Bedroom refresh: the big reveal!

 Back in February, anticipating having to spend a lot more time in my bedroom, I posted plans for a little bedroom spruce-up. And for the past seven months or so, I've been slowly working away at it. The pandemic put a bit of a monkey wrench in my plans at the start, since IKEA was closed and they weren't delivering large items. And then building the cabinets, attaching the legs, securing everything to the wall, painting, organising the insides, and sealing the finish was a pretty long process. All worth it, I think! 

First, the desk area:

Before

After

I finally managed to get into an IKEA and buy the IVAR cabinets I needed. I bought legs online. Here's how it looks with the doors closed:

     

Before

 

After

Inside, I created a vanity area on the left and shoe storage on the right. I placed the extension lead where the TV, DVD player, Dyson, and vanity light plug in underneath so I could access all the plugs. I left one for my hairdryer, which is stored in that picnic basket up above :)

     

Vanity

 

Hidden Shoe Storage

I did a slight whitewash treatment to the upper cabinets to get rid of the yellow tone of the pine wood and added copper knobs. As you can see, I painted the lower half of the wall to match the cabinets, and extended it around the corner and painted the laundry basket and stool to match (sadly, I couldn't paint the Dyson air purifier, or else I would have!).

I decided to give the bland white wardrobe a bit of an update, and covered it in wallpaper to coordinate with the walls and cabinets. I used double stick tape layered over masking tape, so everything is completely reversible if I ever get sick of it. 

And finally, the bed area got a makeover, though I did change my plans and decided that a shiplap wall would be expensive and time consuming, not to mention a two-man job. First, I bought myself a new headboard, which made a huge difference straight away. I painted behind the headboard a terracotta colour and then decided to top it with a little archway for the drawing up above. I thought I might run a little shelf across, but I might just keep it simple and leave it like this. 

The old black Billy bookcases got covered in wallpaper to brighten them up a bit, and the base of the bed got covered in faux grasscloth peel and stick wallpaper. Voila!

     

Before

After

Of course, there are still some details left, such as a new rug and a makeover for the other wardrobe. Overall, I'm very pleased with how it came out, and I was able to do some reorganising and clearing out at the same time, so this can truly be a peaceful space to spend my days...and nights!

How I lost weight (content warning: this post is about weight loss)

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago about how I was attempting to lose weight. Now, I am a mere 300 grams shy of having lost 10 kilograms (i.e. 22 pounds or 1.5 stone) since the beginning of May (just over 11 weeks), which is a reasonable amount of time. In the past, I've tried all kinds of diets and programmes for both health and weight loss, including the Whole 30 diet, Weight Watchers, and plain old calorie counting. About seven years ago, I lost a stone on Weight Watchers, but I remember it being really hard and I was constantly referring to booklets and charts to find points, not to mention that my memory of it is just a constant feeling of being hungry.

Other times when I tried simple calorie counting, I just didn't lose weight and stopped trying. I heard that Weight Watchers had yet another new system and was interested, but then the pandemic happened and it's actually rather difficult to figure out how to do the online WW. That's when I decided to try something new.

I bought my first Fitbit five years ago because my siblings all had one and were competing for steps against one another, and I wanted in on the fun. Once I kicked all their butts, I stopped for a while, then started back up again, but lost the dang thing so I bought a new one in the same price range (the Inspire HR, about 100 euro) and was surprised to find that the new one did a lot more stuff than the old one!

Since I was already doing a lot of exercise, I knew that I would need to change my eating habits if I wanted to lose weight, or to be more precise, be smaller. But honestly I just didn't want to have to do a lot of mental work or futzing around. I decided to give into the marketing ads and try Fitbit Premium, especially since there was a free three-month trial.

I set a weight goal for myself, and then I told the Fitbit app how hard I wanted the weight loss process to be; the harder it is, the more weight you lose. The choices (with calorie deficits in parenthesis) were Easier (-250), Medium (-500), Kinda hard (-750), and Harder (-1,000). I went with 'Kinda hard' because I am only five feet, one inch tall and I think a 1,000 calorie daily deficit would be detrimental to my health, physical and mental.

Here's where it gets interesting. Obviously, you wear the Fitbit all day and it monitors your steps and heart rate. Based on your information, it calculates how many calories you are burning throughout the day. When you eat, you enter it into the app. Most foods are in their database, but you can add custom foods. The app constantly updates and tells you how many calories you have left to stay within your daily allotment, so you don't have to do any maths or think about it too much -- you just enter in what you ate. On more active days, you can eat more; if you are less active, you can eat less.

