365daysofthrift

I’m on a mission to give my little house a makeover, one little section at a time. I’m also on a mission to see just how inexpensively you can give your house a whole new look. So definitely follow along with all of these little projects as I blow your mind with how little you can spend turning your home into a thrifty little palace of dreams.

The first project of the year was to give my living room chalk wall a whole new look.  But before I delve into that…Did you know you can make your own chalk paint!?!?!  You can!! In any color your little heart wants!!! Chalk walls are fantastic- but not everyone wants a big Giant black wall- especially if you have a house like mine without a ton of light.  When I first moved in- I decided to paint 5 walls with DIY chalk paint.  I wanted to keep the vibe light and airy- so I chose a light slate blue.  I did one wall in the main bathroom, two in the kitchen and two in the living room.  I love these walls because they can be left blank or scribbled all over.  Having a chalk wall is super budget friendly because you can fill  a large space with a big design for the cost of a couple boxes of chalk.  You can also get bold with your design choices and easily change them out when you get sick of them.

There are several different recipes for home made chalk paint.  This is the one I used:

• 1 cup paint
• 2 tablespoons unsanded grout
• 2 tablespoonswater

Mix them all together and stir till smooth.  Simple! You’re ready to fill your home with chalk wall delight!  I painted about 3 coats on each wall to ensure they were really coated well.  As and FYI- the walls in most home usually have a bit of unavoidable texture- so your chalk designs will have a moderate element of texture.  So far I’ve had my walls for a little over a year and I love them! So what about my new living room design…

If you follow me on instagram  stories then you have probably seen the chalk wall in the house bathroom (because it’s the best selfie mirror ever for thrifted OOTDs.)

I’m very much in love with this wall- so when I originally created the wall for my living room- I wanted it to have a similar vibes.  There was one little problem- Goodwill was coming to my house the very next day for a Magazine interview and I had about 24 hours to turn my house from “I still haven’t totally unpacked from my move 6 months ago” to “I’m the Diva of Thrift” so after 2 failed advanced floral designs- I opted for some simple poppies and roses with a moon (art deco meets poppies meets OMG I’m running out of time so F–k it fail)

And while most of you would give me a good pat on the back for this design and go on about how cute it is, 2017 is the year I move out of the little girls bedroom vibes and decorate like the eccentric, whimsical, dreamy adult that I really am.  So I scrubbed this design away with a wet washcloth (3 rounds of scrubbing and 45 minutes to be exact) and set off on my quest to create something that was interesting but simple, modern yet classic, within my range of artistic ability (not everyone can be Michelangelo) and most of all- NOT a little girls bedroom exploding all over my wall.

My first inclination was towards geometric art deco vibes- so I went to pinterest for some inspo and got busy.  The design that most caught my eye was this one:

So I decided to create around this as a basic concept.  I really like this idea because it’s very do-able even if you aren’t a fine artist, yet it has a good overall aesthetic impact. Here is the step by step:

The overall cost to revamp this wall? About $2 worth of chalk, $4 worth of tape and 3-4 hours of my life.  Thifty AF.  Definitely getting a lot of style bang for you buck with this home decor option.  Painting the original walls with chalk paint will only cost you about $30-$40 for everything depending on what brand of paint you use.

I’ve been doing some serious before bed pinterest trolling and am pretty excited to give this whole room a revamp in the coming months.  I’ll give you the bits and pieces as I go along and we can all bask in the glory of the before and after once it’s all complete 🙂

Have any of you done chalk walls in your home? I’d love to see!

Love and Thrift,

Elisabeth