Project 2

Back in January, I successfully, with the help of my fiance, hemmed and hung semi-sheer gray floor length curtains in the bedroom. Our window in there is maybe four feet in height, but very long. It has these awful vertical blinds that are a good three feet longer than the actual window. So to cover up the whole ugly vertical blinds mess and to diffuse the early morning light that hindered my sleeping in, we went ahead and hung the curtain rod right by the ceiling, and hemmed the curtains to floor length. There are four panels in all making a magnificent wash of soft gray from top to bottom across almost the entire length of one of the walls. It is glorious. I am in love.

We purchased the hardware and curtains from IKEA. The whole project was about $30. And it is impossible to photograph well because our bed is in front of a large part of the curtains. And showing you the other part would mean I have to clean my bedroom. Ew. No.

An Update

It's nearing the end of the third week of 2013, so I should have 3 projects toward my "52 Projects for a More Beautiful Life" project. Key word in that sentence: should.

My fiance and I put up lights in our bedroom during the first week.

The second week I started two projects, but due to needing more supplies and the confines of my limited crafting space, they are slow going.

We hung a curtain rod in our bedroom and got one curtain panel up, when we realized the two curtain panels we bought would technically cover the whole window, but four would look much better. And they needed to be hemmed. Which means I have a curtain rod and one tiny curtain panel hanging from it until we buy more and I iron the other three and hem all four. Oof. Luckily, we have a shopping trip planned tomorrow to pick the curtains and I have already purchased hem tape because I don't need to slow this project down even more by attempting to machine or hand hem cheap IKEA curtains. Totally unnecessary.

The second project simply involves me spray painting to IKEA dining chairs we got for free and putting seat cushions we bought on them. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong. I live in an apartment in Los Angeles with a tiny balcony. I am attempting to spray paint the chairs in a 5' x 5' outdoor space that already has a bench in it. So I can really only spray paint one or two pieces at time. The end is in sight, but instead of doing it all in one day, I've had to wait for each piece to dry enough to be brought inside before painting the next one. A major pain.

I also have materials on hand for projects 4 and 5. So hopefully I can wrap up 2 and 3 QUICKLY and get going on those. I can see that in order to do 52 projects this year, I either need to make my projects much smaller, or devote much more time and energy.

52 Projects for a More Beautiful Life

365 projects are way too much for me to handle. Good on you if you can conquer one, but it's far too overwhelming for me. So this year, I'm doing multiple 52 projects, completing one task/goal a week for the entirety of 2013.

The first one I'm doing I am calling "52 Projects for a More Beautiful Life." Instead of focusing on one area, I've chosen this nice, broad premise that will include home decor/home improvement projects and personal arts, crafts, and DIY projects.

For this first week, my fiance and I installed some much needed additional lighting in our bedroom. Since we got our current bed (way back in July 2012), we have needed to come up with a solution to our lack of bedside lighting. IKEA to the rescue!

Here are two less than great photos (from my phone) of our handiwork.

Clearly, my bed is unmade. Do not judge me. And clearly, we need something to go over the bed. We are working on some art!

The lights are two KVART Wall/clamp spotlights from IKEA. They can be installed using a clamp (to attach to furniture, etc) or mounted directly on the wall, as we did. 

Kvart spotlight - $9.99 at IKEA.

1 project down, 51 more to go...