Category: house & home

  • Light It Up, Up, Up

    Light It Up, Up, Up

    We’re finally done refinishing and replacing the last of our brass lighting fixtures in the house! Not that there’s anything wrong with brass at all, and I know it’s gaining some popularity again as of late, but the fixtures we have are all builder grade and just not as warm and cozy as I’d like them to be. Plus I had already switched out all the brass hardware on our doors, so updating the light fixtures ties everything together nicely. There were five fixtures total – the dining room chandelier (which was covered with a DIY drum shade since I have yet to find a fixture we like), three ceiling flush-mounts in our hallways, and one pendant fixture at the bottom of our second-floor stairs. Replacing all five fixtures would easily be over $1000, and I’d rather spend that on an international plane ticket! Plus the dining room chandelier would have required an electrician’s assistance. So we decided to DIY four of the five fixtures, and splurge just a little on the pendant light. Here’s what we did.

    The three hallway ceiling fixtures were all the same – this octagon shaped flush-mount seen below. We will probably replace them eventually, but I don’t hate the shape and I wanted to see what bronze fixtures would look like everywhere, so in the meantime I decided to just spray paint it with my favorite Rustoleum oil-rubbed bronze paint. It says it’s a primer and paint all-in-one, but I wanted good coverage, so I also used a primer spray as my first coat.

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    Before all the spray paint though, I taped the heck out of the glass panes and cut pieces to fit with an x-acto knife. Now listen, this isn’t a quick project because of the tape, and maybe there’s a better method. (Maybe you could cut pieces of paper to fit in over each area of glass?) But I already had Frog Tape, and a free afternoon (for each light – I didn’t do them all at once), so I went with this method and it works fairly well. I say fairly well because some spray did get on the other side of the glass underneath because of the hole in the top. I easily scraped any excess paint off with a razor blade. Oh and to do the mounting plate, I stuffed little bits of rolled-up paper towel in the light bulb sockets so as not to get spray paint into the sockets. I did three coats total – one coat of primer, and two coats of the bronze. I allowed the recommended dry time in between each coat, and then I let it dry for a full 48 hours before reinstalling the fixture. But before the final coat dried, I carefully peeled off all the tape.

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    The results are great! It’s still not as fun of a statement piece as I’d like, but I think it’s an improvement over the brass. P.S. The little “hello” sign in the photo below will get painted soon. I’m still trying to decide on a color! And sorry for the clutter in our organizing station. There’s an oxymoron for you – cluttered organizing station! (The wire bin is for paper and mail recycling if you’re curious.)

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    The beauty of spray painting the ceiling flush-mount fixtures was that from any vantage point the new finish looks like it was purchased that way unless you stand and study it. The inside shows sort of a bare metal (not brass) because I didn’t try to paint over it, but it’s not shiny and it’s enclosed so you really can’t tell. The pendant lamp shown below posed a different issue. The fixture isn’t enclosed, and standing beneath it you can easily see inside, so I’d have to tape (and tape and tape) both the outside and the inside in order to paint the whole thing. And that would be in addition to the chain, the wires, and the mounting plate cap. The fixture is in a prominent area of the house as opposed to the foyer and hallways where we just pass through, so I wanted the lighting to look nicer than my DIY skills.

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    So, ta da! I had been searching for a suitable fixture that we’d really like, and this one showed up at Pottery Barn just recently. Here she is all installed thanks to my super patient and handy hubby!

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    The fixture came with one of the cool hipster filament bulbs, but I felt like it was actually a little too small for the lantern and didn’t quite give off enough light, so we just used the big globe we had in there before. I like it.

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    I’d especially like to reiterate how patient Chris is because this was not an easy installation. We have the electrical part down pat at this point, but this fixture was on a sloped ceiling at an awkward angle in a tight spot next to the stairs. Our ladder has a big footprint and would barely fit in that area, so getting the mounting plate screwed in nice and tight was a challenge. Not to mention I had to find somewhere to stand and hold the lantern part while he connected wires and attached everything. It was a good shoulder workout! But we like the results, and other than one more (chrome) fixture in the master bath, we should be done with lighting for a while!

