September Before and After: A New Light

Well HEY! Hope you had a great weekend! We did a lot of bumming around and being productive – a little of both extremes. :)

Tonight’s before and after is brought to you by the continued science fair that is our kitchen. I showed you the mess the water damage has created, and last Friday, the madness continued.

We had noticed a few weeks ago that the framing around our back door was rotting away. We thought it would be a quick fix, and our handyman did too. That is until he started removing trim and found massive amounts of water damage – separate from the mess in the rest of the kitchen:

That’s a hole in our kitchen floor. For a brief moment in time we had a fabulous source of natural light in the basement. ;) I try to look at the bright side.

I told him to just tear out the floors cause they were going anyway -- thank GOODNESS we discovered this before replacing the floors!! (And no, there’s still no movement on that – hopefully this week.)

The folks who built our deck made it too high – so for six years the water has been flowing into the door frame every time it rained. That eventually ate away at the trim, the subfloor and the threshold.

Anyhoo, our awesome handyman worked from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and got it fixed up and did a few little changes that will keep this from happening again. LOVE HIM.

So…there’s been a little change I’ve been wanting to make to the kitchen for a while now, and this weekend I decided to do it. Because I needed to do something to the space that would make me feel in control again.

Or maybe I just wanted a pretty new light. Who knows. ;)

Recently something has been bugging me about light over the kitchen table:

I love it! But it felt too light…I don’t know, just not substantial enough. Once I realized what it was that was buggin’ me, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I just wanted something that was a bit more dramatic to fill that “space” in the room.

Enter the Portfolio light from Lowes:

I think it was $140? It was LUUURVE at first sight. I think I gasped just a bit when I saw it in the store, cause I knew it would look so good over our table.

I installed it the other night (with very little daylight to spare – I forget the sun sets so much earlier already!) and I couldn’t be happier with it:

It adds a little contemporary flare to the space:

I love it combined with our antique claw foot table. :)

I think what I love most is that it sends all of the light down to the table – it is SO much brighter under there now:

And of course I have it on a dimmer switch so it looks fab down low or up high. I love it!!

I thought about spraying it black for about two hot seconds, but I think we have enough black going on. (And at night it looks black anyway.) I’m working on some ways to bring some more color into this side of the kitchen, but for now, I love how this has changed it up a bit:

And look how calm our kitchen looks from this side (although you can see where I covered the torn out flooring by the door with the rug).

This side tells the real story of the past week:

This is what happens when your pile spot (your island) is in the office. ;)

So here’s my before and after for this month –- the previous chandelier on the left, the new pendant on the right:

Typically your fixture should hang about 28 to 32 inches above your table and I always end up cutting my wires too short when I install. ALWAYS.  This one hangs 32 above the table, which I’m now happy about because any lower would have been directly in the eye line (for me anyway). As it is we can see under it well.

I found an old photo of the light after I installed it last year and it’s fun to see the changes since then:

Including the addition of a cute (rascally) dog. ;) And the removal of a floor. Gah.

So let’s see your projects! Link them UP!

I’d appreciate it GREATLY if you could link back to this post or at least my blog in your post. You can use this button if you’d like:

Master Bedroom Redo: Part Two

Hey hey!! Hope you had a wonderful weekend and a lovely Father’s Day. I finished up some changes to the master bedroom and I LOVE how it’s turning out.

Yes…the master bedroom. The one I started redoing almost a year ago? Remember that one?

I’ve told you before it takes me a while…and this room is no different. I’ve made some changes over the past few months and I’m SO happy with how it’s coming along!

You may remember last fall I was stuck with what to do over the bed. I tried sconces (loved). I tried drapes (didn’t love). I tried leaving the scrolly ironwork up (used to love but was over).

The sconces stayed, because we love them so. But there was still something that didn’t feel quite right.

A few weeks ago, it hit me. They were dark, the bed was dark, the ironwork was dark, the nightstands were dark. I needed to change something up.

