Well! It’s all done!! And it’s my new favorite “room” in the apartment.

Let’s take a little journey through the deck make-over process, shall we??

This deck is pretty much what sold me on the apartment when we looked at it last August. Mind you… it needed a LOT of TLC.

The previous tenant was a college kid… and he did not take care of this place. Exhibit A:

Oh yes.. all of THAT was left behind when he moved out. Nice, huh??? Not all of it was trash (even though it might look like it). We actually up-cycled the iron bistro set… It cleaned up really well… You’ll see it in the “After” pictures coming up.

And, if you forgot how awful the siding situation was when we moved in.. feast your eyes on this:

You might remember me saying that I was breathing down the neck of our building manager to get that siding up… and I’m glad I did… It turned out way better than I expected.

Next, I decided to tackle the deck door. We went from chipped evergreen…

…to a polished blue.

And now.. my friends, it is time to see the finished product.

I got the pillows from Garden Ridge and Etsy… and of course, my DIY Bike Art. Notice anything from another room in our apartment??? That’s right.. I borrowed the ceramic garden stools from our living room.

The planters were super inexpensive at Home Depot… and I tried a go at “gardening”. Hopefully they don’t all die.

Because I am a sucker for before and after pictures… here’s another shot.

It’s official. I’m in love.

Now that it is finally semi-warm here in Chicago.. I was able to get outside and measure the area above our deck furniture.

With saving for our wedding and expensive Chicago living.. I didn’t want to spend much on decorations for the deck. But, I still wanted it to be put together and ‘me’.

If you remember awhile back.. I had mentioned that I really wanted a vintage bike painting.

Well, that option was too expensive. Nearly $500. But, I still had my heart set on the idea.

So, I set out on DIYing one of my own.

I purchased some particle board at Home Depot. Each board cost about $4.00 apiece. I had the boards cut into panels for a total measurement of 36″H x 50″L.

Next, I primed and painted each of the panels with paint that I already had at home.

After the panels themselves were ready to go, I had to find myself a picture of a vintage bike.

Through a search on Google, I was able to find one pretty quickly. I shopped around different printing shoppes and found that FedEx/Kinko’s had the best price. For a 36″x48″ image it cost $10.00 on blueprint paper. Other stores ranged from $35-$90. Too much for this shoestring DIYer!!

I’ve seen on other blogs how to transfer images to wood or walls using a projector. Unfortunately, I don’t have one of those.

After I picked up my bike print, I used the pencil-shading transfer method. You merely print your image out, flip it over and shade all areas of the picture with pencil. Once the areas are shaded, you flip back over (on top of your medium) and outline the image directly onto the medium.

The tracing part took only about 20 minutes.

After tracing, I started painting the bike (a lot like paint-by-numbers). I purchased aqua and brown paint for around $4.00 total. Painting the entire image took me about an hour and a half.

I used some of the Command Velcro strips to hang this puppy up…Which makes it easy to hang up and take down when weather gets a little hairy.

I am pretty ecstatic about the results!!!

Total cost for the project was $26.00. Can I get a whoop whoop??

I’m hosting Book Club/Wine Night tonight… and I will post the entire deck reveal after that!! Pillows??? Plants?? You bet!

We finally have something on the walls in our living room!!!

I DIYed a sunburst mirror… using a floral ring, styrofoam ring, wood shims and a mirror (and of course hot glue and a glue gun… which I didn’t show).

It took me only two hours to do.. but the best part is: It cost a total of $29!!!

This idea was actually meant for the deck… Now that we are moving into Spring (even though it doesn’t feel like it), I wanted to start working on decorating the deck.

But, I liked it so much that I decided to try it out in our living room.. I’m glad I did!! This might not be its permanent home (still could move it to the deck).. But it is so nice to have something on the wall!

I just really like the before and after…

Now I just need to decide if I want to paint it for a pop of color or keep it in natural wood….. WE NEED COLOR!!!