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    What do you think? Are these an improvement over the brass fixtures? (We think so!) Do you have any lighting projects coming up? Let me know – I’d love to see your results!

    Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of my links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for reading and for your support!

  • Pop(pie)s of Color

    Pop(pie)s of Color

    Just another quick update to the guest bath for you! In my last post about the bathroom, I mentioned that I needed to add some color to the gray-green palate. I was inspired by this beautiful print on etsy, and decided that the red and pink poppies would add just the right amount of subtle color and interest to the room. So here’s where we started originally:01_guest_bath_blog

    And then this is after my mini makeover, but right before I swapped out the art (the pear print is now behind the door) and the candles.06_guest_bath_blog

    And here’s the room with new art, red candles, soap and washcloths. The cute little green stool was a really inexpensive find at Antiques Farmhouse. (The white rug with green stripes is still in there, it just didn’t show up in the photo. This room is so hard to photograph!)

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    I just love this happy little print! Kelly N. Photography has tons of gorgeous photos in her etsy shop. Definitely check it out!11_guest_bath_blog

  • Guest Bath Mini Makeover

    Guest Bath Mini Makeover

    Our main floor guest bathroom was definitely filed in the “rooms-in-serious-need-of-a-makeover” folder. Everything builder’s grade that can be put in a bathroom was in this room – the hardware, the faucet, the lighting, the floors, the cabinet, and so on. When we bought the house, I remember thinking, Ooo, it’s a blank canvas! We can do anything with it. And yes, it truly is a blank canvas. The only problem is, the entire house was a blank canvas, and we simply couldn’t tackle everything at once. Somehow, this sad little bathroom didn’t get a ton of attention until recently when I decided to give it a mini-makeover to tide us over until we can decide what we really want to do with it. So here’s the before:

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    Here’s the other side, though not much will change over there. (P.S. Sorry that the toilet lid was up! But you’re probably blinded by the other horrible features in here and maybe didn’t notice that lid.)02_guest_bath_blog

    The first thing we decided to change was that light fixture. All of our research indicated that this would be a simple swap! Until we popped the fixture off and found this mess of a hole behind the mounting hardware. Unfortunately, the hole would not be covered up by the new fixture. We spent the day learning how to patch large drywall holes (short answer: make a bigger, square hole and fit a fresh piece of drywall of the same size in the new hole). Once the hole was repaired, sanded and painted, installing the new light fixture was easy breezy.03_guest_bath_blog

    After swapping out the light fixture, we painted the walls a soft sage color (which doesn’t photograph well at all, by the way). I wanted to go with a light neutral since this room lacks a window and therefore doesn’t get any natural light. We installed a new towel bar, a shelf and I added a few accessories and art, but it still looked blah because of that vanity! It was just so…orange. And the faucet needed to be more fun. 04_guest_bath_blog 05_guest_bath_blog

    The vanity and the vanity top were in good shape, so I decided to just paint the cabinet a grayish-green and add some simple knobs and a new toilet paper holder. I followed these directions for painting the cabinet. It was super easy, only took one weekend (due to the drying time), and I think it made a huge difference! The Sherwin-Williams paint color I used on the cabinet is called Chatroom.

    I also painted the quarter-round to match the baseboards. I’m not sure why it was ever orange oak in the first place. I still need to find a new mirror, and we also plan to add crown molding. Eventually I think we’ll gut the whole thing and do some really nice upgrades, but for now, it’s so much better.06_guest_bath_blog

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    Oh and here’s the new faucet! It’s not the most expensive one by any means since this is just an in-the-meantime fix, but I think it’s more fun than what was in there before. 07_guest_bath_blog

    Since this is my first bathroom makeover project I went with a really safe monochromatic palette, but I think my next in-the-meantime steps will be to find the perfect mirror and also add in some color with different accessories/art. Maybe something similar to one of these palettes – autumn hues, or bright punchy colors with the soft neutrals. 08_guest_bath_blog

    Oh and I have another bathroom to tackle in the same way, so more on bathroom updates soon!