I can eat whatever I want as long as I have burned the calories. And I know this sounds like one of those weight loss ads, but for me it's really important. If I want to eat more, I just have to exercise more, and that can take many forms. For me, it's usually running, walking, or cycling. You'd be surprised how many calories you can burn in a short amount of time. I've literally wanted to eat something, looked at my Fitbit, and then walked around the block so I could have it.

Having said that, there are some foods that have really gotten me through, which I'll share with you:
1. Slimbos or Slimbos-style buns. They are about 100 calories and I have one every morning for breakfast. They're also great in place of regular burger buns.

2. Eating a protein-heavy breakfast. I generally have two eggs and a Slimbo for breakfast at 8:30am every day and then I don't eat again until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. As a person with dodgy blood sugar issues, those two eggs keep me from getting the shakes later on.

3. Feeding cravings with vegetables or fruit first, then deciding whether I really need the thing I'm craving. If I'm feeling like I need something, I might slice up a courgette and sautee it in some spray oil and garlic or eat a sliced tomato with pepper and salt, then evaluate whether I still need the thing my brain told me I wanted. Usually the answer is no. Basically, 80% of my diet consists of vegetables now.

4. Some fruits are surprisingly low in calories compared to others. I've been eating a lot of mangos, but some melons are crazy low in calories. I've never been a huge chocolate fan, so for me, if I'm craving something sweet, something fruity will usually do me. But having to enter in calories for my food has made me aware that, for example, 100g of fresh pineapple is about 100 calories, 100g of fresh mango is only 60, but 100g of gaia melon is only 25. If I'm cutting it tight at the end of the day and it's there, I'll go for the melon.

5. A little of something is usually enough. Before, I'd just eat past the point of full, regardless of what it was. Now, I've realised that a mini ice cream gets me over the craving hump as well as a full-sized one.

6. Alcohol not only makes me hungry, but as my inhibitions fall, so does my willpower. Over the past three months, nearly every day I've gone over my calorie budget involved alcohol, and not just the alcohol itself, but the fact that after a couple of drinks I want to eat everything in sight. Just something I have been trying to overcome and have no solution for, but consider yourself warned.

7. Speaking of alcohol, some are more caloric than others. I love the new hard seltzers that you can get now because they're only about 100 calories per can. But equally, I have found that I'm just as happy with gin and seltzer with lemon or lime and it's a lot cheaper. Being mindful of my calories has made me more mindful of my drinking, which, to be honest, I needed. Turns out, it doesn't solve life's problems and when I drink less, I enjoy it more when I do.

8. Shirataki noodles have been a great discovery! They are glassy noodles that you can get in the asian food shop and they are ridiculously low in calories. You can nearly bulk buy them because they keep for a long time, which is nice.

9. I used to be a 'full fat or gtfo' kind of person. But yes, now I eat low fat cheese slices and low fat Greek yogurt. It's not always a big difference, but sometimes it really is. Once I'm at my goal weight and not working with a 750 calorie deficit every day, I'll probably go back to full fat. Or maybe I won't.

And that's the thing. I've been amazed at how used to all of this I've become. Eating less food means I don't need to eat as much food. Often, I don't even use up my calories because at a certain point I can now ask myself WHY I want the thing and I know that if I just hold off, I will likely forget about it and then my brain moves on to something else. Or I just don't miss things I used to have all the time. For example, I used to put a tonne of butter on my toast. Now, I use either 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon per slice and I don't eat my toast wishing it had more butter on it. I just don't.

But the bottom line for me is the way that the Fitbit allows me to easily see my intake and output so that I can plan my food (or my exercise). And that makes me feel like I have complete control and that I can eat whatever I want if I'm organised about it.

The thing that's made the biggest difference in terms of seeing changes in my body has been adhering to a strict exercise schedule. Monday to Friday at lunchtime, I exercise. That's my time for me that I carve out (unless something unusual is going on that day). I started doing strength training sometimes at lunch and then going for a run in the evenings after work, which means I can run for longer. But unless I'm sick, I exercise, and even if I'm sick, I'll usually at least be able for a walk. It has become habit and I'm enjoying how much better at it I'm getting. Over the past three months, I have gone from week 1 of the couch to 5k to being able to run nearly 7 kilometres without stopping. I can feel myself getting stronger. My mental health has vastly improved and I'm getting more fresh air and sunshine. It sounds really cliché but I do have so much more energy and when I'm tired, it feels like a physical tiredness, not a mental one like I used to have.