So I changed the dark sconces with a bit ‘o spray paint:

I used the brushed nickel paint I used all over the Bub’s room and I LOVE how they turned out! It was just the pop I needed.

I took down the scrolly thingy and tried leaving the space between them empty, but it just felt weird. So I added a fun little sunburst mirror the folks at Wuslu.com sent me last year:

I’m slowly but surely adding a little glam to the space with some metallics here and there. I love the combo of the sconces and the mirror! (And yes, I was going to hide the sconce cords but I hung them on studs – no way to get the cord in the wall. I’m dealing.)

One little change that I think made a big difference was one I got from a reader – she mentioned she had taken the cross bars off the top of her bed and loved it. You can see ours here:

I took them off and feel like it opened it up and updated the look so much!:

I love when little things like that change up a space. It feels so different! I also cut the finials down a bit, so they weren’t so pointy and now they’re not as noticeable. ;)

You can also see in the pics above that I replaced the art that was above the old nightstands with larger mirrors. (Got them last year at HomeGoods.) I love the reflection of the light in the space, and the larger size works so much better with the new nightstands – which are just bookcases. (More on those soon!)

The frames on the mirrors have a silvery gold sheen to them that helps to lighten up the space too:

    

Aren’t those calla lilies the most beautiful color you’ve ever seen? And isn’t the vase gorgeous?

I just bought it today. And the cat just broke it.

I can’t have anything nice.

Kidding! Not really.

The only other big change to the space is the chair:

I’ve always had a $15 garage sale chair in there, but it was a bit small for our tushies. And not comfortable at all. (It’s in the guest room now. All of our guests have small tushies.)

The new chair was my debt free present to us both. ;) A few weeks after we paid off our last debt earlier this year, I headed out to HomeGoods searching for the perfect chair for our bedroom:

It was a bit of a science fair and I think I ended up bringing three chairs home that weekend. I loved this one, but wasn’t sure about it in our bedroom. Hubby LOVED it in there, so it stayed.

My husband doesn’t have strong feelings as far as the decor goes very often, so when he does, I try to go with it. This is his house too you know. ;)

I’m especially in love with the cutie little pillows on there:

The furry cream one I found at Lowe’s – it was just the cover and I think it was only $7? I know furry doesn’t really scream summer, but oh my…it is SO soft! I love it!!

The other pillow was actually a placemat I found for $4 at Cost Plus World Market. I stuffed it like I did these and then tufted it with a couple of buttons (one on both sides).

I just used a long needle and went back and forth through the pillow about a zillion times. I’m hoping the buttons stay put but we’ll see about that. My sewing skills are not my strong suit. ;)

It’s shaping up nicely…in the past year I’ve changed a LOT in the room (the before):

There’s still so much I want to do though – I so want to paint our ceiling! The wall above the fireplace is just begging me to cover it with molding. (Do you hear it? I do.) And there’s a dresser we’ve had forever that I still need to paint. Can’t wait to show you that one -- it was a steal from Craig and his List!

Even though it’s taken me eons, we’re loving the changes so far! It’s so warm and comfy and still a bit sophisticated (we think anyway):

That black ball of fluff on the bed is a cat by the way. Not the pretty vase-breaker cat, another one. One who doesn’t break my stuff. :)

OH, and one more little change that I think made a big difference? I changed out the white fitted sheet that was over the box springs for a chocolate brown one so it blends into the bed – I LOVE it! I was going to make a bed skirt, but I’m so happy with how it looks I’m not going to.

For now. My mind could change. It would take me year to make it anyway. :)’

**The duvet was from Target last year, the bench was from HomeGoods last year as well. I’ve seen some similar to it still though!

For more on the master bedroom redo, click here for all of the posts.

Closet turned book nook

Hello all!! I’m SO EXCITED to show you the fun little project I’ve been working on over the past week or so. Well, the space is little, the work was not. ;)

The idea for this project came to me over time…the first idea was to just replace the wire shelving in a closet off the playroom with wood shelves and then paint the inside a fun color. I picked out the paint forever ago to do just that....and it sat. And sat. 

