The Latest: 2016

Living the budget life is not easy and college grads know this more than anyone! During this exciting (read: stressful) phase of your life, having a cozy home that feels like your own space is so essential! After all, you need somewhere to kick up your feet after a busy day of chasing your dreams. If you’re on a budget, how can you create a beautiful home that’s not a mishmash of hand-me-down furniture? Here are some DIY ideas to help you stay on budget AND create a home you love.

When we moved into our Victorian row in 2007, it was a pleasant-enough looking house. But my husband and I knew we wanted to renovate—especially the wood-paneled kitchen (even if it was white!). We decided to leave the kitchen as-is until we lived in it for a while and really used the space (we also didn’t have the funds at the time).

Yasmin hit all of the magic words with this project: DIY, IKEA, Storage. And while it may seem counterintuitive to open up your laundry room to the world, it works wonders for Yasmin’s space. From Yasmin: The laundry situation was not very glamorous before. A stacked Washer and Dryer in a tiny dark closet, with no built in storage space. The potential was great. We ripped out those ugly brown doors that were keeping the space so closed.

Before: My previous kitchen was outdated and nonfunctional. I had a –very!– red textured backsplash with mahogany cupboards, two different styles of floor (red and black tiles and wood parquet) that visually shrunk the space. Lots of different heights and depths among the cupboards created an overall sense of confusion.

Mix together a dash of plaid, a scoop of inspiration and a sprinkle of You Tube and you have the recipe for a gorgeous office chair upgrade. From Steph: A friend gifted me a great old desk that her mom had found on the curb years ago and everybody knows if you give a girl a desk…she is going to need a chair. I found this chair at a local Goodwill and knew it was the one. Even though the vinyl was cracked, I lived with it for a few months until I found a remnant I liked.

When we bought our little Laramie, Wyoming bungalow, we knew with a little work we could take the bland kitchen up a notch with some imagination, rearranging, and color. Given that the main floor is was so small (642 square feet), revitalizing the kitchen improved the vibe of the whole house.

Emily juggles a successful creative business as well as her family of four so having a space to work at home is crucial. She had a large enough room to work in, but it was dated and not necessarily the most functional. First, Emily worked with a professional organizer to help edit her current work space. Add some of her signature cheerful DIY style and this uninspiring room was transformed into a bright and fresh space that will keep her organized with no shortage of creative inspiration.

I often think of custom made cabinets as a luxury, but for Maria, they’re a necessity. There’s no IKEA in Serbia, so Maria had to do all of the measurements and design herself, the result is a cool & sleek European kitchen. From Maria: I bought this one bedroom in July 2015 and had only month to renovate it. All major demolition, plumbing and electric work was done by contractors. By the time they left the place, I was almost broke.

My brother and I purchased a 1924 multi-family home just under a year ago. The house was in great shape but definitely needed some aesthetic updates and both kitchens needed a complete overhaul. It was important to me to keep the kitchen era-appropriate while incorporating a modern color palette and materials. We demoed the day after Thanksgiving and took the whole room down to the studs. My dad did all of the electrical work and plumbing and we hired a team to install the drywall.

Sometimes, you get caught up in the moment. Nicola started off with a short and manageable to-do list and then kept adding more to it, in the best way possible. Luckily IKEA helped keep her costs low as her to-do list grew.

We didn’t necessarily love this kitchen. My parents built the house in 1999, but the kitchen had a random, generic feeling to it. Oh sure, Mom dressed it up and tried to make it her own, but it just never felt right to her. We just started calling it “the room with the food” since we knew we could do better for her kitchen-wise. After my dad passed away from a long illness, my husband and I wanted to make their home as comfortable as she liked and exactly as she wanted it.

Callie’s new take on Carrie’s inherited chair may have you looking twice at your aunt’s old living room set. Through a perfect mix of good bones, some incredible fabric and collaboration between friends, this chair really came back to life. From Callie: I’m an Austin textile designer and painter (and my treehouse home was on Apartment Therapy a couple years ago).

If you’re a color loving renter, contact paper is your best friend. Medina went all out adding color and pattern to her rental kitchen in a security deposit friendly manner. From Medina: I really went all out with the makeover. It is a rented apartment, but that didn’t stop me from decorating and injecting some color into it. The floor is wallpapered which I have a tutorial for on my blog. The cabinets were changed by adding contact racing stripes (all renter friendly).