Our readers don’t just come to us for home inspiration – they also share their own projects with us, bring the inspiration around full circle. Jude emailed us this sofa transformation that we think is a great lesson in patience and DIY chutzpah.Jude’s small apartment requires a slim sofa, one that is no longer than 56 inches.

With some rehabs you want to strip away all the years and start over with clean, modern space. With others, you want stay true to the home’s original design period. For those times, there are stores out there that offer antique and reproduction hardware and lighting. These are a few of our favorites. House of Antique Hardware This Portland, Oregon-based company stocks everything from door and window hardware to lighting and electrical supplies ranging from Colonial to Mid-Century.

When most people see wood pallets they think only of garbage or maybe even kindling. When Olga saw the pallet pictured above she saw possibility. She lugged the pallet home and set about finding a way to use it. After it sat in a corner for a month, Olga finally gave the pallet new life.The cracks, knots and other markings on the pallet were part of what Olga loved about it. So when it came time to make use of the pallet in her home, Olga didn’t want to change the character of it too much.

Mekenzie was dreaming of the Restoration Hardware Versailles chair for her basement but at almost $2400 it was out of her price range. Like a true DIYer, Mekenzie decided to mock up her own version of the chair using this tiki chair as a base…The first step in Mekenzie’s makeover was applying a custom blended gray paint over the chair’s original finish.

When I shot Andrew’s Vintage Berwyn Bungalow house tour, the kitchen was in the early stages of being torn apart for a rehab. It took almost two years but Andrew finally put the finishing touches on his new kitchen and is ready to share it with the world. Before I show you the “after” photos, let’s take one more look at the dated old kitchen that Andrew inherited when he bought his house: Those cabinets! That ceiling fan! Oof!

Back in 2009, FLOR launched this Lincoln Park location as their first foray into brick and mortar retail. Since then, FLOR has launched stores in a number of other cities across the country. Now they’re turning their attention back to home base and giving their Chicago store a new look. The new layout feels more modern while also giving the store a homier vibe.  Gone are the old white concrete floors and walls lined with tiny samples.

While Anna’s mid-century house has a fair share of closets, they weren’t exactly outfitted to store much stuff. Faced with the predicament of storing two young boys’ clothes and other belongings, Anna decided to build out the closet herself.A lot of us have faced a similar problem with our own closets — one measly shelf and a long hanging clothes bar do not exactly make the base for an organized closet.

With a $20 price tag and simple design, the Lack table from IKEA is just screaming for customization. Ssshh … listen carefully. Can you hear it? Please, dear DIY diva, take me from a cookie cutter cheap-o table to a beautiful, one-of-a-kind piece of furniture! Lucky for you, little table, Lizzie heard your pleas. Oh, humble IKEA Lack coffee table. How we do love to see what clever DIYers can do to enhance your simple little design.

We just love simple solutions to customize everyday items. In this case, the item in question is a simple roller blind. Take a look at how Steph dressed up the blind after the jump…Steph, from BirdHouse, painted this tree silhouette on the IKEA Enje roller blind in her bathroom. This is a fun way to create a one-of-a-kind window treatment. If you like the project but think you lack the artist’s touch, you could also stencil a pattern onto a roller blind.

Jen and her boyfriend recently moved into this standard grad school apartment and immediately got to work making it their own. This before and after is a true testament to the fact than even the most boring of apartments can be spruced up with a bit of DIY know-how.It only took two weekends for Jen and her boyfriend, Tim, to put together this stylish living room.

We’re all very familiar with these little black office chairs. They’re super convenient for a home office but they’re certainly lacking in the style department. Take a cue from Mindy and dress up an office chair with just a little fabric and a staple gun…Melinda Ann had actually relegated this chair to the donation pile, where it was destined for a one-way trip to Goodwill. And then, at the last minute, inspiration struck.

Jen emailed us a link to the office she dressed up for her friend Natasha. As a rising star in fashion PR, Natasha needs a space that exudes simple style. So over a weekend, Jen turned Natasha’s sad space into a stylish office. AFTER! Jen describes herself on her blog as a DIY enthusiast who is “gradually turning into an Asian Martha Stewart”. So it’s no surprise that when her friend Natasha needed help dressing up her fashion PR office, she turned to Jen.