As time went on (and I avoided building those shelves week after week), another idea came to me that I liked SO much better. I mentioned before that we weren’t using this closet anymore (thank you decrapification!) – so it was just calling out for something FUN.

And fun it is. :)

I have this thing about nooks – I just think they are the coolest. I think kids are drawn to small spaces too. I know I was growing up – a space to read, play, dream, whatever. We don’t have many nooks in this open floor plan house, so when I got this idea I was in luuurve with it before I even started.  ;)

I began with the help of an electrician – which we were going to do anyway because we have no lights in our closets. (I’m hoping to add them here and there over time.)

I saw the end result in my head, and in my head there was an adorable lantern/outdoor-type light. When I found the light that was in my head at Menards a couple of months ago, well…it was meant to be:

The fact that it was only $12 made it even better. ;) WHOO!

(I did some research and asked a few electricians to make sure the outdoor light would be OK installed inside – all said it was fine.)

Once the lighting was taken care of, I started the building process. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I did what any good DIY gal does –  I called Dad.  ;)

He talked me through it and then left me to try it. All by my lonesome. Did I mention I’ve never built anything like this (on my own)?

I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but I went for it! I started with a bottom shelf:

And once that one was done, I did the next one, which was the actual bench:

I was totally winging it, but it was working! And I was using only scrap wood from other projects. About half way in, I was challenging myself to keep it up and see if I could do the whole bench without buying anything for it. And I did. :)

The top was a bunch of scrap pieces:

Which was OK, because I was going to cover it with a cushion, which I threw together with scrap particle board and foam:

And finally, I created some shelves:

And when I was done, the cutie patoot book nook was born!:

Shut the front door – I LOVE IT. I think it may be my new favorite room in the house!

Well, favorite nook in the house:

I had planned on closing off the bottom part, and making it look like a built-in bench, but then I realized it could be great extra storage. And it works perfectly for those big honkin’ books.

I considered a curtain of some sort, but I’m leaving it be. I love having it open…for now. We’ll see how if it stays this organized. ;)

And originally I planned on making the board go vertically, but because I’m lazy inventive OK, lazy…I made them horizontal to hide most of the holes from the wire shelves:

I covered most of the holes with those boards. SCORE!

The bookshelves fit perfectly in the little recess inside the closet:

It was that little recess that started my mind rolling on this project. ;) (The door used to open out to that side, and I’m guessing that’s why there’s extra space there.)

You might notice the light changes a bit throughout the pictures – I had the electrician install a dimmer (first one in this house I haven’t put in myself!) so we could keep it low as a nightlight (since the door is staying off) or up high for reading.

I painted the walls and ceiling above the molding with a beautiful deep blue/green color I found at Lowe’s:

I picked this color out months ago to work with the new drapes in the playroom, and it’s so so SO pretty.

I wanted to create a little space for the Bub to get away and dream, and I think I accomplished it:

The fact that it’s new storage for half of his books is just a bonus. :)

And I’ll admit it…I’m dreamin’ in it too:

BIG FAT SMILEY FACE.

:)

I’ll share the whole process of how I did everything in the closet later this week – the bench, shelves, paint, cushion, costs -- all of it. There were little things that tripped me up here and there and I’ll show you how I dealt with them.

We all love this little space so much. :) Hope you enjoyed the tour of our new favorite nook!

Prettying up the ceiling fan

Helloooooo all! Hope you had a great weekend!

A couple weeks ago I did a little project that only took about five minutes and buck to complete. So of course I had to show you. :)

It all started last month when I finally addressed the massive pile of magazines I’ve been avoiding for months (years?) now.

I saw an idea in one of my old BHG mags and then did a little researching online to see if I could figure out how to do it myself. I didn’t find the how-to, but I did find another inspiration picture:

We have a ceiling fan in our family room and even though I’d prefer something prettier, it’s staying. It’s necessary for the times the oven starts smoking in the kitchen, the smoke alarm is going off, and opening the windows and flapping the kitchen towel just isn’t cutting it. :)

The person that creates the smoke may or may not be me.

