Magazines, Magazines Everywhere

I love DIY magazines. I love BHG and House Beautiful and Martha Stewart and Style at Home. I love them all. But sadly they are not feeling my affection. Lately they have begun to feel strongly neglected. Horribly in fact. They are all currently taking up residence in random locations throughout the McDowell home.

Here are a few places they can be tripped over discovered:

Casually smashed into this "organizer"

Stacked up on the floor covered with decorative accessories.

Stacked up on the desk with more decorative accessories in the form of wee vases.

Stacked on top of the printer on top of the desk next to the other stack that is stacked on top of the desk.

Stacked in the cubby bookshelf in the living room.

Yeah I have magazines EVERYWHERE. I will admit that I don't subscribe to all of them most of them are from friends and family who know about my wee blog here and bring them all over for me to look at, cut out, and get inspired by. I love my magazines but I need another way to organize these things... 

so I did what a normal person does... and Googled it!

I could make this sort of thing easily enough with some corner brackets for shelving and some wood. That would be pretty! Plus you could paint it any color you'd like! I'd probably go for white. As usual.

Or I could be classic and use the boxes and just mod-podge them with scrapbook paper that works with the room specifically. Who knows. I want to do something cute and unique and get the magazines up off the floor all at the same time. Hmmm.....

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Oh! And I randomly found this picture. I'm in love with it! I think it would be cool to use an IKEA shelf to do a similiar thing. I'd probably put it in my living room. Possible. I think it's amazing though! Plus I have vowed to buy one of those posters from an etsy.com shop I found. 

Gallery Wall? In a Bathroom?

I am struggling with trying to decide what on earth to do with the large wall space above my tub. I am totally at a loss. I was going to do 4 canvas' with some hand painted art... tossed around the idea of paint chips... but ultimately what I think I really want to do is a gallery wall. You know. Just to try it out... give it a go... etc... The space is weird though:

It's right next to the window and the mirror. I could leave it blank but... that would be entirely out of character. I was thinking... perhaps I could do dark frames to contrast with the white trim and mirror? 

But then... would that make the tub look dingy-er. (When selecting bathroom fixtures please select WHITE)

I stumbled across a few different ideas via Google (since I sadly don't have Pinterest):

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I loveee all of the white frames! I'm sure you are all quite shocked that I said that. White. Hmmm. lol. But really I love the way that all of the frames are uniform in color but yet they still each have individual character. I think it's great! But what about one like this:

It's still uniform in the shapes of the frames but I'm not sure if I like the different colors... but then again it does have great tones going on so I could incorporate that into it.... hmmmm so many choices! 

Maybe I shall have to scour the Salvation Army and Goodwill for some great frames that would work on that wall. Maybe look for some goldish (not gaudy) frames and some that have good shape and character so that I can spray paint them white. Ahhh spray paint how I love thee!

What do you think? Any other ideas for wall hangings that I could use in that space over the tub that keeps in time with both my vintage look and my teeny tiny budget?

87% is still a B!

Last night was an awesome night! I won't deny it! I was having a pretty horrendous day. I had to work for 10 hours hadn't gotten much sleep and had been going back and forth with financial assistance for the abundance of medical bills I've been collecting since my escapade to the ER in July. It was a mess and I was super stressed out because I hadn't had a chance to work on my bathroom yet and I really have been wanting too. My boyfriend is probably one of the most amazing people ever. 

Well I am sure you all know by now that I think that but the reason I think that? Well it's because instead of walking in to this:

I came home to this!! It's so amazing! Justin went crazy on my bathroom and finished patching the holes, sanded them down, added a few coats of paint (it'll probably take a couple more since that sand color from before is hard to paint over), and vacummed up a ton of the dust!

It looks great! He also finished installing the other light fixture that I found on an amazing sale (12.05 a piece!) and hung up one of my little shelves! There will be another shelf to go below that one eventually. Things progress a bit slowly around here sometimes.

I keep my little ceramic bowls that I bought at Big Lots for $1 a piece on the shelf and have them full of earrings and rings. Accessories are a girls best friend. 

Ahhh look how amazing that light fixture looks! I would say that it looks like a hundred bucks! (hehe the original price was $95.00 get it? get it? Okay... bad joke.)

I also moved my jars around filling one with cotton balls, which I obviously need more of, one with all of my bracelets and another for all my Q-tips.

This cabinet here is full of my bath towels and "extra" supplies like soap and tooth paste and that kind of thing. I decided to paint this cabinet white so that it looked like it was actually a separate unit from the cabinets and also to create a sort of "two-toned" effect in the bathroom. It takes up a lot less visual space then it would have if it was dark. 

In this photo you can really see the difference between the white cabinets and the dark brown ones. They all look great though! Justin did a fantastic job of getting it cleaned up and done for me! I'm so happy!

See? Look at that smile! Anddd my sweet Goodwill vest for $2.00! I must say that I love vintage inspired dress and outfits. Give me a white tee shirt, dark jeans, and I can accessorize the heck out of it!

Lucyfurr is also ecstatic about the renovation progress. 

She's so incredibly thrilled really. She practically looks like she's grinning! 

The list of things to do on the bathroom seems to have gotten much much shorter! I am so grateful for my boyfriend! Now I can focus on figuring out what to do with that Ghetto Mirror situation and accessorizing! Which is my favorite part of the whole thing. It'll be great to get some art up on the walls and make it look really great. I'll keep you updated on all the little things going on that will make this bathroom awesome!

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Linked to:Addicted 2 Decorating  Shabby Creek Cottage, House of Hepworths, My RePurposed Life,  The DIY Home Sweet Home Project