Rental Remodel: Dreaming of travel

Before it's time to pack up this place and hit the road home, I better share with you all our final Rental Remodel: the Master Bedroom. Honestly it was the first remodel completed, but because we didn't really do that much, it didn't really cross my mind to show it until now!

Comprised of things collected from our travels both here and in Mexico, the bedroom came together easily and we finished it off with one big showstopper (no, not that eyesore of a television!). We can't really take too much credit considering that we had a pretty great foundation to start with - vaulted ceilings, a dark wood closet, and great french doors that give way to lots of light!

The showstopper of course being our antique carved door - the 2nd love of my life!

After using gallons and gallons of paint in the guest room, we gave up on the idea of painting this monster of a bedroom and left the walls white. At least they were fairly clean. We may have taken the plunge with a soft yellowy taupe, but when we found the showstopper that takes up a huge amount of empty white wall space, the decision was easy.

Ok, so maybe calling it the love of my life is a bit of an overstatement, but all joking aside, I had secretly been pining away for an amazing carved wood door for a long time now, so when we came across this one tinted my absolute favorite color, it was a sure thing. To add to the charm, the door comes from Totonicapan, the very first traditional village that we visited when we first came to Guatemala.

Propped up against the headboard of our giant bed, it fits perfectly as a statement piece.


We brought the comforter and shams with us - a steal of a deal at HomeGoods before we left. I knew that I would want some comforts of home to help us settle in and it doubled as our bedding in Dewey for the long drive.

The hand embroidered pillow covers and shawl at the foot of the bed were purchased in a fabulous artisan market in San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas.

The throw blanket and rug were also purchases from our travels. The rug was a splurge purchase in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. After watching the process and learning about a long standing family rug business, we again couldn't resist. The throw came from our first trip to San Juan La Laguna. Don't the soft colors give it away?


A few little extras adorn the nightstand and desk, like the amazing hand crafted jewelry box we again splurged on in Cabo San Lucas, a little black ceramic dish from San Bartolo Coyotepec (where I stash my earrings) and a cute woven basket to hold my nightime needs, purchased from a co-op right here in Antigua.


The room really isn't anything fancy, but it's definitely filled with lots of fun memories.

Here's the breakdown:
(Remember that even though several of the purchases were splurges for us, we'll use them in our future home back in the states too!)

comforter set: $40 - brought from home
4 pillow covers: 130 pesos ($13)
shawl: 60 pesos ($6)
rug: 1000 pesos (yikes! $100)
throw blanket: Q450 ($54)
jewelry box: I honestly don't remember but maybe around $50
ceramic dish: 40 pesos ($4)
woven basket: Q30 ($3)
.................................................................
total: $270 (Our most expensive room by far, but filled with lots of keepsakes!)


Sadly friends, this final room brings us to the end of our budget friendly, rental remodel overhaul. In case you missed the other 4 rooms we featured, here are links to all of the posts: guest bedroom, living room, kitchen, & the great outdoors.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing the dramatic changes as much as we have enjoyed making them. And just maybe you even picked up an idea or two? Remember, there are tons of ways to spruce up your rental without making permanent changes or costing yourself a fortune! Happy DIYing!

Rental Remodel: Outdoor Living

One of the main reasons we chose to rent this house for our year in Antigua was because of it's great colonial style that included some great outdoor living spaces. With moderate temps all year long, we really wanted (and do) take advantage of being outside as much as possible.

The house has 2 outdoor areas that we use on a daily basis.

On the ground level we have a spacious patio with flowers and a fountain. Tile floor extends out from inside into half of the patio that is protected by a roof. We pass through this area many times each day and normally have the fountain on and the door to the house open, to bring the outside in. We use the space for grilling, entertaining and just relaxing. When we moved in the small planter areas were overgrown and attracted a lot of bugs, so we spent a little time freshening things up. We replanted with some small flowering bushes and trees, ground cover, herb window boxes and color to flank the sides of the fountain (that I'm itching to repaint) as well as the columns. Juan & Ninethe even passed along a cute carved bench (that I think previously belonged to Horacio & Nicole), and I jazzed it up with a some typical fabric pillows.



The whole makeover didn't cost us much (since greenhouses are abundant here & plants are really inexpensive) and now the whole area feels much more welcoming.

Climbing up to the second story, we introduce the hidden gem of this home - the terrace. Again a little rearranging helped make it a place where we could (and do) spend a lot of our time.

When we moved into the house, the living room was overcrowded with furniture, so after a quick peek into our neighbors' patios, we decided to do something that they were both doing and we moved the carved wooden love seat, chair & coffee table from the living room, outside. The area is roofed so the furniture is completely safe and during rainy season we kept it covered with a tarp, just to be on the safe side. I covered the sad coffee table with typical fabric (and plastic), hung a comfy cotton hammock purchased in San Cristobal de Las Casas and added color with more flowers, planted in galvanized feed containers. We topped it all off with a new laundry line, hanging planters & some striped market pillows and now our terrace is an amazing place to relax, morning, noon & night!

Don't you want to come lounge on our porches with us?

Rental Remodel: La Sala

YIKES is only word we could think of to describe our living room.......that is until we Rental Remodeled it!

