Boring Bathrooms

So, I love Apartment Therapy and they do have some great posts, this particular one is about Temporary things renters can use in their apartments, or in NZ, our flats.

So, not that I've done it yet but I've seen these great tile stickers to go into my plain white boring bathroom. Once I get a plant for it, it will finally have some character.

Cheap white bookcase

I think before the cheap white bookcase, I had a cheap pink bookcase. The cheap white bookcase has been with me for over a decade, it has some wear and tear, literally.

Before I moved into the apartment, I had a moment where I looked at my cheap white bookcase and realised how white it was. The cheapness I can't fix, I have no money to buy a new bookcase, so what can I do? 

I took to pinterest and came out with painting it. 

The cheap white bookcase is just that - cheap. The paint didn't take to it too well as the surface probably wasn't meant to be painted and as I did this in an afternoon, in my room (I tried to move it and gave up) I really didn't bother about much, apart from remembering to tape the edges.

The paint and brush I picked up from Warehouse Stationery. Under NZ$10 I think and I still have a lot left in the tube. 

The effect is what I was after - it isn't perfect, it isn't Pinterest, but once I had my books in, it made me happy.

New Spaces

I've always lived in houses. All my life, every flat, always in a house. I like houses. I like character and quirks of houses. I like gardens and the possibilities of gardening (even if I don't actually get around to it). I can't wait until I have my own place to do whatever I want with, albeit probably at a very slow pace of change, but at least I can change things.

So this brings me to my conundrum now. I don't currently live in a house. I live in an apartment and it isn't a cool old apartment with character and quirks. It is warm and double glazed and oh so boring. The window in my room looks out to a panopticon type courtyard where harsh white lights blare all day and all night. The only other window is to the balcony which, thankfully, looks overtop of the train station below it and not into it as the apartments lower do.

The balcony is empty - full of potential - a pot gardening mecca awaits me. But since I have no car, everything has to be carried, bags of soil and large pots sound less than appealing. And I think there might be restrictions by the bodycorp. Hopefully that doesn't include string lighting.

And then there is the plethora of pins, blogs and amazement (like Apartment Therapy!) on the internet of things I can do to brighten up my small space, though, I have noticed that most of it is US based... cheap and easy to get things there... expensive and difficult to get things here and, oh my, no IKEA!

You see, I live in Auckland, in New Zealand, one of the most expensive places to live in the world, apparently and I don't earn a great deal so cool design stores are just out of the question.

And I have flatmates, so I can't just go changing anything really, subtle changes but great changes. At least my room is mine to do what I want with.

I'm not a particularly arty person, I was never good at art at school but I think I have a good eye for great design and cool things, so hopefully this won't be too boring and I can learn things along the way.