I will say this, though. I'm very privileged to have been able to purchase a good quality used treadmill when we moved into our house. Living in Ireland (especially when I was under strict quarantine) means it rains a lot and going outside to exercise is often not appealing. Gyms are expensive and for me they are a big time suck, having to pack the bag and futz with toiletries and lockers. Having a treadmill in my house means I can pop a film, podcast, tv programme, etc on my phone and take a run or walk at any hour of the day.

But you don't need a treadmill or really any equipment to exercise in your home. I regularly use youtube for strength training workouts, ballet classes, yoga, and cardio workouts in my living room for free. No equipment needed!

A lot of people limit carbs or go high protein, eliminate certain foods or drinks and all of that, but I am just too lazy for that shit and I like being able to eat whatever I want. I like that  I can change the setting from 'Kinda hard' to 'Easy' any time. I like that I don't have to think about points or nutritional value or anything about the food -- just how many calories it has. And if I eat more than the app tells me I can once in a while, it is honestly not the end of the world. Before, when I overate, the guilt just piled up from the days and weeks before. Now, I don't panic and I just try to take a couple of extra walks in the following days. My total goal is two stone, and I'm 3/4 of the way there. These last few pounds are not going to melt off as easily as the first 20, but it's ok because I know that if I just do my best, I'll get there eventually.

I have no idea if this is at all helpful. I'm happy to answer any questions if there's anything anyone wants to know. 

Thoughts on losing weight (Content warning)

Content warning: Weight loss, body shaming, etc.

Apart from my short stature (5'1"), my physical person has always been decidedly average, which is perfectly ok with me. I was never the prettiest, the fastest, the thinnest, or the most graceful person in school. I was both a tomboy who played in the dirt, ran around fields, woods and streams, caught frogs and other unfortunate reptiles and insects, and a girlie girl who danced ballet at least three days a week for ten years. I wasn't much for contact sports, but on any spring, summer, or autumn day you might have found me playing tennis in the condo complex we lived in, or racquetball with my dad, and when I wasn't playing tennis, I was swimming my heart out in the neighborhood pool, cycling around the complex, or rollerskating. In winter, I was an avid skier. Later, I took up running, made trails in the woods with a weed-wacker and a hatchet for fun, and my friends and I tried to learn volleyball (we sucked).

My point is, I was always a physically active person growing up. But at the same time, I always thought I was fat.

When I was about five years old, my mother was helping me get dressed and she stopped, in horror. "You have cellulite on your stomach!" she said.
"What's cellulite?" I asked. She grabbed the layer of fat on my stomach, and I could see little dips in my skin.
"That!" she said, appalled. I didn't know what it meant or why I had it. But I sure knew from that moment that I should be ashamed of it. And I was, sadly. This was the late 70s -- the era of thin and slim. Like a lot of girls, I remember trying to diet when my age was still in the single digits, reading women's magazines to get the inside scoop on shedding pounds.

I was already dieting when this photo was taken.

I love my mom and I know she herself has battled the same issues, as did her mother. She lives under the foot of patriarchy that oppresses all of us. When she brought me to nutritionist appointments to talk about how I could lose weight, I wanted to go. I wanted answers. I wanted the magical formula that would make me thin. Except...

I was thin. 

The problem with an eating disorder mindset like the one my mother and the majority of women are raised on is that you are never thin enough. (Or, if you are thin enough, then the threat of regaining the weight is a constant threat, hovering over you at all times.) So for nearly five decades, I have lived with a constant, inescapable feeling that I cannot be happy with my appearance. Ever. Because there's always a few more pounds to lose. 

Finding feminism taught me other ways of thinking about women's bodies. Punk taught me about alternative aesthetics. Riot Grrrls showed me that fat can be cool as fuck. It's been a very slow and gradual process, but I see so much beauty in bodies of all types. Genuinely.

Me? When I look in the mirror, all of that insight and inspiration instantly vanishes. Above a certain size, my self-confidence shuts down. I analyze every photo. I stop thinking of myself as a sexual being. I stop thinking anything positive about myself. If someone tells me I look nice, I cringe and I definitely don't believe them. I can only think of that unattainable body I'm not living in, the 'real' me that I could be if I weren't so shit. I look at photos taken when I was thinner and hate myself even more.