The stairs in Andrea and Cliff’s house were looking a bit dated. Wrapped in berber carpet, they looked more like a giant cat scratcher than the beautiful floating stairs the couple hand in mind. With some hard work and a lot of sanding, the crafty couple updated the stairs while also creating a more open, airy feel to the space.Andrea and Cliff emailed in to share their stair makeover and the minute we saw what an undertaking it was (and what a difference they made!), we had to share it.

I’ve been trying to come up with a pun on this door-to-bookcase project — you know, something like opening the door to a new bookcase or some such cleverness. But, well, as you can tell by that sentence alone, i have not had much success. So let’s just make it simple: this project is totally rad!I love a project that re-imagines stuff that would have otherwise been bound for the junk heap. And Gail, from the blog My Repurposed Life, is the queen of such projects!

When Ashley’s aunt brought her this old rocking chair, which she had rescued from a dumpster, it was an ugly sight to behold. Still, Ashley was confident she could give it new life and, $10 later, she did just that…The first thing Ashley did was peel the fabric and foam off the chair. After removing the fabric, Ashley sanded the chair frame, then primed and painted it. Once the paint had dried, Ashley replaced the chair foam and then applied new fabric, using small finishing nails.

I bought these bar stools at Target about ten years ago, when my husband and I were renting an apartment with a little breakfast counter. Since then, I’ve used them in my studio, where they’ve gotten beat up and paint splashed. I moved out of my studio but I’m still not quite ready to part with the stools so I decided to give them new life…It was immediately evident when I brought the stools into our little apartment that I would need to cut them down.

Do you remember the days when televisions came in these giant wood consoles? Now that we hang our flat screens on the wall, it may be hard to imagine that televisions were furniture. Nowadays these old console sets end up getting set out for the garbage man. Here’s a clever re-use of one of these anachronisms:Beckie, from the site Infarrantly Creative, picked up an old console television the night before trash day and turned it into a cute new table!

This chair looks like it’s on its last leg. Um, literally. The leg on this chair had rusted through and the whole thing was bent out of shape. No wonder it was sitting out on the curb, waiting for the garbage collector. But wait! This chair hasn’t quite reached the end of its life just yet …Rachelle, from Adventures in Creating, saw this old metal chair on the curb and decided to rescue it from its garbage heap fate.

The “before” shot of this bathroom looks like the kind of room I’ve seen a million times. A plain old bathroom, nothing unusual, perhaps a little dated, and definitely boring. Oh, but this bathroom is anything but boring now…See, what did I tell you? The “after” is anything but boring! When I saw the changes that Percy has been making to his home over on Design*Sponge I had a moment of design envy. How can one dude be so unbelievably creative?

This kitchen seems to be suffering from a bit of a brown overload. With the combination of wood cabinetry and hardwood floors, plus the black appliances and dark green paint, this kitchen is looking a little dark. Jessie agreed with that assertion and decided to lighten up the room:Isn’t it amazing what a little white paint can do? Of course, it’s a lot more than just a little white paint at work here.

Sometimes I think that, with the power of paint and elbow grease, there’s never a need to buy anything new again. And seeing a before and after like this one just lends support to that theory. That something so old and battered can be freshened up to look so beautiful gives me hope that there’s plenty of life left in a lot of old things (myself included).When Terri, over at Crafty Workin Mommy, brought these two chairs home from a garage sale, her husband thought she was crazy.

The red and white tile, the white laminate vanity, the past-its-prime bathtub and tile… this bathroom needs an update. Enter designer Jason Wong to save the day!That after photo is totally inspiring, right? As if replacing the vanity and sink weren’t improvement enough, adding the window to that area really opens up the space (and adds some very appreciated sunlight where it’s needed most – at the mirror).

When Tiffany found this chair she was immediately in love. What she didn’t love was the scratchy, ripped fabric covering it. As we all know, DIY upholstery projects can be daunting so Tiffany decided to leave the recovering to the professionals. To the auto body professionals, that is.Upon the recommendation from a friend, Tiffany, from the blog Living Green with Glamour, decided to take her old chair to a local auto repair shop to have it reupholstered.

One look at this kitchen sends me back to the early 1980s, when I was a wee lad ambling about the kitchen in my parent’s Indiana home. This kitchen reminds me a lot of my childhood kitchen, complete with dark wood paneling and yellow appliances. A lot has changed since the 80s… and now it’s time for this kitchen to get with the times, too.Looking at the before photo, it would be easy to think that this kitchen was beyond help.

