From the Editor: Style Your Life

Style doesn’t always apply to your clothes. Good use of style can be seen in other aspects of life, such as food, beauty and even your home. Fantastic design can do wonders for your mood and improve your quality of life. This is why I took the opportunity to give my room a  major overhaul. New paint, new accessories, DIY projects… you name it- I did it and couldn’t be happier. I wanted to share with my fashionable readers the projects I did and why they’re making my home so much better.

Color Story: I painted 3 of the walls using my favorite color of the season, mint. For me, this color is calming, on-trend and plays well with others- it’s easy to match up with other hues and prints. Speaking of prints, I saved the long wall for a very ambitious paint job, the chevron pattern in a bold white and smoke gray. Myself and a wonderful volunteer tackled this wall in less than 2 days. I will admit that this paint job took me back to my high school geometry days, but once we figured out the pattern and got into a rhythm, it was much less painless. 

#FirstWorldFashionistaProblems: After finishing the paint, and moving the majority of my IKEA furniture in, I realized there were a couple storage problems to solve. This new closet is small and as a fashion-junkie, I knew the space wouldn’t be enough for my entire wardrobe. But I discovered a couple tricks that allowed every heel, denim-cutoff and sheer knit to have a place of their own. First, I doubled up on the closet space by putting shelves along the back wall of  the closet for my shoes. Luckily this closet was deep enough to do that. My second trick was to get a clothing rack (found at IKEA) to hang special items and clothes that I wear more frequently than others. Below the rack you’ll notice black boxes (found at Target)  for intimate items and skirts/shorts. This rack is fantastic, you’ll also notice that I hang my small cross-body bags on this rack as well. Above the rack, there’s a simple line of hooks that hold all of my denim cutoffs. A great way to display these cute, trendy items. 

Light it Up: Inspired by a pin I saw on Pinterest, I wanted to give some old lamps a makeover and use on each side of my bed. A quick visit to Goodwill and Michaels solved this problem so easily. I picked up 2 lamps at Goodwill for about $4 each with good silhouettes and spray painted them with spray paints from Michaels in a matte black and glossy purple. I finished these with some trendy IKEA shades and all of a sudden, I’ve got $80 designer lamps for around $15 each.

Surface Area: Also inspired by a pin on Pinterest, the mason jar shelf is probably the DIY project I’m most proud of. Using a piece of recovered wood, I attached mason jar lids to the underside of the shelf allowing mason jars to hang underneath for additional storage of small goodies, like headbands and bracelets. This picture doesn’t show it well, but the second jar from the left is actually a flower vas. I drilled a hole in the top of the wood to allow a flower to appear as if it’s growing through the shelf. Water can be placed in the mason jar below to keep the bud fresh. 

Private Property: The biggest project in the room is hands-down the sliding glass door. My room is a converted garage and moving in I knew I would need a solution for privacy. Luckily, I had 2 glass doors from an old IKEA Pax wardrobe system (I like IKEA, can you tell?). These doors we’re the perfect solution! Using the original track from the wardrobe and a jerry-rigged track out of materials from Home Depot, and some major help from my father, we were able to attach a sliding door inside my room (shown) and a sliding door on the other entryway outside my room (not shown). 

Check out all off the photos from my re-designed room below! Have you done a major room re-design? Send us your photos to thecarbonmagazine@gmail.com!