Hi everyone!
Fun (albeit wordy) post today!
If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram (or both), you probably already know that I've been working on re-vamping my nail den. (Up until now I've called it my nail room, but doesn't nail den just sound more sophisticated? I'll go with that from now on.)
The reason I'm re-vamping it is because I'm soon going to be finished my nail technician course and I plan to open up an in-home salon! I've been a certified Manicurist for a couple of years now, and I often do the nails of friends and family members, but I've never really branched out beyond that. But now that I'll soon be a full Nail Technician, I'm planning on taking it a step further. With that in mind, I was faced with the task of turning my existing nail room into a more inviting and client-friendly space.
Have a look! (I didn't resize any of these photos, so you can click on them to enlarge them.)
First let's talk about the desk/shelving unit. It's from Home Depot and I absolutely fell in love with it the moment I saw it online. My old polish desk was definitely past its prime, and having gone through two moves, it was a bit dinged up. So I was already in the market for a new desk. On top of that, I'd been considering building my own (read: getting David to build it for me) polish shelf because I wanted somewhere in my room to display just a few polishes and maybe some smaller decor items. Well with this desk I got the best of both worlds! A new desk with a huge and spacious shelving unit attached!
Some of the shelves are still pretty bare, especially the lower ones, but I know they'll be filled with stuff in no time. The upper shelves are mostly just filled with decorative items such as candles, a pretty diffuser, and framed nail-related photos. I also lined up a few blue polishes on one of the shelves to tie in with the (originally unintentional) white and blue theme.
The chair you see is for clients, and I still need to find a new rolling chair for myself. I have one now but it's pretty old and much too big for the space, which is why I didn't even include it in the photos. Anyways, the white one that you do see is a faux leather chair from Bouclair Home. The awesome zebra print pillow that's sitting on it is from Winners. I love the pillow because it not only ties in with the white and blue theme, but also with the animal print on my Melmers!
On the back wall I have two collages of photos of nail art designs that I've done. I can't really take credit for this idea because my friend Rebecca from Rebecca Likes Nails actually gave me one for Christmas in 2011! Sadly, it got damaged when we were moving so I had to recreate it myself, and in the process I decided to make another.
The piece in the middle is a very thoughtful homemade gift from David. It's a canvas with hundreds of little dots of nail polish on it! He worked on it in secret for weeks and I didn't even notice! He thought of everything too because the four corners are all done with OPI It's My Year, which as most of you know is the polish he proposed to me with. And in the middle he left one spot for my favourite polish, which I haven't filled yet because making that decision is just too hard, haha. And as if that wasn't enough, if you look closely, you'll see that in the bottom right hand corner he created a heart shape using only red and pink polishes. He's actually the best ever.
Moving along you'll see all of my Melmers. For anyone who's not sure what a Melmer is, it's a name coined by the nail polish community for storage cubes from Michael's Craft Stores. It's a play on the word Helmer, which is a popular nail polish storage solution from IKEA. The one closest to my desk is for gel supplies and the other ten units all contain polish. Not all are full (I think there's two empty drawers), so luckily I do have some room for inevitable expansion. They're plain white when you purchase them, but I decorated them using animal print scrapbook paper.
On top of my Melmers, you'll see a couple of OPI displays - the Germany Collection as well as the Euro Centrale Collection. There's also the Zoya Gilty Pleasures box set which I thought was too pretty to be hidden in a drawer. There's a bin with some polish supplies such as remover, base and top coats, lotions, etc, and finally there's my homemade lightbox.
So there you have it! My little nail oasis. I think the only thing I have left to do is find some artwork for the bare wall above my Melmers, but I'm thinking I might even make something myself. And honestly, I don't think the room will ever be 100% complete because my mind is always spinning with new ideas. But I'm quite happy with it right now!
Thanks for stopping by!
Fun (albeit wordy) post today!
If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram (or both), you probably already know that I've been working on re-vamping my nail den. (Up until now I've called it my nail room, but doesn't nail den just sound more sophisticated? I'll go with that from now on.)
The reason I'm re-vamping it is because I'm soon going to be finished my nail technician course and I plan to open up an in-home salon! I've been a certified Manicurist for a couple of years now, and I often do the nails of friends and family members, but I've never really branched out beyond that. But now that I'll soon be a full Nail Technician, I'm planning on taking it a step further. With that in mind, I was faced with the task of turning my existing nail room into a more inviting and client-friendly space.
Have a look! (I didn't resize any of these photos, so you can click on them to enlarge them.)
First let's talk about the desk/shelving unit. It's from Home Depot and I absolutely fell in love with it the moment I saw it online. My old polish desk was definitely past its prime, and having gone through two moves, it was a bit dinged up. So I was already in the market for a new desk. On top of that, I'd been considering building my own (read: getting David to build it for me) polish shelf because I wanted somewhere in my room to display just a few polishes and maybe some smaller decor items. Well with this desk I got the best of both worlds! A new desk with a huge and spacious shelving unit attached!
Some of the shelves are still pretty bare, especially the lower ones, but I know they'll be filled with stuff in no time. The upper shelves are mostly just filled with decorative items such as candles, a pretty diffuser, and framed nail-related photos. I also lined up a few blue polishes on one of the shelves to tie in with the (originally unintentional) white and blue theme.
The chair you see is for clients, and I still need to find a new rolling chair for myself. I have one now but it's pretty old and much too big for the space, which is why I didn't even include it in the photos. Anyways, the white one that you do see is a faux leather chair from Bouclair Home. The awesome zebra print pillow that's sitting on it is from Winners. I love the pillow because it not only ties in with the white and blue theme, but also with the animal print on my Melmers!
On the back wall I have two collages of photos of nail art designs that I've done. I can't really take credit for this idea because my friend Rebecca from Rebecca Likes Nails actually gave me one for Christmas in 2011! Sadly, it got damaged when we were moving so I had to recreate it myself, and in the process I decided to make another.
The piece in the middle is a very thoughtful homemade gift from David. It's a canvas with hundreds of little dots of nail polish on it! He worked on it in secret for weeks and I didn't even notice! He thought of everything too because the four corners are all done with OPI It's My Year, which as most of you know is the polish he proposed to me with. And in the middle he left one spot for my favourite polish, which I haven't filled yet because making that decision is just too hard, haha. And as if that wasn't enough, if you look closely, you'll see that in the bottom right hand corner he created a heart shape using only red and pink polishes. He's actually the best ever.
Moving along you'll see all of my Melmers. For anyone who's not sure what a Melmer is, it's a name coined by the nail polish community for storage cubes from Michael's Craft Stores. It's a play on the word Helmer, which is a popular nail polish storage solution from IKEA. The one closest to my desk is for gel supplies and the other ten units all contain polish. Not all are full (I think there's two empty drawers), so luckily I do have some room for inevitable expansion. They're plain white when you purchase them, but I decorated them using animal print scrapbook paper.
On top of my Melmers, you'll see a couple of OPI displays - the Germany Collection as well as the Euro Centrale Collection. There's also the Zoya Gilty Pleasures box set which I thought was too pretty to be hidden in a drawer. There's a bin with some polish supplies such as remover, base and top coats, lotions, etc, and finally there's my homemade lightbox.
So there you have it! My little nail oasis. I think the only thing I have left to do is find some artwork for the bare wall above my Melmers, but I'm thinking I might even make something myself. And honestly, I don't think the room will ever be 100% complete because my mind is always spinning with new ideas. But I'm quite happy with it right now!
Thanks for stopping by!