50 Projects: 52 Weeks (25. Halfway There! Chalkboard Desk)

It's part functional, part kitchy, part country. We found a light-stained, slightly ratty desk by a dumpster on the evening of July 31st (mega move-out day for tenants in Fort Collins). We, and a group of friends and new-acquaintances, walked the desk back to our friends house. Actually, some guy put it on his back and carried it almost a mile...insane. 

Nonetheless, (surprise surprise!) we painted it with the same color as the bathroom wall, a greenish color and bought some chalkboard paint. We will have to buy a different brand of chalkboard spray paint because this wasn't the same as the kind I used for our Chalkboard Coffee Table; this one has an extremely matte finish and is actually kind of gritty. Sad. But I thought I'd throw it up there anyway. It was pretty painless to do this and didn't cost us more than 1.5 cans of chalkboard paint.

Side note: The black desk chair in the photo was also a fix-me-up found by our dumpster for our apartment complex. Free and it just involved tightening down some screws! Pottery Barn, watch out. :)

PSS. Notice the Dwell Magazines in the second photo? Also a FreeCycle find. Join your local group. I'm excited that I got a bunch of free magazines to read, cut up, repurpose.

50 Projects: 52 Weeks (24. Teal Squares)

Because we just had to make our cans of Oops! paints go as far as they can, you're probably going to see a slew of projects with the same colors over and over. Don't judge. This was a hand-made floating shelf/cube thingy that I bought at Goodwill for $2.99. At first, I tried to sand and stain it. Horrible idea because the stain didn't take well.

It's the teal paint from our bedroom and it's a pretty fun display for Steve's (massive) collection of (empty) beer bottles.

50 Projects: 52 Weeks (23. The Blue Light Special)

Repurposed from a stand-up cheapie metal lamp, I pulled apart the cord and shade, bought a can of spray paint in an almost Grecian Blue, spray painted the light and hung it upside down. Voila! $3.50 for the spray paint and now we have a sweet pendant lamp.

50 Projects: 52 Weeks (22. A Long Time Painted: Color in Our Lives)

The Bedroom Wall

The Bath

The Living Room

Steve and I painted one wall in each room. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I decided to include photos from all three. We needed color in our lives. We knew we would be living in the apartment for at least another year and decided [what the hey?!] and why not paint one wall in each room. We can think Home Depot for the Oops! paints that we bought because we saved (we calculated it, dorky, I know!) at least $60 on paint and supplies. We bought $5 gallon buckets of paint that were rejected in their Oops stash in the colors we wanted anyway. We have plenty of extra paint and plenty of other projects, too. Here's to a little color!

Thinking Outside the Box: All Terrain Cabin and Portable Homes

I am a bit weary always having to think about rent, bills, pets, space, cleaning, moving, etc...I am beginning to think that, if I crunch the numbers, living out of a pre-fabricated home or shipping container would actually SAVE us money in the end. I don't want clutter anymore. I am beginning to think about the prospects of living simply and [what if] Steve and I move around a lot. [What if] we work internationally but want a "home" to come back to. [What if] it could be shipped internationally. [What if] we could make it entirely modular and it would be possible to put it on a train from Colorado and move it back to Wisconsin, just in-case. 

I am also weary of thinking about plans for the future. When it comes down to it; I want to be a sustainable designer and visionary. I want to prove that I can think outside of the box, like this company did (purely conceptual, but it's GORGEOUS).

It's called the All-Terrain Cabin (by BARK):

It's a 20' ISO Container Frame.

Imagine the freedom and flexibility of it.

I am going to consider this as an economic and timeless investment piece. More info on how to build your own shipping container home can be found here. I've also compiled this list:

Cargotecture 

FabPreFab Comprehensive List of Projects

Contained Mobility a BA Arch Project

More Amazing Homes

And one of my faves: the Port-a-Bach