Add to that, in my late forties, my aging face, the sagging areas of my body that never sagged before. The fact that my metabolism has slowed. My hair isn't as thick and shiny as it was. I have melasma around my eyes. The list is long.

This is not a unique story. Lots of women reading this will probably be thinking, "Yep. Same. What's your point?" In a recent Zoom call, I told some school friends that I'd gained 30 pounds (over 2 stone/13.6 kilos) over the past couple of years. The announcement was met with a sad, awkward, pitiful silence until I added hopefully that I was trying to lose it.

I'm trying to untangle about three issues all at once, I think, so please bear with me.

Genetically speaking, I'm not prone to thinness. Culturally speaking, I was raised on large portions and convenient junk food. While my mom was taking me to the nutritionist, our presses were stuffed with sugared cereals, mac and cheese, sugar sodas, all manner of cakes, several varieties of crisps, double stuff oreos -- you name it. So for my entire life, I've had to wrestle with an extreme push and pull, fighting the starve and purge cycle and the control/shame cycle it comes with.

At a certain point, I said fuck that. I tried to be more relaxed about food and really ditch food guilt. If I'm going to eat, I decided, I refuse to tarnish the amazing experience of eating with shame. Who wants to look back on a party where you had a great time with friends and take away from a lovely event by thinking, "I was bad for eating so much cheese, though." Then your mind pushes the dancing, the chats, the feeling of connection to the back and the food guilt obscures those memories. Instead, I taught myself to say, "I had such a good time, and the cheese was so amazing, I couldn't stop eating it." I try to replace the shame with gratitude. I mean, how lucky that I can eat loads of cheese! What a fucking great thing! Once I took that power away from food, I stopped having as much of an emotional connection to it. I felt more free.

Losing food guilt has not made me feel better about my body, however. And not being a person who turns to food for comfort doesn't mean I don't consume more calories than I burn. But I really thought it would be easier to change how I felt about my body than it would be to lose weight.

Trying to juggle a job with a long commute, full-on pro-choice activism (and some other activism on the side), renovating a house on a tight budget (ie, not being able to hire builders) and coping with the illness and deaths of my in-laws took its toll on me, starting roughly in the summer of 2016. I barely made it through each milestone, but I survived. We moved into the house. We won the referendum. Eventually, I bowed out of activism. The fallout from my in-laws' deaths became more bearable. But I still struggled to process everything that happened. So I fell into a pattern of work, dinner, couch, bed. Near daily drinking. Lots of snacks. Hiding. Not feeling motivated to change. Thinking about everything I should have done differently. Wishing my life were different. Wishing I was different.

But if we want things to change, we have to do something differently. And eventually, I started the process of repairing myself. I got a new job working with really lovely people in a much better location and working from home three days a week (currently 5 days, of course). I started running again, in stops and starts (mostly due to illness). I started to want to reconnect with people again. I started to forgive myself for not being perfect. Gratitude started creeping back in. I started to feel gradually better, like I was emerging from a shell, even though I hadn't lost any weight.

If you think I'm going to say that I felt better about my body, you're wrong. I still looked in the mirror and shuddered. For a month, I went running five days a week and my jeans were just as tight. I weighed myself and that's when I realised that at some point in the course of four years, I'd put on over two stone.

It turns out that for me, it's easier to lose weight than accept and love my body the way it was. I hate saying that. I hate that it's true. Accepting myself at 160 pounds was an impossible burden that I could not carry. And I am well aware that 160 pounds at 5'1" is not huge.

After three weeks of using my fitbit to calculate my calorie intake/output, I've lost over half a stone (8 pounds/3.8kg). While I'm not starving myself, I am walking that fine line between having a plan and having an obsession. I find myself looking at the calorie tracker, watching to see if the available calories went up. I am never over, always under. I resist the urge to weigh myself more than once a week. I resist the urge to starve myself. Still, I resist the urge to eat cheese.

I have failed. Fat phobia won. All the programming of patriarchy and women's magazines and, you know, everything, was more powerful than my feminism, when it came to how I feel about my own body. Other people can be beautiful at any size, but not me. I'm not allowed. It would require a level of re-programming I'm not capable of when I look at myself. So here I am, trying to walk the line without falling over a precipice. I just hope that this time, I can find some point of satisfaction because my body (like everyone's) is aging and I want to experience what it's like to love my body while I can still use it. I don't want to look back on a life of self-hatred.

