Sticks and gravel; or, REALLY frugal decorating

Am I the only one who thinks twigs and branches are just as attractive as flowers? Hubs and the dog and I were out for a walk this past week when I noticed this beautiful branch lying by the path. There's just something about smooth, nicely-shaped branches that I find sort of architecturally satisfying. I scooped it up, took it home, and rigged up one of my famous "stick in a vase" arrangements.


We do something similar to this for our "Easter tree" every year, but we embellish it with little hanging bird and egg ornaments and a bit of dried grass or greenery in the base. This picture is a little dark, but you get the idea.

Just find a not-too-fancy glass vase (straight vases with smaller necks work best) and dump in some gravel. Or decorative stones, if you have a bigger budget. I collected all white rocks from our gravel driveway, which worked surprisingly well. Fill the vase about 1/3 full and then push the base of your branch or branches in as far as you can. Keep dumping handfuls of rocks around the "trunk" so it doesn't shift. This is one vase that your cat won't be able to tip over!

My frugal bathroom makeover

Some of you may have seen the "before" of our dilapidated '50s bathroom. For those who haven't, I'm sorry that I don't have a photo to show you, but it would have broken the lens.

I dumpster-dived a massive armload of fabric wallpaper samples from the architecture firm near a downtown bank. I don't usually prowl the dumpsters, but they was lying right on top on a pile of clean-looking magazines, so I backed the car up and loaded them in. I also found the green rug that lives on our porch. Just your basic, industrial-grade rug, but it's better than nothing.

I debated for a long time what to do with the samples. One day last week when we were having guests over for our dinner party, I decided to tackle the bathroom. Hubs and I have been meaning to repaint it since we moved in, but good intentions don't make for time off work, and I don't feel confident enough of my painting/sanding skills to tackle it alone.

So we used upholstery nails to nail the samples in a (hopefully) artistic way around the bathroom. We also made a Home Depot run to buy knobs for the cabinet, which didn't have any, and I rehung a couple of framed, pressed flowers between the sort of awful mirrors. I hated those mirrors at first, but now I've embraced the whole gold thing and they are, unbelievably, growing on me. I picked up on the gold again with new switch plates and a thrifted gold toilet paper holder. So, here it is, in all its dubious glory!


The picture is sort of yellow because we don't get much light in the bathroom, but the wallpaper is unfortunately sort of yellow anyway. This might not be my dream "after," but it's already such a relief to both of us not to have to look at quite so much of that wallpaper, and when your decorating budget is $5, you can't be choosy!

So, I still have a big pile of same-sized fabric samples in various prints and fabrics. I'm considering making a really big, mismatched quilt, which shows how (not) crafty I am. Does anyone more blessed have some more practical ideas?

Mismatched Black Chairs

I love this idea! This photo was taken at Sarah Jessica Parker's home, as featured in Elle Deco. See how the black paint unifies a group of otherwise mismatched dining chairs?



The chairs really stand out against the white walls. The uniformity of the black also brings out the lines of the chairs. Very elegant and structural, and a great way to use stray thrifted chairs. This look reminds me of Meredith's black chairs and table. Her table decorations stand out so beautifully!

As soon as the sun comes out, I'll be posting photos of the chair we painted and re-covered last weekend. It snowed today, so it's very dim in the house today. I actually had to turn the heat on for the first time in weeks. June in Montana, I guess!

Frugal living in small spaces

My husband and I live in a fairly expensive city, so we’re currently renting-to-own an 800 sq. ft. trailer from a friend. It’s an older model, from the 1950s, so we’ve had our fair share of struggles with repair bills, etc. Now that we’re planning to relocate to the Midwest by early next year, hopefully to a “real” house, I’ve started thinking about what we could do differently to be more frugal if we had a little extra space. Here are some of the pros and cons I've encountered in small-space living.

Pros:

• With limited storage space, every purchase acquires new meaning, in a phenomenon I call "forced simplicity." I can't fill up our house with impulse buys that I "might" use someday if the only place I have to store it is under the kitchen table. This limits the number of things we buy, which helps keep us on track with a simple and frugal lifestyle.
  
• The lack of space also encourages us to weed through our belongings on a regular basis. This results in less clutter and also more opportunities for income by selling unwanted items.
• Our trailer is poorly insulated, so we can't reap the full benefits of reduced heating and cooling bills. Even with that said, our bills are lower here than what they would be in a large house.
• Our yard is as small as our house, so we pay next to nothing on lawn maintenance. Mowing the lawn only takes my husband a few minutes, so it's easy to have a neat, well-kept outdoor space.
• Maintaining the home is also cheaper and easier. Fewer rooms to clean and decorate means fewer unnecessary purchases and less time spent hugging the vacuum.
  

Cons:

• We have a small garden and try to grow some of our own herbs and vegetables, but if we had a larger yard, we would be able to grow much more of our own produce, significantly reducing our grocery bills.
• Also, if we had a pantry larger than a cupboard, we could can and preserve more food in season and buy more foods in bulk. Right now, I have a master list of what food is stored where, since our pantry is only a small cupboard. It would be nice not to have to squeeze cans of tomato sauce under the bed or bottles of mustard in with my husband's hunting equipment.
• If we had a larger house, we could purchase and stock a chest freezer. We have a small upright freezer right now, but if we had more space, we could buy a share in a cow and store the meat for future consumption. Finding affordable meat is one of our biggest frugal challenges, and having the space to store larger quantities would be a blessing.
• The storage issue applies to every purchase, not just groceries. If we had more space, we could buy more gifts in advance and focus harder on making more of our own goods. My husband was given a beer making kit for his last birthday, but he has been reluctant to use it partly because we have very limited space to work in and store in-progress projects.

I hope that in our next house, we'll be able to have the best of both worlds. I think that with more built-in or concealed storage and maybe a basement or attic, we can reap the advantages of having a small living space while gaining the flexibility to take advantage of good deals and to pursue our hobbies. Has anyone else been in a similar housing situation? I'd love to hear how you manage!