When Casey bought a condo in the Minneapolis loft building where he had been renting, he transferred his luxurious style to his new home. Luckily for us, he had the foresight to snap some before pics so we could witness the transformation …Casey’s Loft Life house tour was a highlight of my summer house tours last year. When I heard from Casey that he was moving to a new, larger unit in the same building, I was anxious to see how he would transfer his style to his new home.

When looking at the many before and after posts here at Apartment Therapy, it’s easy to think that everyone makes these amazing transformations over a long weekend. Truth be told, most of the projects we see take much longer. This dining room makeover, for instance, took four years of collecting appropriate pieces to go from bland to grand.Elisabeth over at bova goods developed this new look for her dining room over a span of four years.

We’ve seen the transformational power of paint here at Apartment Therapy many, many times. And yet I am still awed when I see that, with a little paint on the cabinetry, an entire kitchen can be transformed …Kimberly, over at Restoration House, has slowly been rehabbing her kitchen over the past five years. She had already added a backsplash, switched out the countertop, and traded out the old appliances for new stainless steel units.

This poor mirror. Naked as the day it rolled off the assembly line, with its exposed edges, cracked with age, right out there in plain daylight for all the world to see! Something must be done about this!Faced with naked, builder-grade mirrors in her bathroom, Amanda over at The Ivy Cottage Blog, did what any adventurous DIYer would do — she made frames for them!

When I bought these mismatched flower pots at the end of the season last year, they were so hugely discounted that I purchased them without a plan for their use. After a long winter to ponder it, I finally pulled the pots out of storage, gave them a little makeover, and put them to use.It’s not that these pots were ugly to begin with, they just didn’t match anything in my house. Spray paint to the rescue!

When my friend Rachel was given this chair — a secondhand hand-me-down from her sister — she was able to look past the ratty old upholstery and worn frame and see its true potential. With a little paint and new upholstery, the chair looks brand new.Says Rachel of the chair makeover: “I got this chair as a secondhand hand-me-down. My sister gave it to me after she had been given it from her older, quirky neighbor who she calls “Mr.

Getting the most out of a small bedroom closet can be a challenge in spatial recognition akin to playing a game of Tetris. So what if you discovered that you could expand your small closet to create a big, walk-in with enough room for even the most avid shoe buyer’s collection?I am stuck with one small closet that I share with my husband so when I saw this post detailing the expansion of a closet over at Life in the Fun Lane I was insanely jealous!

When I saw this lonely little luggage rack pushed to the back of a Salvation Army store, I felt sorry for it. Unloved and discarded by its former owner, I could see past its current beat up and water stained condition and to the gorgeous little thing it could become. Under my tender loving hands, this luggage rack has been granted a new lease on life.The quickest way to modernize this luggage rack was to spray paint it.

Ah the power of a few coats of paint! This little side table looks like it’s way past its prime but with a little elbow grease, sanding, and a fun new paint color, it is transformed!The sunny yellow paint color transformed this table from a scarred old relic to a shiny new treasure!Denese at Plum Life blogged about this table makeover. The table itself has been in Denese’s possession for some time, hence its well used appearance in the before photo.

Closets are often the spaces that get neglected in even the most stylish and organized of homes. As I get ready to start my spring cleaning, I’m pulling some inspiration from Sara’s coat closet transformation.After seeing what Sara over at Russet Street Reno did with paint and an old vegetable bin, I’m not surprised to see that she was able to transform her coat closet from plain to cute with a just a little color.

Faced with two sets of mismatched cabinets in her otherwise dreamy kitchen, Alana decided to paint the lower deck of cabinetry to complement the upper deck. After a lengthy color selection process, Alana dived into the project and the results are gorgeous!The upper deck cabinets in Alana’s kitchen are the vintage windowpane variety that were original to her bungalow — but the lower cabinets are all new.

After living with this bedroom for awhile, AJ decided it was a little drab. He started the room’s makeover by changing out the bedding and it all went fabulous from there…AJ blogged about his recent bedroom update at Handjobs (For the Home). The overhaul has been an ongoing process. AJ started with a new bedspread, which went a long way in improving the room. But he didn’t stop there.