I have a chronic case of the runs

I'm grateful to say that I had a happy and active 70s and 80s childhood, full of bike rides, rollerskating, swimming, tennis, skiing, and various other kid hijinx. I also fell in love with ballet from my first lesson at age three and danced up to four times a week for nearly a decade.

But running without stopping on purpose? No thank you. In fact, I didn't know I had asthma until I had to run a mile for the Presidential fitness test in junior high school. I remember crying as I finished the last lap around the track.

Then, one day a couple of years later I decided to just try again. Just to see. With no one watching, no one to see me fail, I managed to run exactly one mile. Well fuck, I thought, may as well join the track team. I loved being on the team, but I hated the meets. I dreaded them so much that I only went to two of them and I came in dead last both times. But running through the trails in the woods behind the school was idyllic. Perfect. Peaceful, yet exhilarating.

I have been an irregularly regular runner for over 30 years. Even though I'm not particularly great at it, I just enjoy the fact that I can do it. That no matter how long I go without doing it, it doesn't take long to get back in the swing.

Running isn't a great way to lose weight, for me, anyway. It's kind of crap for that, for whatever reason.

For the last ten years, however, I run for one reason and one reason only: to remind myself that I'm alive. Is it the only or even the best way to feel alive? Nah, of course not. I don't have any lack of gratitude for the fact that I'm relatively young and healthy. But having watched three people say their last good-byes in recent years, going for a run is my way of fully experiencing my body. Being able to run for 5 or 10k doesn't mean I have a long life ahead of me -- I'm not dumb. Anything can happen.

What I'm trying to say is narcissistic and also cliché. I'm not sure why I'm even writing this down. But I have noticed that over the past couple of weeks, running has been there for me, just as it always has been. Every time I run, I feel everything else melt away. I feel in control. I feel intense gratitude. Addictive gratitude. It's like my favourite song, 'Monument' by Mirah: "If you feel an emptiness, if you want to hide, think about the blood that's pumping, keeping you alive."

When I run, it's a huge 'fuck you' to every other problem in my life. A 'fuck you' to death. A 'fuck you' to age. A 'fuck you' to my future, when, I'm sure, at some stage, I'll have to give it up. But until then, I'm going to do it because I can.

Angela's TOP TEN home decor-related content creators

I don't know about you, but I'm starting to get sick of watching regular TV shows and films. And spending so much time inside my house means I'm lookin' around, thinking about making some changes. Ok, so I'm like that pretty much all the time, even when the country isn't on lockdown. That's why I follow approximately ONE MILLION Youtube channels.

Don't have a house? No problem! You don't need a house of your own to enjoy home improvement content, first, because it is SO relaxing and SO gratifying to watch but secondly because a lot of the content is renter-friendly. Can we go to the hardware store for supplies right now? No. Can we order what we need online? Maybe. But does that have to keep us from dreaming of having a nicer space? HELL NO!

Right now, the amount of content out there is overwhelming, and who has time to weed through it all to get to the good stuff? Here's where I come in! I've done it so you don't have to!

1. Daniel Kanter aka Manhattan Nest (Instagram and blog, respectively)

I've been following Daniel since 2010 when he first started as a student, renting a small apartment in New York and then a second place in Brooklyn. The transformations he accomplished on a tight budget in a small space are impressively inventive. And then he reversed everything when he moved out! But then, THEN he bought a lovely fixer-upper in upstate New York. THEN he bought another fixer-upper down the street. And he does freelance projects also!

Recently Daniel started ramping up his Instagram activity and LET ME TELL YOU - His Instagram stories are everything: funny, interactive, informative, and so, so, soooooo gratifying. I know you'll love him as much as I do. But we warned: his Instastories are ADDICTIVE. You will be checking in every few hours to see how he's getting on. You will literally long to watch paint dry, and you'll love it. And for the dog lovers, he has two rescue dogs that feature prominently!

2. Dashner Design and Restoration Youtube channel

This.... guy -- I don't even know what his name is or what his face looks like -- has one of the most soothing, comforting voices of all time. Based in Minneapolis, he restores (mostly) mid-century furniture that he gets from secondhand shops. He also has an Instagram account, but for me, the Youtube channel is where it's at. You'd think that watching someone strip finish off furniture narrated in a semi-monotone voice would be boring, but it's anything but! We watch his videos in an absolutely entranced state.

