Apartment Therapy: August Style Cure Day 1

So I've decided to try to fix up our apartment.  We had moved from our gross, bare 3 bedroom to a cramped 1 bedroom for about 5 months.  We thought we could do it, having a 1 1/2 year old sleeping in the same room as us, not accounting for the glaring missing link: Clark is an EXTREMELY light sleeper.  So we ended up storing out dining table and leaving our bed in the living room.  Not exactly homey or comfortable.  It was always a mess no matter how much we tried to keep it clean.  So we upgraded early and moved into a 2 bedroom in the same complex that is almost double the size.  You could say our happiness and overall sense of calm quadrupled. 

Now we've been in this apartment for a few months and most of the walls are still bare.  I really want our home to feel like a home.  Jeremy could really care less but it's a lot to take on on my own. 

I LOVE Apartmenttherapy.com.  I mean, seriously.  So this August they are doing a 30 day style cure.  I thought it might be a fun way to have some accountability and finish out the month on here.  I had an idea way back in our 3 bedroom of trying to decorate our whole apartment with just $100.  I may try it again here.  I know that sounds ridiculous but I enjoy a good old fashioned challenge.  So here goes nothing. 

1. List your favorites in each category:
- Actor: Ewan McGreggor/ Benedict Cumberbatch/ Robert Downey, Jr.
- Actress: Kristen Bell, Emma Watson
- Artist: Monet, Scott Saw
- Writer: Cassandra Clare, JK Rowling, Gail Carson Levine
- Music: Love electronic Pop like Owl City and also favorite artist of time is John Mayer
- Restaurant: Chinese plus I just love Red Robin
- Automobile: Don't really care.....
- Movie or Television Show: Veronica Mars / Doctor Who / Sherlock
- Clothing (pieces, designers or stores): JCrew, Old Navy
- Furniture (pieces, designers or stores): IKEA, Anthropologie, Wingback Chairs
2. Choose three words to describe your personal style: 
- Fun
- Comfortable
- Unique
3. Think back over all the homes you've lived in, both as a child and an adult. Which rooms would you choose as your favorites and how would you describe them?
Favorite room from a childhood home and description: Family Room: my mom was always so coordinated.  Everything looked complete, yet completely homey and comfortable.
Favorite room from an adult home and description: Clark's Room: It's clean and simple.  Not too much but still bold, bright and colorful. 
4. Whom do you consider a role model?
My parents
What three adjectives describe the qualities that you admire in this person?
- Hard-working
- Caring
-Driven
5. Every home has areas that are "just right". Which three spots or things in your home do you feel are beautiful and feel proud of, right now, as is:
- My son's room
- Our entertainment Center
- Kitchen
-6. A month from now, at the end of the Style Cure, how would you like your friends to describe your home?
- Comfortable
- Nerdy
- Unique

Questions 1 and 2 work together to help form a picture of your style - The glaring obvious is I love bright unique things, but want them to be simple with cleaner lines.  It should be coordinated but I'm not afraid to try strange or bolder color combinations. 

Questions 3 and 5 are different ways of connecting with what you find pleasing, comfortable and beautiful.  Again: coordination, and simplicity. 

Questions 4 and 6 are both about your aspirations and therefore can help to form a direction and goals for your Cure in terms of what you want your room makeover to provide to your homelife.  I want our place to feel like home, but I'm not going to deny the fact that I'm no interior decorator.  Jeremy and I are rather juvenile in our design preference with bold primary colors and superhero memorabilia.  I think this challenge will hopefully help us mesh our crazy nerdiness with a modern adult home.  Hopefully.....

Re-upholstering Chairs = Easy as Pie

I know we've taken a bit of a hiatus here on the blog but that's for good reason.  I actually got promoted so that was an excited turn of events that created an increase in hours for me.  That did not mean that our projects stopped going!  This week's project is how we reupholstered our wonderful Craigslist find.

We managed to snag this almost new cheesy Walmart dining set for only $50.  It still had some of the stickers used to help assemble the product on the chairs.  Needless to say, I was excited.  

However, they were just a little bland for our style.  After a wonderful trip to Ikea, we discovered their fabric section.  We had the idea of theming our living room loosely around "words".

After finding this fabric, we were in love.  


The first step is to take the cushion off the actual chair itself.  This is extremely easy with the "assembly required" type furniture.

Next.....

Then you want to take the new fabric and staple it over the other fabric.  We started with the regular office stapler but ended up needing a staple gun.  You can get them as cheap as $5 at Walmart.  

Make sure you keep a mark of where the original screws are so you can screw the chair back together.  It will make your life a lot easier later.  

Then you staple the liner back on if you like.  It helped the loose bits of fabric lay flat on our chair.  Then screw the seat back on!  Simple as that.  

Pretty neat, huh?  We finished the whole project in one night after Clark fell asleep.  

What do you think?

--Kelsey

Tried it: Burning Face Mask

This morning after a weird impromptu work out, I decided to try one of the many face masks I've pinned on my pinterest. With Clark and Jeremy asleep, I took full advantage of some girly time.


The one I choose is called the Burning Face Mask.  (original post can be found here.)


I will admit I was out of nutmeg because I was cheap this baking season and bought pumpkin pie spice instead of nutmeg.... I know.


For shame.

So instead I just used double cinnamon.  My ingredient list:


1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp lemon juice
1ish tsp honey (I think I ended up with almost 2 to get the right consistency)

You can see I wore my glasses as I put on the face mask and look RIDICULOUS.  The things I do for you internet....

