Venitian Blinds and Thrift Store Finds

We've lived in our house for two weeks, and we are just now starting to get things cleaned up and organized. I've discovered that sometimes things come together more slowly than I would like, and I just have to learn to be okay with that. We finally cleaned up most of the painting supplies, and now we are making progress on my favorite part - arranging furniture and decorating. So far I've made several trips to Home Goods and Hobby Lobby for supplies and decor. But today I worked on mainly mundane tasks which are necessary but not a whole lot of fun. Like cleaning blinds.

The previous owners of our house were gracious enough to leave behind their wonderful, good-quality venitian blinds for the windows. When we we took them down to paint, however, I noticed that they were filthy. I don't even want to know how many years of dirt and grime are on these things. So before re-hanging the ones in the kitchen window today, I decided to give it a good scrubbing. Nothing a little Dawn soap and water can't fix, right?

Let me just say, it's hard on your hands and knees. I wasn't very happy with the previous owners for leaving me dirty blinds. Gross. I mean LOOK AT THESE THINGS. You can tell a clear difference between the top two slats that I already cleaned and the rest of the grimy ones.

Here they are all clean and sparkling white. At least I know they're clean now... even if no one else will notice. 

Another project I worked on today was sprucing up an armchair I found at a local thrift store. I've been looking for cheap furniture because I don't like our old craigslist couch that we got for our apartment when we first got married. It's cheap white vinyl and not very comfortable. Obviously we are on a budget, so I've been scouring craigslist and thrift stores for anything that will work, fully expecting to find a reupholstery project. And then I came across this chair. 

It was marked for $20, which was absolutely reasonable (I love a bargain!), but then they were having a sidewalk sale where everything outside was half off. So I picked up this little beauty for just TEN BUCKS. It was a little dirty and had a few stains, but for $10 I wouldn't be out much money if it didn't clean up well, and the fabric was at least in good shape, with very little wear. At the very worst it would make a nice chair for the office. So I snatched it up and took it home, where it's been sitting in our garage for the past few days. Today I decided to clean it with some soapy water and a rag, and let it dry out in the fresh air outside. It looked GREAT all cleaned up. Most of the spots came right out. So now we have a nice comfy reading chair for our living room. Proof that you can, indeed, decorate nicely on a tight budget.