The Latest: 2017

Meghan needed a new dresser but couldn’t bring herself to buy one, when her gut was telling her there was a used one to be had floating out in the universe. She found one, and it seems like it had one hell of a previous life, since it was covered in rhinestones and wallpaper. She decided that with just a little love and attention she could spiff the dresser into a piece that was more to her tastes. From Meghan: I found this chest of drawers at the Salvation Army for £10 ($13).

Courtney found herself in a bit of a design lurch when she ordered a new dresser for her daughter, but a month later got word that it had been cancelled. Instead of shaking her fists at the heavens and cursing the retail gods, she hopped in her car, drove to IKEA and snatched up a Hemnes dresser. With a little DIY know-how she transformed the dresser into a totally glam, Old Hollywood-inspired piece. From Courtney: If you are not familiar with it, this is the Hemnes dresser from IKEA.

Not all bathroom projects have to be major upgrades, sometimes a simple change can add a little bit of extra functionality and a lot of charm. Claire needed more storage but wasn’t particularly keen on running out to the store for a quick fix. After fate threw this vintage drawer into her path, it became clear that she was about to find her storage solution. From Claire: This was an old drawer that I had picked out of a dumpster on my daily dog walk.

Robin found herself dreaming West Elm dreams while on an IKEA budget. Luckily, she’s an intrepid DIYer so she set out to turn her standard headboard into an upholstered leather masterpiece. All it took was one weekend and a little inspiration to create a chic new look for her bedroom without breaking the bank. From Robin: I started with the IKEA Hemnes bed frame. While it was a great inexpensive bed frame, it needed some sprucing up.

Construct - or deconstruct - the perfect home accents from a stool.

Chelsea’s master bath was in need of a little love, but funds for a full renovation just weren’t in the cards. Rather than wallow in the depths of an ugly bathroom, Chelsea and her husband decided to make some smart, inexpensive upgrades to give the bathroom a new look without breaking the bank. From Chelsea: When we moved into our fixer upper, I knew we would someday need to tackle master bathroom. It was small, awkward and really hideous.

A big blank wall. It could easily be a source of inspiration or anxiety. For Becky, it was inspiration first, contractor-related anxiety second. She seized the opportunity to use her large amount of blank space as an opportunity to go above and beyond a standard media center and add some built-in charm to her living room. The results are a stunning nod to farmhouse style, will remaining understatedly chic.

When Emily went looking for an apartment in New York, she wanted a place with vintage charm, like the beautifully detailed old buildings she had seen while living and studying in Normandy. Instead, she found the next best thing, a fixer-upper apartment in a 1940s building, whose tiny kitchen and bathroom were badly in need of updating (and a little classic character). The kitchen, only six feet wide, suffered years of neglect during the time the apartment served as a rental.

Krys’s DIY project is almost too internet-friendly to be true. An IKEA hack? That’s millennial pink? All for the low cost of $300? Think of all the extra money she saved for avocado toasts and Netflix subscriptions and other things millennials enjoy! In all seriousness, Krys’s project is majorly cool, relatively inexpensive and after a bit of trial and error, pretty easy.

It’s surprising what a difference a nice bathroom makes. Unfortunately, many renters (like myself), have to work with whatever setup our leased homes offer. Usually this is a very standard, neutral, easy-to-clean but very boring space, with minimal function — certainly nothing special. Luckily, there are a few things that you can do to make a bathroom slightly more useful for your needs, and even slightly more stylish.

Let’s talk tapestries. They’re the perfect solution for that big empty wall, for helping sound proof thin walls, for replacing headboards when headboards aren’t an option, and they’re typically pretty renter-friendly art. Most can be hung with a simple dowel rod and a nail or two. Maybe you just inherited a piece from your grandmother, or stumbled upon a brilliantly patterned textile at the flea market, or maybe you made your own wall hanging.

Carleen’s kitchen didn’t offer much in the way of counter space but it did provide her with lots of poorly laid green tile, which, shockingly enough, wasn’t much consolation. She decided that she’d had enough and set about renovating her kitchen. A mix of professional help, a handy husband and some smart IKEA finds help her put together a chic new kitchen with plenty more counter space to boot.