Our First Batch of Home Improvement Projects

Move over recipes, photography, and travel, Domestocrat just got a whole new category of potential blog posts – Home Improvement Projects!

Now that we’re home owners, and can do whatever we want to improve our little piece of the world, I foresee many projects that we’d love to share. Here are the first of many from our first weekend in our new home.

Project #1 – The Mirror

Weeks ago, right after we put the offer in on our condo, we were at Eddie’s Furniture in Porter Square and I saw this gorgeous mirror that I then became obsessed with. By the time we got back to the store it had already been sold. However, a similar, except much larger, one was available. We debated over it and ended up buying it anyways, hoping it would fit in the space we had in mind for it. Turns out it actually fit and looked much better than the smaller one ever could!

We were a little bit worried about hanging such a large and heavy piece but John found the studs, got some excellent frame wire, and it went up like a dream. It really enlarges the hallway, creates even more light, is decorative/looks like art, and serves as a full length mirror. Win!

Project #2 – Our Door Number

Since no one had ever lived in our condo before, no one ever put up a door number. We bought a really simple, classic number and hung it up ASAP.

Project #3 – Bedroom Blinds

We decided that once the bed was in the condo that’s when we’d start sleeping there (even though we have the month of August to be out of our old apartment). The bed came over on Saturday and we set it up immediately. Cut to Saturday night when we realized we had no window coverings and everyone could see directly into our bedroom. Not to mention I was up at 5:30AM at first light.

As you can imagine, getting and installing window coverings shot to priority #1 on Sunday. We found these great white faux wood blinds at Home Depot (which we also bought for like, every window in the condo). The installation was quite easy and they look great!

Before and after:

Project #4 – Pantry Express

Despite the fact that we have more kitchen storage space than any other place I’ve ever lived, we still needed more. Hey, we have a lot of kitchen stuff!

The kitchen cabinets fit all of our dishes, appliances, etc. but we needed more space for all of our pantry items. Yup, all this needed a home:

John and I found a lovely, yet simple, pantry at Target. We bought two and assembled them on Sunday.

Once they were done we tried to configure where they’d go in the kitchen. Many placement option progression pictures:

We ended up with that very last picture’s layout.

I loaded them up and here they are. They miraculously fit everything!

Project #5 – The Bathroom

The bathroom, if you remember, wasn’t in bad shape but definitely needed some styling. We added a new shower curtain, plush bath mat, and a towel rack (that elicited some cursing from John during installation).

A few other touches that I added included the lovely white and gold towels we got as a wedding shower gift, mason jar to hold toothbrushes (which I totally saw on Pinterest), and a pretty bamboo tray on the toilet tank as a temporary catch all space.

Stay tuned for more!