  • Adventures in Pinterest-Land: DIY Drum Shade

    Adventures in Pinterest-Land: DIY Drum Shade

    Chris and I have lived in our townhouse for over seven years now – it’ll be eight in October! Incoming cliché: I can’t even believe how fast time flies. And in those 7+ years, we’ve been staring at this builders-grade brass chandelier above our dining room table. Well, not continuously staring, but still. Every time I see it, I feel brassy sadness. But alas, we (meaning me, really) haven’t found another fixture that we I love. It has to have a ridiculously long chain/cord, so that narrows our choices down unless we want to have something rewired (which I’m willing to do if I found the right fixture).

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    For perspective, here’s a really old photo I took before we moved in when we were house-hunting. (Aw, memories!) See how the chandelier is installed on the vaulted ceiling? Well, it’s cut off in the photo, but you can hopefully picture it. I have been dreaming of at least painting the fixture with oil-rubbed bronze spray paint, but as you can imagine, getting it down and putting it back up would require a really really tall ladder and some nerves, so we just haven’t tried it. I contemplated spray painting it right in place with drop cloths over everything, but that’s risky, too. I’m sure I’d get paint everywhere. I can’t even brush my teeth without making a mess.02_chandelier_shade_blog

    So I continued to hunt for the perfect dining room lighting. I love the look of the oversized drum shades that I’ve been seeing everywhere. I have been staring longingly at these photos (found on houzz.com):03_chandelier_shade_blog

    And I even found a lamp at west elm that I really liked, but it’s a single-bulb fixture and I was worried it wouldn’t give off much light.  westelm

    I actually bought it hoping to just plop the shade over our existing fixture, but the shade was a little too shallow and wouldn’t completely hide our little brass monkey.

    Enter Pinterest and its glorious wealth of inspiration. I saw someone else pin a few tutorials on how to make your own custom drum shade – perfect! I read through a few of them and decided to give it a try. I mostly followed along with The Keylor Family’s tutorial and made a few adjustments of my own.

    Here are my supplies, pretty much the same as the other tutorials out there – two 23″ quilting hoops, two acrylic panels, fabric, glue gun/sticks (not pictured), and hanging hardware. I wanted a light neutral color, so I decided to go with a fairly stiff canvas fabric so that it would be opaque enough to mostly hide the shadows. I chose a white rip-stop nylon for the diffuser panel underneath because I liked that it was very sheer but also sturdy. I also decided to use eyelet screws and picture-hanging wire to hang the shade.

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    I didn’t have a special tool to cut the acrylic panels (found at Home Depot – they’re the covers for fluorescent ceiling lights) so I just used scissors and manhandled my way through after measuring them for my hoops and for the depth I wanted to cover the entire fixture. The panels actually chipped and splintered quite a bit, so after a minute of cutting I decided I better wear glasses. Safety first, yo!05_chandelier_shade_blog

    Once I had the panels cut to size, I wrapped them around the inner rims of the two quilting hoops (hang onto the outer rims – you might end up using one like I did), and held it all together with a bunch of binder clips.06_chandelier_shade_blog 07_chandelier_shade_blog

    Then, with my trusty glue gun I worked my way around the edges with beads of glue in between the hoop and acrylic panel, removing the binder clips as I went along. I actually cracked the acrylic at one point while trying to get my glue gun in between. I had a mini heart-attack, but it was okay. Try to be gentle, but if a crack occurs it will be hidden behind the fabric so no worries.

    Voila, the finished structure: 08_chandelier_shade_blog 09_chandelier_shade_blog

    Next, I measured my fabric – thanks to math, I knew I needed the diameter of the hoop multiplied by 3.14 (a.k.a. pi) plus a little extra to fold over as a clean seam. Go, geometry! I ironed my fabric first to get any wrinkles out and to press a clean folded edge on one side. Once my fabric was prepped, I used the wrap-and-binder-clip method to hold the fabric in place while I glued. Tip: pull and tug as you go along. I actually started with a bead of glue on one side, then went across to the opposite side and put a bead there, and sort of went in sections almost like cutting a pie from whole to halves to quarters, etc.

