Apartment DIY pics!

We've been busy around here the past month.  Our budget's extremely tight right now which means there's not much left to spend on home improvements and decor.  Instead, we've had to be thrifty and creative and use the materials we already have when possible.  As it turns out, we had a ton of black and bright colored paint leftover from my more fun days when I love colorful, whimsical spaces.  After taming things down a bit at our last apartment, I figured it was time to go back to my true passion...colors that pop and make you go "wow!

So, here are a few select pictures of our apartment.  To see all our DIY project pictures, head over to the Apt528 facebook page.  There's still a lot of work to do...rugs, curtains, a couch, painting...but at least we're making some progress!  What do you think?  Any suggestions?

The coffee table ($10 at a garage sale) was beat up and too large for the room.  Now it's a bench with a bright orange base and graphic black and white padded seat.

I loved the deer picture but the Mr. said it felt like something from a hunting lodge so we turned it into a much needed dry erase board.  As mentioned in my previous post, dry erase markers work perfectly on glass picture frames.  Just add your own background and you're ready to go!  Because the frame is a little small for the space, we're going to paint a boarder around it to give it a larger presence on the wall.

 We wanted awesome chairs but didn't want to spend money on paint so we used some old paint colors from my first apartment.  The chairs are what set the mood for our bright decor throughout the upstairs. At first we were going for grey walls with brown accents which is why the fabric is brown and white.  Now that we decided to go with black, we'll probably switch it out for something b&w.

 The decision to go pink was a tough one.  Initially we painted the table brown (we were going for brown accents at the time instead of black) but decided it was too dark for the room.  We needed a punch of warm tones and didn't want red so we went with the pink from my old striped room.  Now we just need to finish the rest of the upstairs so the table's not the only bright piece!

Love the way the black looks.  Gives the room more depth!  Don't laugh at our tree...I have yet to get a tree skirt.  I'm so lazy when it comes to holiday decorating...we'll have it done by next week before our guests arrive!