Take those walls DOWN!

A brand new apartment with bare walls, no floors, no power. A clean slate - perfect state to start design :)

Floor Plan:

First thing I did was to take out the wall between kitchen and dining to make it an open kitchen and bring some natural light in.

and this is how it looks now!!

The next question was where the stove would go?! After many discussions with my parents, who wanted the stove to be east facing, we decided to have an island in the same place where the stove was before just that it would be an island with 3 breakfast chairs :D :D Exciting!!!!

Just to give you an idea, something like this

I have to ofcourse think about what color would work in my apartment but yeah! This is the idea :)

If you have any suggestions, I am all ears :D

Dream home back home

Its every Indian's dream to own a house and I am no exception! For a very long time, I have wanted to own a house and make it a real HOME with my family. This dream has finally come true after having to endure the many struggles associated with property ownership, if you know what I mean.. Lets leave all the struggles alone and focus on the happy part that I have finally bought an apartment in chennai. Its 1650 sqft 3BHK apartment in an up and coming area. I have dedicated the next few years of my life to paying off the loan :(. The thought of having my parents live there happily makes me forget that part though! :) After 6 months of loan processing, it was finally sanctioned and I am very very excited to start designing the apartment. In the coming months, I will share my designs and progress on the house! yayyyy!! :D

 

Dining table makeover part 5 - Final reveal

Alright, its time to reveal the final output of 2 months project of the dining room make over. I had sooo much fun creating this beautiful colorful family room dining room. Hope you had as much fun looking at it!

More projects to come..see you soon!

Dining table makeover part 4

I thought I had enough time to write about the makeover but I have to run for a party. I am going rush a bit and share the complete project.

Ok so we have dining table,curtains,walls now. One last project was to set up the dining table. I stitched runner,table mat, hand towels and a ring to tie them.

Dining table makeover part3

Now that I have the walls covered and a beautiful dining table in place I dyed the white window curtains to turquoise blue and painted the dining table white, painted chairs white and changed the chairs upholstery with a colorful materials.

I used a oil primer zinsser primer and then painted with glidden pure white paint

Thanks to  my hubby for choosing this beautiful upolstry

Dining room makeover part 2

Since the idea is to have a colorful space, I painted all the frames in different colors. Theres also more to these frames. I wanted it to be special and create interest for the viewers.
I made all my family members do something that they always wanted to do but never did and take a pic. I put their pictures in their favorite color frame. It took sometime to get the pictures from them and I am still waiting for more but it was fun project to do.

Heres the empty frames..will reveal the pictures later (oh thats my husband working :))

Dining room make over part1

Although I have not been blogging a lot, I have been doing lot of projects for my home. As soon as I finished my family room, I starting thinking about dining room and it had to be as colourful as the family room if not more....

First I started with getting rid of my old dining table and found an awesome 10 seater dining table for $40 in craigslist...its the best $40 I spent....its probably going to be with me until I live in this country!

Heres the pic

Another project model of mine in a store!?!

Apologise for not posting anything in a long time...have been busy/lazy..hmm...i will go with buzy ;)
One of my project was to create a structure to be placed at the center of a space and heres my creation

http://rangdeyaara.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-steps.html

(pic2 and pic3)

I saw a similar structure in unban outfitters in santanarow (san jose)

Cool haaan!!!

I have been doing few projects for home which I will post soon (read - when I get a chance)

Day bed

Wish I had a big backyard for this beauty...Its from India... the details and workmanship were simply brilliant. check it out in zgallary

Family room makeover part -3 (FINAL)

Now comes the before and after picture :D

My colorful family room

Family room makeover part-2

What happened before it all turned out perfect...

First things first - Got rid of the brown couch...i cannot tell you how happy I was when that happened...phewww

Started with a clean slate and I knew it had to be a white room. I went for the Benjamin Moore Decorators White paint for the family/dining area. White is a very difficult color, you can screw up the whole room just by painting the room white. I searched all over the internet and made sure i got the right one. I have to tell you, it did not let me down. I have very little light coming into the family room and bright light in my dining room. The color works in both the places!!

So white it was!

Loved the light reflecting off of the white walls...nothing like it

I unpacked the furniture the same night

and I already knew it was going to look pretty pretty

then to the accessories... I had made plans to put up something funny (yes, we are those funny people). Prad and I took pictures mimicking actors from all my favorite films to put above the couch...so it was just a matter of picking up right frames and arranging them...

and there it was!

Home made!

I have tried some wall art (not art literally :p but some wall stuff) for my family room make over. I saw the below one in internet which i couldnt afford and it wont go with my room style, so i tried to make one myself the way I wanted.

Heres what I made (not so perfect but hey its my home not a museum)

Interesting to see my imagination in a product

Check this link

http://pinterest.com/pin/283445370267686328/

Looks like a stadium that i imagined, in this link (second project):

http://rangdeyaara.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-steps.html

Family room makeover - peekaboo

Heres what coming in the room

Another creative project for the wall. Goes right above the white couch

Its ok to write freestyle..makes it more personal

whats a house without a chalkboard? heres mine

Spray paint chalkboard paint

The idea is not to spend too much and at the same time bring personal touch :-)

Door decor for $50

Heres how you change a simple boring entry door to pretty..that too under $50

I got a stool from craigslist and few cute accessories from Michaels. A lamp and a holder from Pier1. For the sign board, I wanted to try something creative and no very expensive. I buy a lot of things from amazon and they all come with good packing. I picked up one of those card boards.

Spray painted it in red color

Let it dry for sometime ...used my paint that I will use for my wall ..wrote welcome on it in my own way ;-)

I made holes and a thread to hang on the door

Accessorised the rest of the place with

Added a pebble door mat and hung the sign board on the door

and Finally you get this look. Tadaaaaaa

Stool - $10
Michaels - $14
Candle holder - $7
Candle holder stand - $9
Door mat - $10
project - 2 hours

Now do you want this look?