1 BATHROOM, $300, 5 DAYS: FINAL REVEAL

Published on January 26, 2019 by Stephanie @ Studio 36 Interiors

I recently took on a new project: our guest bathroom. This was more than a project though, it was a challenge. It ended up being a kind of case study on what impact you can have with very little time and money (since I have little of both these days).

I challenged myself to give my guest bathroom a new look with only $300 and 5 days of work. I’m happy to say the challenge is complete and I like this bathroom so much more than I used to!

Take a look at what the bathroom originally looked like…

And here is what it looks like after 5 days and $300 invested…

MY FOYER/HALLWAY MAKEOVER: FINAL REVEAL!

Published on September 21, 2018January 19, 2019 by Stephanie @ Studio 36 Interiors

Back in May I started a new makeover for my foyer and upstairs hallway and I am happy to say that I’m finally finished!! I’ve been sharing the changes I’ve made as I’ve gone along so please check out my previous updates on this makeover:

PHASE ONE

PHASE TWO

With my third and final phase of this project, I mostly focused on updating the banister on the stairway in the foyer. Take a look at how it looked at the beginning of this phase:

As you can see it is quite dated and blah looking. My goal was to improve the look of all of this railing without going over budget. As I brainstormed ideas, I immediately gravitated to this:

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Ever since Joanna Gaines revealed the makeover of her bed and breakfast I’ve been in love with this black iron railing!! I love the clean modern look, and I knew it would look great in my house.

However, it didn’t take me long to realize this was simply not a possibility for me because of the steep price. Turns out I have about 44 linear ft of railing in total and to hire a professional to make and install that much railing was going to be incredibly expensive! I realized that with my limited budget, my best option would be to focus on altering what was already there instead of completely replacing it.

I decided to stain the railing black, paint the newel posts white, and replace the balusters with a more minimal tapered style baluster. Here’s the final look:

I like that there is less of the oak wood in the foyer now, but the color of the floors still really bothers me! Eventually when we have the money, we’ll have the floors sanded and stained a different color and I think that will be a huge improvement.

With the banister finished, I only had a couple other quick changes to make.

I replaced all of the polished brass door hardware with matte black hardware. This has been on my to-do list for a while and I finally got around to changing all of the doors in the whole house.

I also changed out the two dated builder grade chandeliers in the foyer with more interesting modern ones.

Then it was time to bring in all of the accessories and I was finally done with this makeover!!!

MY FOYER/HALLWAY MAKEOVER: PHASE ONE

Published on May 23, 2018May 23, 2018 by Stephanie @ Studio 36 Interiors

I have two new things to share today!!

First, I have given my website a new look!! I’d been wanting to do this for awhile and am grateful that I was finally able to squeeze some time out of my busy schedule to make the changes. I do all of the design and maintenance of my blog myself… which is crazy because I knew nothing about setting up or maintaining blogs when I started. I’m still learning so much each day!

I feel like this new website design better reflects my own personal style and is also more user-friendly. Check out my updated ‘About’ page and my new ‘Projects’, ‘Portfolio’ and ‘Design Advice’ sections for easy access to all of my DIY projects, makeovers and design tips. Hope you enjoy the new layout!

But the blog isn’t the only new thing I’m sharing with you today, I have also started a new makeover project! For this project I’ve divided all the changes I’ll be making into phases, and I’ll be sharing the reveal of each phase as I go. So today I’ll share phase one!

I am excited to finally be getting to alter one space in my home that has been bugging me for years—our foyer! I’ve had a plan to redo this area for a long time, but it kept getting bumped by more pressing projects and responsibilities. I’m so grateful to finally be able to tackle this outdated space!!

When you enter our home you come into our foyer or entry or whatever you want to call it…

this is the view from our front door

our dog says hello

This space opens to my home office…

And also opens into our dining room…

I have already given my home office and our dining room a makeover, and I’m happy with how both of those rooms turned out. However, sandwiched between these two newly updated rooms is my very outdated entryway! Right now when you walk between my dining room and my foyer it almost feels like you’re stepping into two completely different homes! So I’m very excited to finally bring some cohesion to this area of our house!

However, this makeover goes beyond just this area of our house. I’ll show you…

THE DESKER (MULTIFUNCTIONAL FURNITURE)

Published on May 2, 2018May 22, 2018 by Stephanie @ Studio 36 Interiors

I recently finished a complete bedroom makeover for my teenage daughter. As I mentioned in that post, I created a special piece of furniture to fit her needs in the room.

She had requested a desk to do her homework and a vanity to do her hair/makeup, plus she needed a small dresser for storage. But her room is not huge so there wasn’t enough space to put three separate pieces of furniture. My solution was to combine all three pieces into one. I unintentionally started calling it ‘the desker’ (desk + dresser) for lack of a better name.

This single piece of furniture allows her to do her homework, do her hair/makeup (she has a tabletop vanity mirror she uses) and store clothes as well as desk supplies, all while taking up a small amount of space in her room. Now please don’t think I’m claiming to have invented this piece of furniture. I have seen similar pieces in hotels before. This is just my own take on it.

My plan was to purchase an affordable used dresser and then add a wood top and side leg creating a waterfall effect. This would give the piece a clean modern look which would work well with the style I was going for in her room.

My first step was to find an affordable used dresser, but it had to have certain features…

It needed to be about the same height as a desk (about 28″-30″).
It needed to not be too large (30″-40″ long was ideal) so that proportionally it would look right and there would be enough space to fit the desk area on the side.
It needed to have a minimal modern style.

Turns out it was harder than I thought to find a used dresser that matched that criteria. The few pieces I found were either way too expensive or very cheaply made and not very attractive. I literally looked for a dresser at various places off and on for a YEAR!!!!

Finally, last fall I came across this baby:

This is a Conant Ball mid century modern, solid wood dresser that I was able to snag for $80. I liked the clean lines and it generally fit all the dimensions I was looking for. I wasn’t expecting to find such a nice piece of MCM furniture and was actually a little hesitant to alter such a great dresser. There was a part of me that wanted to restore it to its original glory and use it somewhere else in my home. But it was not in the best condition plus I’d waited so long for a dresser that would work for my ‘desker’ project, so I moved forward with my original plan.

top of dresser

The dresser had an unattractive eggplant colored paint job that was not in good condition so I couldn’t just paint over it. Instead, I had to sand the whole thing down which took awhile because there were multiple layers of paint on there. Then I primed it and painted it white.

BEFORE + AFTER

1 BATHROOM, $300, 5 DAYS: FINAL REVEAL

MY FOYER/HALLWAY MAKEOVER: FINAL REVEAL!

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