3. Alexandra Gater's Youtube channel

This Toronto, Canada native is just a joy to watch. Her style might be on the feminine side for some people, but certainly, the projects she features on her channel are extremely adaptable to anyone's taste. Her channels is particularly helpful to anyone living in a small space, which, let's face it, is most of us! But really it's her cheery yet sincere demeanor and down-to-earth delivery that makes the channel enjoyable to watch. Sometimes Youtubers can be a little... hard to watch, especially (sorry!) people from North America. But Alexandra is a study in poise and charm!

4. Alexandra Gater's Make My Space Work Youtube channel

As someone who works from home, I was delighted to see Alexandra Gater's new channel, Make My Space Work, where she makes over the workspaces of entrepreneurs in the Toronto area. They aren't always work-from-home spaces, but they're always fantastic with lots of great ideas that anyone can try in their own space.

5. HouzzTV 

Houzz.com is a website where homeowners can connect with designers, vendors, and retail outlets on renovation projects. It's actually an amazing resource because you can find people in your own area, and use Houzz tools to collaboratively design spaces remotely. And I know this because of the Houzz Youtube Channel, which, while it exists as a marketing tool, is also great watching. Their videos are as professionally produced as any television show. And they've a neat series where celebrities do surprise makeovers for friends and family members. If you want to watch drastic, tear-down-walls renovations, check out HouzzTV. There are videos that feature cool homes that haven't been heavily renovated too.

6. The Lowes Youtube channel

 Lowes is an American hardware store -- kind of like B&Q but bigger and, it must be said, much cooler. They actually sponsor a lot of great content creators, but their own Youtube channel is a bastion of great and useful videos. My hands-down favourite series is The Weekender with Monica Mangin -- the premise is that Monica and the homeowner(s), with the help of a carpenter, transform one space in a home in one weekend and five DIY projects (using products from Lowes, of course!). There are 4 fantastic Weekender series (it turns out series is both singular AND plural? who knew?).

Another Lowes series we really enjoyed was Our Little Warehome, where a family in Panama City, Florida turn an 80-year-old warehouse into a residential home. But there are so many other great playlists in the Lowes channel, like Garden ideas, DIY Painting tutorials, really cool tutorials on turning boring doors and walls into architectural features, kitchen idea videos, bathroom ideas, and lots more, especially for DIY how-tos.

7. Apartment Therapy website and Youtube channel

Apartment Therapy is great for everything from IKEA hacks, house tours (specifically cool stuff that people have done with very small spaces), house plant tips, organizing tips, cooking tutorials, and design inspo of all kinds.

8. Mr. Kate Youtube channel

I guess you could say that I'm an old-school 'creative weirdo', which is what Kate, aka Mr. Kate, calls her followers. It's been pretty wild to watch the channel go from a fairly small operation to an interior decoration tour de force. Now joined by husband Joey (and often with new baby Moon in tow), the couple now do lots of different kinds of makeovers, from low budget to $$$. One of the things I love about Kate's approach is that she is always in for a bargain, uses loads of second-hand items, repurposes items inventively, and always adds an element of whimsy to the spaces she decorates. Kate and Joey can be a little on the schmoopy side, but jesus these days I think we could all do with seeing happy people doing things they enjoy together that make other people happy too. I really love when they re-do a follower's space -- it seems to always be on the channel's dime and they're great at choosing people in need, so the makeovers can often be emotional and cathartic. Yes, catharsis from a home decorating channel is a thing.

9. Engineer Your Space Youtube channel

Isabelle LaRue, the host of Engineer Your Space, is probably the most 'real' of all the home-focused channels I follow in the sense that she primarily features solutions she created for her own space, and the apartments she has featured are very ordinary, average apartments that many people will have experience with. Therefore, all of her ideas are renter-friendly, budget-friendly, maximise space, but they're really inventive! Some of them are nearly magical. But she gives step-by-step instructions that I think anyone could follow. Her style isn't to my taste, but the details of her projects are very customisable.

10. Lone Fox Youtube channel

I have really warmed to Drew Scott, the Lone Fox host. When I first started watching the channel a while back, you could tell that he had some nerves during filming, and his projects don't always turn out as planned or how I would have done them, but I've loved watching him evolve over time and tackle projects in other people's spaces, with great results! Drew does a lot of upcycling, 'thrift flips' and hacks, which is perfect for people on a budget. He just seems like a really nice, humble person and I don't know, there's an underdog quality about him that just makes me want to root for him. But also, he's got nice ideas, too.

Making plans for a bedroom refresh!

Never one to be satisfied, I'm making plans for what the youtubers call a REFRESH of the bedroom!

