Forest Themed Basement Apartment (on a budget)

Arriving in a new town with nothing but a lamp, bookshelf and a power drill, how we built our capricious home on a non-profit salary.

Tea Leaf Green Kitchen

Living in one of the tightest housing markets in the United States we could not be picky about an apartment, really the first reasonable place at a reasonable price that we could get we took. That however meant that we got a parking lot level place that has not really been updated since the 80's. Luckily for us the previous tenant had done a very poor job patching the holes in the wall and the landlady was going to send someone in to repaint the walls the awful high gloss office white. I saw my opening and jumped on it. With permission to paint (nothing too crazy like bright purple or black), my dream forest themed apartment was given the green light.

Accent Leaves

Step one was to get a nice green accent wall in the dinning area. Wanting to kick off the forest theme with some accent leaves chose to transition the white kitchen walls(that did not need to be re-painted) into the dining area by keeping the leaves the high gloss office white. Using masking tape we attached crafts leaves along the color boarder.

Start of kitchen green house

During the second day of paining we lucked out finding a discarded entertainment center in our building lot, we rescued it. Cleaning it up, flipping it upside down and doing a rough cream paint job began our kitchen green house. With a humidifier, grow light and one plant I am inspired by the possibilities.

Prepping Leaves Outlines

Color Pallets  

Liking how the white leaves looked in the kitchen we wanted to carry them into the living room around our tree stand we were planning. Sketching out our trees and attaching more craft leaves with masking tape to the wall we felt ready to do our cream base.

Hand painting around the trees and over the leaves was key, than building off of the accent wall green we selected two additional colors and created a 4 tree stand.

Tree Stand

Elk Table Lamp

Utilizing excess paint, an elk antler, 20 Christmas light string and a small table from an auction we created out first decorative piece for our living room. This piece also worked nicely for a holiday tree over the Christmas season =)

Ugly lamps at an auction found new life in our home with a coat of blue spray paint and melted crayons on the shade.

Crayon Shade

Things have progressed from there, we made fantastic owls that we put in frames that were spray painted blue, hung a string tree on the wall, modge-podge a table with an old book, painted and re-covered two folder chairs we got from a friend.

Came across accent items at discount and thrift stores. Got free fence wood that we used to make a bench, breakfast nook, post board and shoe rack.

Finally we splurged on a stepping shelf for our books and bears.

Costs:

Decorative Table found at Auction - $1
6 Picture Frames found at Auction - $5
Lantern Soap Dispenser - $2
Fabric for Bench Pillows - $4
Screws 3" - $11.95
Plastic Grow Light - $ 12.99
Coarse Sandpaper - $2.34
Screws 3/4" - $2.97
(2) 1x2x10 boards - $10.58
Wood Finish Natural Color 1 quart - $6.97
Blue Spray Paint - $3.49
Paintbrush 1" - $1.99
Paintbrush .5" - $1.49
Holiday Lights - $1.99
1 qt green paint - $12.99
1 qt green paint - $12.99 
1 gallon paint - 23.99
Fabric for chairs - $7
Foam for bench cushions - $19
Paint roller kit - $4.49
1 qt green paint - 11.99
1 gallon paint - $23.99
1 gallon paint -$23.99
Staircase shelf - $30