Window Makeovers!

Putting up curtains in our kitchen and living room completely changed the entire feel of the apartment downstairs. It feels so cozy now! Our curtains were cheap and an extreme room changer, I highly recommend them. Now instead of looking stark and plain our windows look happy and fun.

Kitchen window before... sad, small, boring. 

We have just this one window in our kitchen, as you can see it started out looking really empty and boring. This just would not do for our apartment, especially not for the first room you walk in to . You have already seen the adorable little whisk candle holders we strung in front of the window, post Whisks: Not Just for Baking, but now we have added curtains and a nice lamp. We went with a bright yellow since we decided to not paint our walls. With all white walls we are really able to go all our on bright accent colors and make it all work. This single yellow curtain panel was ordered from Amazon for $3. And bigger bonus free shipping!! Seriously one of the best tips I'll ever give you is to check out Amazon. It is not just for books. The curtains

The kitchen window now! For a closer detail and
description of the whisks, check out the post
  Whisks: Not Just for Baking.

are pretty sheer, but that is perfect for a kitchen or living room. They add color and style but don't block too much of the natural light that we love. We were able to find a nice silver curtain rod at the one and only Target for another $3. The lamp was also a Target clearance steal at $8. Using our handy power tool kit we were able to put all this stuff up by ourselves and are pretty proud of it!  The curtain hides the cord from the pendant lamp perfectly. This new lamp gives off much better light at night than the standard overhead florescent lights that are in our apartment. For our curtain tie back we actual are using the small little buttoned fabric that was holding together the hand towels we bought. Also from Target, we are aware of our Target clearance addiction and are working on cutting back. But hey, we get great deals and they are paying off by looking fabulous! Total cost rundown for this window makeover: Curtain, Amazon $3. Curtain rod, Target $3. Lamp, Target $8. Tieback, Free! Total cost: $14! Only fourteen dollars for this window makeover, I think it was worth every penny! I love walking into our kitchen now, the curtains give off such a nice warm glow. And the add a much needed pop of color to the room. The kitchen was not the only room to get a window makeover though. We have two windows in our living room that were in dire need of some color and loving attention. They are side by side, but still smaller windows like the one in the kitchen. Instead of doing the same yellow curtains as the kitchen we decided to be bold and go with a bright orange. We ordered the living room curtains from Amazon also.

The sad living room window wall before
the makeover

Peek Inside Our Toolbox

I am a strong believer that every college girl with an apartment should own at least a basic toolbox. Even if you're not into the Do It Yourself projects like Ms. College Chic is, a tool box is always smart  to have and comes in handy many times. Our fashionable toolbox is from Target. A sale purchase of course, we got it for $10 and have used it regularly. Even if you don't plan to do projects, a nice hammer, screwdriver, and tape measure are usually need for standard moving and decorating. So might as well make it a cute one! Our tool box may be pink, but it gets serious work done. Now for the Do It Yourself addicts like us you might need to consider getting a tool box with a little more force behind it. Our down and dirty power tool box has a sander, a drill, which is used for many things, two saws, one which we use for our rope projects, and a big flashlight. This toolbox was a donation to our apartment, thanks Dad, so it wasn't an expense. However I do strongly suggest to get a power drill if you plan on doing projects, it is very handy, and necessary in multiple projects of ours. 

Our fashionable Target toolbox

The serious business toolbox

Whisks: Not Just for Baking

There is one window in our kitchen so of course we have to go all out decorating it. One thing we have found that we love, thanks to Pinterest, is re-purposed kitchen utensils as decor items. There are many cute ideas using this concept that can completed cheap, which makes us like the idea even better!

Our kitchen window's $4 style!

It was a pin that gave us the inspiration to use the simple metal whisks as tea candle holders. It's pretty adorable. We were able to find the whisks at one of our usual dollar stores. We looked at tea candles at our favorite dollar stores as well but this is a good example of a dollar store scam. At our dollar store you can buy ten tea candles for one dollar. At our local Pier 1 store we were able to get one hundred tea candles for five dollars! Don't fall for the dollar store scams! Dollar stores are great for some things, like finding the

The inspiration pin. We instantly loved this idea.

cheap whisks, but not everything. Just because it's at the dollar store does not mean it's the best deal, check around. (More details on our shopping tips under the post Our Favorite Hotspots.) We used some string we already had at the apartment and tied it to the blind bracket on the window. After some careful measuring we knotted our whisks on the string. After they were hanging it was easy to just pop the tea candle through the wires. I love how these look hanging in front of our kitchen window. There will be more on that window later, but the whisks are still my favorite part. Over all project cost, $4! Less than a Subway lunch! I am not counting the cost of the tea candles because it was a bag of one hundred and we already have many other places where those will be used. Just keep reading and you'll see. We're full of great ideas. This is just one more Pinterest decorating pin conquered!

We Can Even Make A Garbage Can Cute

We have a small, soon to be adorable bathroom. Finding a small wastepaper basket was key. Off to the dollar store! There we found a basic, small, flimsy, white garbage can. Well that just wouldn't do in our apartment, far too plain for us. Thanks to Pinterest we love the idea of nautical touches in the bathroom. One of the first things we thought of was thick rope. Well if you look for nice thick rope at a home improvement store you notice that rope is out of our frugal price range. This is why we love thrift stores. We were able to get a huge spool of about 1" diameter rope for $10. Add some time with a hot glue gun and boom this is what you get.

This was a plain dollar store trash can.

There was no lid for the trash can we bought. With a little cardboard, creative thinking, and more hot gluing we now have a perfect, cute, and cheap lid for our bathroom garbage.