Bit of a back story: Our house has two bedrooms -- the second bedroom functions as a library, office, and guess bedroom (via sleepsofa). It's a room for Mark's crap, which we clean up whenever guests come to stay. Some day I hope that we'll have decluttered enough to look decent 365 days of the year. But our bedroom is a pretty good size for a 1930s Dublin house, so that's where my desk lives. In the corner. The dark, dark corner.

As some of you know, I got a new job back in October, and come May when my probation is up, I'll be working from home two to three days a week. I have no interest in working in the chaos of the office, but I don't want to be stuck in the corner of my bedroom either! So that got me thinking...

Just out of interest (because it's bonkers), I'll share a photo of what our bedroom looked like after we stripped the wallpaper:

ANYHOO there will be three major elements to the bedroom refresh. First, the desk situation. Here's how it looks now:

You can barely see my desk in that corner! And it gets quite cold under the desk, even when it's warm in the rest of the room. So I've decided to swap the desk and the wardrobe. But ALSO I want to replace my desk, which is currently a very small, white IKEA desk with two shelves above. Once the wardrobe is moved into the corner of the room, I'm going to put a slightly different configuration of this IKEA Svalnas desk/shelving situation next to the window:

The next area that I want to change up is the wall behind the bed. Here's how it looks now:

Lord give me strength that Mark has put that storage thing on the top of that bookcase, but ignore that -- it'll be going away, as will the pile of clothes ;)

As you can see, we have two tall black bookcases on either side of the bed. But the whole thing is kind of blah. So I'd like to do an accent shiplap wall and paint it black, sort of like in this video (except probably real shiplap instead of faux). Shiplap is generally a tongue-in-groove wood cladding. The end product will look a little like the wall in this video:

And then the third change is going to be very dramatic, I think. Because one of us (::cough::cough::not me::cough::) is a bit of a clothes hoarder, storage solutions are always needed. At the moment, I don't like how cluttered this wall is:

First of all, I'm not a particular follower of feng shui, but I have read The Joy Luck Club, so I do know that it's bad juju to have a mirror at the end of your bed, let alone two. Now that we have the mirrored cabinet in the bathroom, I don't really need a full length mirror anymore. And Mark needs more shoe storage. So I've decided to replace everything that's here with 4 Ivar cabinets, an unfinished pine product from IKEA.

The grey press here will go, and the mirror and everything that is in/on the press will go inside the lefthand two cabinets. On the right side, Mark will be able to store shoes and other items.

The Ivar looks like this:

It can be wall mounted or stacked on legs. And the possibilities are endless when it comes to finishes -- it can be left natural or painted or even decoupaged or wallpapered! I've decided to do something a little different. Since I'll be installing four (two by two on legs), I have decided to put a natural finish on the top two cabinets and paint the bottom two. BUT I'm also going to paint that wall the same exact colour on the bottom of the wall, sort of like this effect, except probably not blue and there won't be other furniture involved:

My makeup and jewellery, plus the mirror and the strip of lights will be tucked away inside a cabinet, getting rid of the chaos and clutter.

Other fun things I'll be getting are a new desk lamp, new trash bin, new desk chair, a rug, and I'm sure another couple of items as well :D Stay tuned for progress reports and plans!

Upstairs bathroom big reveal!

Yes. I started my bathroom renovation.... uh.... eons ago! And it's been finished for a couple of months at least, but the way the window and light are, decent photos required another light. Also, a clean bathroom. But today I finally managed to clean the bathroom, get out the light, and take a few shots.

Let's just recall where we started, back in 2016 when we stripped the wallpaper and the flooring:

Pretty grim! And other than adding some lino and getting a new toilet, we didn't do much to it until these renovations. It became sort of a storage room, a place for crap to collect on its way to somewhere else.

Back in April last year, I made SIX blog posts about my renovation plans, which, in retrospect, may have been overkill. But lots of people were very helpful in the decision making process! And I feel like everyone felt personally invested in my bathroom.

Before I go into what I learned and some of the particulars, I'll just post the after photos!

