my favorite color is pink, and this has been reflected in the decor of the apartments where i lived until now.
**my old bedroom in Boston**
recently, i moved in with my fiancee (we'll call him yobo, which kind of means spouse or sweetheart in korean). yobo has a lovely house, but it is definitely decorated for a man, which he just happens to be, and very much so! there is a lot of blue, like the couch and walls. things like plates and rugs are also, more often than not, a random shade of blue. where there is not blue, there is wood paneling, seventies yellow, and the understandable influence of his mother (for instance, old-fashioned floral curtains in a rather eighties palette, not to knock the eighties or floral patterns, or yobo's sweetheart of a mother, who it makes sense would have this kind of style, which is nice, just not mine...)
so, i set about the process of pinkification.
one of our first steps was the "dressing room," because i needed a lot of space to store my clothes and shoes. we salvaged an old circular clothes rack from my mother's house and painted it silver. then yobo spent some time painting the walls a pale pink, and we also gave the white trim a fresh, new coat of white. we found plain white curtains that were soft to the touch and hung nicely.
We also looked for an inexpensive way to store my shoes and finally stumbled across these relatively reasonable stacking cubbies, made from particle board and covered in white laminate.
We took one of my bookcases, the only one I have with glass doors,
and turned it into storage for various beauty products.
the final touch to the dressing room involved making a vanity table, my first craft project since moving in. i took a plain white table made of laminate covered particle board and white, painted metal legs. i found some inexpensive white eyelet cotton and created skirts for the vanity table and a small side table using the white eyelet, a glue gun, and some pink ribbon.
out of leftover materials, i also crafted a box for storing perfumes and a backboard from which to hang things, like jewelry and pictures of yobo and me at disney world!
I plan to create a guide to show you how i did it, but it may not be until after i take the bar.
here is the finished room:
i should note that i am extremly lucky that i don't have to fight yobo (very much) on my pink-based decor ideas. being the manly-type man that he is, he leaves the decor mostly to me, which is great because i love to pinkify, but hate to fight! mostly he just rolls his eyes and helps me paint/carry heavy stuff (and by "helps," i mean "does it mostly himself"), and generally does his best to restrain me so i don't (a) get carried away with the pink and focus instead on making things pretty, (b) don't spend all of our money, leaving us "house poor" (a term that he unfortunately picked up because i coerced him into watching endless hgtv), or (c) get over excited and accidentally burst (which would leave a terrible mess for him to clean up).
that's because home improvement and cute things do tend to get me all riled up. moving to a new state has given me some time (while i am taking the bar and awaiting the results). i plan to use the time (mostly after the test at the end of february) to track my home improvement process and start my craft blog here, which i have been meaning to do anyway.
luckily, i have been collecting various tools and supplies and trecking them around with me to make bags, clothes, decor items, or anything else i could invision (i haven't used a pattern since home ec in seventh grade, the result being some lop-sided shorts that my skinny-legged mom still wears as pajama bottoms. i may try working with patterns and see how it goes, or i may stick exclusively to my envision and create method). with my adorable new sewing machine, some paint, and my avid hgtv watching, i hope to transform this little house into a cute, perfect, cheerful place for yobo and i to spend our lives together!