I will never tell.  :)

The fan is darker brown, which I do like. It has three lights as you can see here:

It’s not bad. Nothing awful. I was just inspired by the photos I found and wanted to try something different.

I decided I was going to do my best to use what I had on hand to change it up.

I started by taking off the glass covers – you just squeeze the metal pieces inside and pull the glass off:

Next up – to figure out how to get my lamp shade to stay on the fan. I had large Goodwill drum shade I planned to use and it was the type with the wire circle at the top of the shade – the kind you have to use with harp. (More on that in a bit!)

So I stood under the fan for about ten minutes, thinkin’ and a thinkin’. I noticed there was a little jobby on the bottom where the pull chain came out. It matched the one on the side:

Because I’ve changed out a meeellion lights in this house, I have plenty of electrical parts laying around. I dug through my stash and found this threaded connector:

The real name of this piece will create some major spam and unwelcome searches if I use it, so for now it’s called a “threaded connector.” ;)

Anyhoo, I knew if I could get it connected to the fan, I could figure this out:

I looked and looked and LOOKED and tried every little trinket I had in my tool box, and nothing worked. Drats.

I was so determined at this point, I was off to the hardware store. :) I looked around for awhile, but couldn’t find the exact piece I needed.  Lowe’s Guy and I both spent a good ten minutes looking through the drawers of nuts and connectors, and still couldn’t find anything that worked. And then Lowe’s Guy No. 2 came up to help and suggested I look in…wait for it…the ceiling fan area.

Now, who would have thunk it? :) Bahhhrilliant.

There I found exactly what I was looking for:

Two of these little connectors came in a package for about $1.50. Not bad.

I threaded the connector to the fan, put the longer connector into that one, and then put the hole of the lamp shade over the long piece:

I secured the shade up there with a small nut (picture on the right). It worked perfectly!

The original lamp shade I tried was way too big though, so I took another off a lamp and used that instead (a lovely from Pottery Barn I got with a gift card last year):

Love, love, LOVE.

There’s a few things to consider if you want to try this out – first of which is your ceiling height. The shade hangs lower than the glass shades did, by about five inches I'm guessing? Our ceilings are nine feet, so we still have plenty of clearance. (I’m 5’9”, hubby is 5’11”.)

Something else to consider is your lamp shade. My shade was the type that fits on the lamp with a harp – it’s called a spider fitting:

If you have an uno style shade, or the type that fits right over the lamp socket, you’ll have to use a different method:

I’m sure there’s a way to wire that type of shade up there. But if you are thinking about trying this out, I’d suggest using one with the spider fitting, just because it’s SO easy.

If the bare bulbs showing from underneath the fan are going to bother you, this isn’t for you. That doesn’t bug me one bit, since you only see the light bulbs if you’re right under it:

Honestly, you see less of the bulbs this way than with the original glass shades.

One more thing to consider is the size of your shade. The light bulbs need to be two to three inches from the shade, for safety reasons:

But that also depends on the wattage of your bulbs – ours are 60 watt and we have a dimmer on this light. (And even though our shade is large enough, I had the light on full force for hours the first day, feeling to see how warm the shade was every ten minutes or so.)

It was fine. But I’m a freak like that.  :)

It’s odd – it’s makes more of a statement than the glass shades, but I find I notice it less. Maybe it’s because those covers were never my cup of tea. Or it could be because I’m obsessed with drum shades (especially those trimmed out with lovely jute trim).

I don’t know what it is, but I love how it turned out. Especially because it only cost $1.50:

If you don’t have a drum shade, check out Lowe’s! They have a great selection. I always find great options at HomeGoods too, usually for less than $15.

Oh, and it holds up great when the fan is running too. Our fan doesn’t shake much anyway, but it’s totally secure.

So have you doctored up a ceiling fan? With spray paint? New shades? Some bling? :) Have you tried this project? Do share!

Oh, and by the way -- this version:

Is $540. :) Rock. on!!