I'm not going to lie.  This sh*t BURNS.  I put the mask on at 9:40a and by 9:43a I was debating taking it off.  It does start to fade after about 10 minutes.  So if you can make it that long, I swear it gets better. It's now 20 minutes later and I don't feel it at all.


It also smells delish.  I almost thought about putting the extras on some buttered toast.


But I didn't.  Calm down people.

I doubt you can tell from my lame-o Photo Booth picture, but my skin (while not clear) felt much smoother.  This is NOT an exfoliate so don't rub it in. You will be sorry if you do.


This mask is supposed to help acne scars in the long run.  It's not a miracle one time use mask.  Also, it's very strong.  So if you have sensitive skin, I would skip the lemon juice and think about using this one rarely.  I think I'm going to try adding it once a week to my face routine.  I'll let you all know how it goes!

Easy Creative Jewelry Display

I've always been the type of person who won't wear jewelry if I don't see it.  This creates a small problem.  How do you have your jewelry in sight but not in sight?

This is organized.  It was way worse...

Originally I had all my necklaces literally hanging from nails on the wall. They were in no particular design or order.  I just wanted to be able to see them so I actually remembered to wear them out and about.

When we decided to start making our apartment (however temporary) feel more like  a home, this was one of the first things to change.  Having my necklaces barren and hanging there was just ugly.  So we came up with an awesome solution.

Hobby Lobby is one of the most amazing stores you'll ever experience.  They have a 40% off any item every week emailed out to you and in addition, many different items will be on sale each week.  The week we happened to be there, it was metal works that were 50% off.  Which was AMAZING.

We bought this (which was originally white) and immediately spray painted it bronze.  The metal decoration itself ended up costing $6 and I already had the spray paint on hand.

"Shiny..." (Name that movie)

After that I hand painted to birds black for some contrast.  I just used regular canvas paint.  Then sealed it with a glossy sealant spray.

Then I hung the cage right over the nails.  Nothing special.  Just simple and much better looking that it was.  We had all sorts of grand plans to add hooks to the cage, etc, but this was just so much easier.  It helps that I'm lazy as well. :)

Finished product! 

What do you guys think?  I find it very convenient.  Now if only I could find a way to put up all my bracelets too...

We tried it! Stovetop Cleaning with Ammonia

Ever since I signed up for Pinterest, I have been completely addicted.  I have an absurd amount of boards filled with all sorts of goodies.  One of those boards is a cleaning board filled with different creative cleaning methods.  

We've lived in our current apartment around a year and half.  I have to tell you, our stove grates are pretty much disgusting.  I had tried scraping off the gunk, soaked it overnight in soapy water, did the whole dryer sheet thing and nothing worked.  Only pictures can describe.  It looked like this: 

Gross.

So I decided to try this:

 You just place your grates in a large plastic bag with some ammonia.  I bought my ammonia at the dollar store, for you guessed it, $1.  Now the site I followed said to keep the grates in overnight. That wasn't long enough since how nasty my grates were from who knows how many people before us.

 This was what the bag looked like when it sat for 3 days.  You can see one of the other bags in the background.  All the nasty in my sink is what I wiped off with a sponge.  That is the fabulous thing though: the build up just literally wipes right off after the ammonia works its magic.

 

SO BEAUTIFUL!!!

So this DEFINITELY works.


Next blog post I'll show you guys the creative way I'm displaying my necklaces in our bedroom!  Here's a hint....

Check it out!

--Kelsey

Clark's Room Makeover

Jeremy and I have been working slowly on making our apartment feel more like a "home" ever since Clark was born.  We had a bit of decoration here and there but nothing substantial.  It still kind of felt like we were living in dorm, living temporarily.  Coming this November will be 2 years in this same apartment, but it still felt like we were about to leave any time.  One of the first things we started working on was Clark's nursery.  We had the idea of a Superman themed room since his name is Clark and Superman has always been a favorite superhero for Jeremy and I.  The coolest thing we just finished is decoupaging paper mache letters from Hobby Lobby. 

The letters before...

We went to our local comic book store (www.comicsclubinc.com) and bought some trades hoping for a lot of good pages from 5 comic book heroes: Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman, Flash, and Green Lantern.

Oh how we love Mod Podge.

I know the flash is horrible, but you get the idea.

After it was finished we added a couple coats of Mod Podge and let dry, then sealed with a finish spray.  

And now the final product....

What do you think?  We absolutely love it.  We were so inspired we're doing a different set of beach themed letters for our guest bathroom.  Pictures of that to come later.

--Kelsey

Welcome Welcome!

Hello and welcome to our blog!

First off, we'd like to warn you, we are NERDY.  Just in case you weren't sure from the title.  We love nerdy things and have always loved nerd culture. 

Now that we have that out of the way, a little introduction.  Nerdy Family is the Navarro family: Jeremy (dad), Kelsey (mom), Clark (son), and Dean (cat).  We live in Lakeland, FL after moving from Las Vegas on a whim to start an independent produciton company.  Jeremy wants to write and Kelsey wanted to produce.  Now Kelsey is an assistant manager at Starbucks, and Jeremy is a stay at home dad/writer.  We could not be happier.

This blog will encompass our lives.  This can mean anything from redesigning our apartment to family Disney trips.  It will be eclectic and full of love, just like us.  We hope you enjoy.

-- Kelsey & Jeremy