Have you ever heard that old urban legend about those poor kids named after their mother's first meal after giving birth to them? Jello? Is that ringing a bell?

Prepare yourselves people.................

Meet Lemonjello & Oranjello (Lemon Jello & Orange Jello!)

Now, not that yellow & orange are ugly (I actually like the idea of bright colors), but with red and green plaid furniture???? YIKES!

We had to seriously give this room some thought. It's huge - a living room/dining room combo. And considering how much paint those concrete walls swallow up........ But the final deciding factor was easy. We just weren't using the room as is. We couldn't get comfortable in there with the walls and the furniture shouting back and forth at each other. And really what is the point in paying for a nice open house, if you aren't going to use one of the biggest rooms?

Since we could hardly change the furniture on our budget (even though we would have loved to - it's not very comfortable), we had to work with what our landlord left us. And that is how our new color scheme was born. It still goes with the colonial style of the house and in our opinion is non-offensive.

Lemonjello & Oranjello got a makeover to Beige & Red
to go accordingly with the lovely plaid furniture.

In the theme of working with what your mama gave ya, my mama brought us a lovely moss green slipcover (that she found on sale for $20). It really helps break up the Christmas theme. Juan & Ninethe gave us a cute colonial coffee table (gracias a Horacio & Nicole's Guatemala stint) and with a little stain it looks brand new. We even found a really nice grass cloth rug (on sale of course) at Novex to add a little warmth to the space. Some framed textiles dress up the far wall and that's where we call it quits.

We tried really hard to find white curtains, but aside from some satin lacey 1980's leftovers, we never came across them. We found everything else, just not white (and such is life in Guatemala). Plus red is not one of my personal favorite decorating colors, so I didn't want to invest too much into more accessories and/or wall hangings since I probably won't use them in the future.

The place was all dolled up for the holidays, easily playing off the red and green, but now we're back to the basics.

Good enough for us. Good enough for now.

Finishing Touches

Remember our Rental Remodel #1? When we posted it the first time, it looked like this.

A little bare, but fine for our short rental period.

Well of course since I'm always on the hunt for interesting and unique (ie. cheap) finds, I just couldn't say no when I came across this idea.

Adorable miniature Guatemalan woven baskets, strung together and hung like a wreath. Given the price of just Q2 (about 25 cents) per dozen, I scooped up a ton (and plan to go back for more)! I've got big plans for these babies once they no longer live in the guest bedroom!

Aren't the bright colors just the pop that these Everyday Grey walls needed?

But wait, we're not done yet! While visiting Chiapas, Mexico over the weekend, I shopped until I dropped in San Cristobal de Las Casas for all of 2 hours and picked up another shawl for the end of the bed. Remember how I was fretting about only having 1?

Finally we've got a matched set and I don't have to be embarrassed any more!

Plus if they don't live on the end of my guest beds in future rooms, they will keep me and one lucky friend toasty warm on a cool evening to come.

I can breath easy now, the guest room is complete (enough) for me!

When are you coming for a stay at Casa Lengacher?

PS: I know my obsession with perfection in decor has become utterly ridiculous, but doesn't a girl need something to help pass the time?

Rental Remodel: Cooking Up Change

With life busy as usual, the blog as gotten pushed aside a bit. Sorry!! This weekend I spent a little time reviewing the past couple of months worth of blogs and realized that I completely forgot to update our Rental Remodels! We've been finished with our projects (mas o menos) for a few months now and have happily moved on to new weekend activities! While it's not our dream house decor wise, we feel like we've made dramatic changes that still work with the colonial style of the house and that we're quite happy about!

Stick with us for the rest of the house tour throughout the remainder of January.

Rental Remodel: La Cocina

When we moved into the house, the kitchen looked like this.

Disorganized, boring and really really dirty white, with insufficient above counter storage. The self proclaimed neat freak that I am, I could not stand the open cabinets. They're very typical here in Guatemala, but yuck-O. Who wants to look at all of their crappy cookware? Not me. The second thing that made me crazy was all that white, awkwardly highlighted by harsh florescent lighting.

While visiting Panajachel one day (during the 'rent's visit) my mom and I stumbled up a huge fabric store where we purchased enough material to make curtains to cover up all of that nastiness. Good thing I had previously taken measurements for this very type of purchase!

With a little help from Ben rigging up a cable rod (and lot of patience - his real work came before this fun project for at least 6 weeks), a can of buttery yellow paint (meant for the master bedroom, but then abandoned after realizing how miserable it is to paint bumpy concrete walls), the kitchen miraculously became a place we both actually wanted to be.

TA-DA!

Here's how we did it:
* a little rearranging (the desk shoved up against the wall became our island)
* some inexpensive bamboo placemats to break up the white tile counters
* 1 gallon of paint
* 5 yards of fabric & some heavy duty cable
* a stained piece of wood that stores all our spices & cooking essentials

Cost: less than $70 (including all accessories)
Time: Forever.....this project was a long one, but certainly worth the wait!

We know it is certainly still far from awesome, but with our budget, this is as good as it gets!

* note: since these photos have been taken, the "island" top has been painted a distressed moss green for even more color & style (and to cover up a little hot plate mishap!)