Today finishes off my DIY week on HGTV Handmade, and I’m bringing you some room decor hacks! These are all really easy and are perfect for any apartment or dorm room. Keep reading to see the full DIY video and photos of all of the projects!
Our first project uses a little bit of psychology. Basically, if you put up an image of a pair of eyes next to your light switch, you’ll be more likely to remember to turn off the lights as you leave the room, because you’ll feel like someone is seriously judging you if you don’t. I decided to use an image of Nyan Cat eye makeup by artist Katie Alves, and I think it’s a really fun room decoration along with helping me remember to save energy!
Next I decided to give this plain IKEA desk a makeover using contact paper. Before it was pretty plain with a bright green drawer that felt very juvenile. So, I covered the desk top in marble contact paper and the drawer in gold contact paper, and I am obsessed. It feels like I have a brand-new desk.
Here you also get a glimpse into my makeup product collection. Sorry to break it to you that it’s not very exciting and I’ve literally been re-buying all the same products for years now.
One more photo because I’m just so in love with this project. The seam in the desktop where I had to use two pieces of contact paper does kind of break the illusion, but it’s better than spending $$$ on a real marble desktop.
Now hold onto your hats, because I took about a million photos of our next project after it took me over 8 hours to complete. My roommate had an old corkboard lying around that he wasn’t using, so I decided to paint it and make it fabulous. Unfortunately this ended up taking way longer than I expected and I watched the entirety of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bring It On, Mulan, and several episodes of House Hunters while working on it.
But, I think it came out really nice and became a work of art in itself even before I pinned anything to it.
But of course it still does work as a corkboard, and luckily pinning things to it kind of distracts from the places where the paint bled under the tape a little bit. Even though it took forever, this was still a really fun project and I definitely recommend painting your corkboard if you want to bring some more life to your walls (though maybe with a more simple pattern than I went with).
I decided to pin mostly black and white things to the board, so they wouldn’t distract from all the color happening in the background. We’ve got a photo strip from Designer Vaca 2014, a postcard from the hotel I stayed in in New York City last month, a Converse business card from when I got a portfolio review from them in college, a diagram about communication I saved from college, a postcard from Mr Kate, and a bunch of other bits and bobs I’ve collected over the years.
For Project 4, I have two ideas on how to decorate thumbtacks to make your corkboard even more glam. The first is to glue large rhinestones to flat thumbtacks, because it adds some sparkle to everything you pin. And the second is to get some oversized push pins and spray paint them any color you want, like mine which I made silver. It looks so much more cohesive than the primary colors they originally were!
And then for Project 5, I have two corkboard “hacks” for you. The first is to make a holder for extra pins out of a mint container, like the photo here. And the second I didn’t actually photograph, but it was a way to pin up a stack of post-it notes for easy access, so make sure to watch the video to learn how to do that one.
I hope you guys liked all of those projects! If you’re not subscribed to HGTV Handmade, don’t miss the three videos that I put up this week – My Thrift Store Haul, Easy Thrift Store DIYs, and today’s video, Room Decor DIY Hacks. And if you want even more ways to non-permanently dress up a dorm room or apartment, check out Marianne’s Dorm Room Makeover video series, which is just packed with so many good ideas. I’ll be back on HGTV Handmade in mid-October with some Halloween crafts, but definitely stay tuned to see what projects Meg, Marianne, Sea Lemon, and Julia put up in the next few weeks!
