Mod Apartment: December 2008

Trunk: the rebirth

As mentioned previously, I got this old trunk off of Craigslist for $40 and it needed some work. Well, it needed more than "some". About 20 hours or so later of sanding and repairing and stripping and etc.....it was done.

The brass hardware polished up nicely with steel wool and brass polish and looks almost like new. I couldnt find replacement hinges that were the exact same size, so I repaired the ones that it came with.

While we were originally going to use it as a coffee table, we found it worked better as a bench in our living room, inside is our collection of board games.

Again, here is the before picture:

Kitchen Light

Rachel posted earlier how our kitchen light was ugly and that we got this stainless steel one for a good price. Well, a few months ago I put it up.

This was kind of a big deal; I've never hardwired a light before. It was fairly simple, I had to do a few modifications but nothing too crazy.

We were going to buy a medallion to cover where the old light was, but instead I stole the kitty's food placemat, cut a hole in it, taped it to a piece of cardboard and put it up. Crafty! (yes we replaced the kitty's).

Total spent:
$13 for the light
$1.99 for the IKEA "medallion"

btw--I kept the old light just in case we decide to take the new one with us :)

off

on! Yeah it works!

Our Apartment

Kitchen

Shelving that Jeremy Put Up

Living/Dining Room

Living Room

Fun Find!

Yesterday Jeremy and I went to the Boston Building Materials Co-Op which is a non-profit that sells used building materials such as doors, cabinets, sinks and smaller things like door knobs, handles, and other hardware. We went to a similar one in Portland called The ReBuilding Center where we picked up a medicine cabinet for only $5! So we decided to check out this one just to see what they had. It was a little smaller, but we did come across a really cool metal pendant lamp. We had been talking about replacing some of the lighting in the apartment, which really isn't too bad, except for the kitchen which is circle of florescent tubing (!)

Ugly Off

Ugly On

So we thought this was a real bargain at only $13!

Compare this lamp to the one at the top which can be bought for $149!

These types of rebuilding centers are pretty cool, although they are similar to thrift stores so they require patience and sometimes you leave with nothing. But when you do find something, it is a great feeling that you got such a good deal! We will put up some more pictures when we get it up. Jeremy had a creative idea for the "medallion" that needs to go on the ceiling, so stay tuned!

BBMC (Boston)
The ReBuilding Center(Portland)
Habitat ReStores (Sacramento, Chico, etc)