We already had the mirror

Pretty excited about the tissue holder and the marble accessories

The basket on the left holds toilet rolls and
the one on the right is for dirty linen

I decided to paint the radiator and I'm glad I did

The brass shelves came from IKEA

I love how the sinks came out, especially the taps

I'm overjoyed at how the faux pane shower door looks

Inside the cabinet is a double shaver outlet

  

The gorgeous brass hooks (4 of them) came from an antique wardrobe that I renovated last year

Having two sinks still feels ultra luxe. And this sideboard has tonnes of storage

While I like to think of myself as good with the ole DIY, we clearly needed to hire a builder for a good bit of this renovation. A lovely builder, Linas, was recommended to us. He and his colleague did an amazing, amazing job with the plumbing and tiling, ESPECIALLY since this was clearly not a standard job - I bought nearly everything off the internet without a clue what the heck I was doing. This did lead to some foibles, which I'll talk about at the end. 

The dresser is a particular point of pride -- stripping the white paint off without ruining it was a labour of love, particularly since I have little to no previous experience with stripping furniture. I was confident but not certain that there would be lovely wood underneath the white paint. I have to apologise because I had a heck of a time getting a good photo with the window. But the wood is lovely! The builders cut the holes for the sink and installed them. They did an amazing, amazing job. 

The yellow and white Mexican tiles drove Linas just a little bit nuts because they aren't all the same, neither in size nor thickness. I'm not sure he believed me when I told him I didn't want it to look perfect, and that he could just wing it with their placement. 

The black floor tiles are so perfectly done, especially considering how crap the floor was. They even matched the floor tiles to the bath surround tiles. 

Once Linas and his associate were finished with the plumbing and tiling, it was on me to do everything else, which included wallpapering, putting up the wall panels, painting the ceiling, putting up the hooks, towel rails, shelves, toilet roll holder, toilet brush holder, tissue holder, put together and paint the mirrored cabinet, remove and strip the door hardware, and paint the door, wall panels, and trim. It took me ages to get it all done! The walls are like chalk in some places, so I had to be fairly inventive to get everything up and secure (thank god for Sugru!).

Mark kindly painted the ceiling, which we did before we wallpapered. The walls are uneven in ways I didn't think possible, but I wanted the panels and trim to be at least somewhat level, so putting them up was... annoying. I chose a dark, daaaaark green paint for the wall panels and trim. Speaking of annoying, THE WALLPAPER! I miscalculated that situation and had to order more. Twice. And I still had to mismatch the pattern in TWO of the corners. But - no regrets! (Well, I do, but let's pretend I don't.) The decorator's varnish that I put overtop keeps it from being ruined by the moisture, but it also gave it a bit of a sheen so that it almost looks mural-like. I definitely did not try to make the walls even before I put up the wallpaper, so there are lumps and bumps, and I kind of like the imperfections. My whole idea behind this bathroom was that I wanted it to look like it belongs in an old house. I think I achieved that! 

Now, for the other fuck ups. The bath tub tap that I bought on ebay from China was apparently for a more high-pressure water system, so it took Linas hours to install it instead of the 20 minutes it should have taken, but he made it work in the end! 

I also bought a black metal ceiling pendant fixture, which turned out to be unusable because the original fixture didn't have a ground wire. So I ended up having to spray paint a plastic fixture and transfer the wire to it. Of course, then once I did that I realised that I didn't check whether the bulb bit fit into the glass shade we wanted to use. It's hard to see, even in person, but it doesn't sink into the shade how it should. One of these days, I'm hoping to get the glass cut. But for now, it's fine.

But the biggest mistake I made was the electric shower. DID YOU KNOW that there are electric showers that hook up to the mains? I DIDN'T EITHER. So, when the shower was finally up and running we realised that it's a bit temperamental compared to one that hooks up to the tank. If someone flushes, turns on the tap, or uses the dishwasher, the water either shuts off or goes cold, or both! So that's not ideal. When we have the money and the attic is cleared out more than it is now, we plan on swapping out the shower for one that can hook up to the tank. For now, we just have to take precautions. 

I made another expensive mistake when ordering the floor tiles. I wanted the largest black hexagon tiles I could possibly get. There were a few local places that had medium sized ones, but I had my heart set on something really big. But the ones I ordered from a place in Galway were confusingly labeled in an emailed photo, so when they arrived, they turned out to be basically a size that I could have gotten here in Dublin much, much cheaper. So that was a huge bummer that really burned me up until the tiles were in and I decided that the ones I bought actually look great. All's well that ends well. (As you may know, I do not believe that 'everything happens for a reason'.)

I also did kind of a crap job painting the yellow cabinet, so the paint is chipping off in places, but I'll fix that at some point in the future. For the moment, I feel very, very happy every time I walk into this room and it was definitely worth all of the effort. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey!