A few weeks ago I got fed up with the wall that divided my bathroom in two so I took out the top of it and made a giant mess in the process.

A cleaning-up-of-a-giant-mess later, I’ve decided I need to paint the bathroom to de-bore-ify it.  I was thinking of brown — or maybe brown with some blue and green accents, but then Janel of Apartment Therapy suggested navy and it got me thinking.

A hue-and-saturation-fest-in-photoshop later, I have the following images.  What do you all think?

I wanted to put up some shelving in my kitchen, but when I went to the lumber yard, I was disappointed by how expensive wood was. Then I realized that when you buy furniture from Ikea, you’re basically buying lumber and instructions on how to make it into something. All you have to do is throw out the instructions and you can make whatever you want. The wood is super-cheap — cheaper than going and buying the same wood from a lumber yard. What the heck, Ikea? How does that work? (The answer is simple: volume.)

So here is my shelving creation. The pieces came from the VÄRDE line. Some pieces were installed as designed. Others (like the box) were cut up and reassembled. The leftover pieces and a crafternoon produced the mediocre paintings on the left.

(Not pictured: the incredible disgusting mess that usually occupies the counter.)