been paying. But when I saw how small it was, and how disgustingly dirty, I started to cry. I know that God has brought me to this place for a reason, and I am praying that I will have the right attitude about it, but it is hard! Luckily they painted it, and replaced the carpet, so that is something. I am going to see what I can do to set a new standard of cleanliness and beauty in the small space of low-income housing. Just because we can't afford alot, doesn't mean we want to live in filth! Or that we should have to. Here are some pictures of the place as it looked the day before move in. To follow will be my efforts at beautification, and style.

This is the shower. It's so dirty still that I don't want to take a shower in it. I'm borrowing my grandparent's shower until I can get it cleaned.

This is the fridge. It is stained and ugly. Surprisingly, the inside was the cleanest thing in the place. Thank goodness!

Several walls have water damage. All the walls had stains from the previous resident, who, judging by the smell, was a chain smoker. One of the walls had a red wine stain on it.

Some brilliant designer put the stove right next to the wall, so the whole wall was grease-stained. They have painted all the walls, except in the bathroom, so they do look better.



This was the disgusting and stained carpet that they replaced. The new stuff is a tan color. This used to be the exact same color. It turned this dark brown color from dirt. Um, hello former resident, have you ever heard of a vacuum?

I think with alot of hard work,bleach, buckets of soapy water, and some paint I can make this place look 100 times better! Basically, anything will be an improvement over this!