    After I glued all the way around, I realized I was left with some extra fabric that would show through on the edges when the light was on, so I went back and trimmed it with scissors.10_chandelier_shade_blog

    Still with me? Okay, so here’s the part where I got excited and forgot to take photos for each step. I liked the look of the rip-stop fabric for the diffuser panel, but gluing it into the inside of the shade like the Keylors did wasn’t working – I couldn’t get it taut enough and it was sagging. Thankfully I was able to pull it back out and come up with another idea.

    I grabbed the outer part of the quilting hoop, pried the wooden block adjusting things off using a butter knife and removed the staples. I put that ring inside the shade to determine what size would fit snugly, marked it, and then cut the hoop down and taped the ends together. Then, I wrapped the rip-stop nylon around again securing it with the binder clips, and was able to pull it so tight across that it was like a drum head while gluing.

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    Super smooth! Next, I trimmed that excess fabric from around the edges. 12_chandelier_shade_blog

    I was able to place it right inside the shade (from the top-down). It was a perfect fit and I probably didn’t even have to glue it in place, but I did run a line of glue around the edges in between the two hoops just to add some reinforcement. Here’s the nearly-finished shade upside-down.13_chandelier_shade_blog

    To hang the shade, I installed four little eyelet screws into the top hoop. I actually used Chris’s drill to make a tiny pilot hole because I couldn’t get the eyelet screw to just screw into the wood. Then, I strung the picture hanging wire onto s-hooks and through the chain of our chandelier. It seems sturdy enough!  14_chandelier_shade_blog

    And here’s the finished product! Ta da! Yes, I did go buy fresh flowers to celebrate. And I did a little dance.

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    Here’s how she looks lit up in the evening. I can still see a little bit of the outline of the chandelier, but it’s not bad.16_chandelier_shade_blog

    And here’s a picture of the seam – I lined it up with one of the spots where the acrylic panels meet.17_chandelier_shade_blog

    I’m really happy with the way it turned out! The total cost was $43, and it only took about 4 hours. I’m calling this Pinterest project a definite success – this should tide us over until we find the perfect light fixture. Or we may just leave it up forever. Onto the next project!18_chandelier_shade_blog

    UPDATE 8/23: I’m not sure I would recommend using the nylon ripstop fabric for the diffuser panel. This morning it was a little bit wavy in some spots – the nylon seems to change with temperature, because when I turned the light on for a few minutes, the fabric eventually tightened back up. (Is this a “duh” thing that everyone else knows about nylon? I had no idea.) The wrinkles weren’t bad enough that it’s noticeable unless you inspect it, but it might be enough to bug me into trying to change it out. 🙂

    UPDATE 9/12: Oddly enough, the nylon fabric stayed tightened up and hasn’t wrinkled again after a few weeks now, so I’m happy with that choice. It looks really great.

    Let me know if you have any questions about any of the steps!

  • Knob Knob…Who’s There?

    Knob Knob…Who’s There?

    Happy Monday! I just wanted to show (off) a tiny/quick update that Chris and I finally completed in our house. It’s really the smallest detail, but it makes such a huge difference! Any guesses from the following iPhone snapshots as to what it is?

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    We finally finished changing out all the hardware on our doors! We swapped out all the brass knobs, hinges and doorstops with oil-rubbed bronze hardware and I LOVE the difference it makes. They really pop off the white doors now, and I find myself just staring at them sometimes.

    It’s really sad funny sad how long it took us to complete this super easy project. First, we ended up making three separate trips to Home Depot for the supplies because the person in charge of counting the hardware (ahem…me) kept missing one or two here and there. Second, we sort of have home-projects-ADD, otherwise known as HPADD. We would do a few knobs, admire our work, then wander off to watch TV or something. Chris ended up doing the rest of the knobs one weekend while I wasn’t home – yay! But then it was several months before we felt like doing the hinges, especially since the first door took us a long time. We removed the entire door and tried to swap all three hinges at once. It was awkward, even with two people. We eventually realized it’s much easier to just leave the door in place and replace each hinge at a time.

    So there you have it! The tiniest and not-too-expensive little update (I think our total was around $385 for 12 doors) and we love the results. My next project in de-brassing the house is to refinish the rest of the light fixtures – I’ve already successfully done one and I love how it turned out. After four more fixtures, that will be the last of the brass. More on that soon!