Changing a Light Bulb

I promise I will not make any jokes about  “How many (insert witty line) does it change the lightbulb?” because this is not a joking matter and I can, in fact, do it all by myself. A very long time ago, February to be exact, I posted about a candle holder I converted to a light fixture. It was a good post and all, but lacked an explanation on how I accomplished it. The light bulb finally went out so I used that as a reason to get back up there and snap some pictures.First let’s take a look at the original light, well, just something similar to the original. Can you believe this costs $5.98 at Lowes? Crazy sauce. That’s like six McDoubles.

This is what I planned to replace it with. The opening was the exact same size as the light base. The silver stand was able to be unscrewed, flipped and screwed back in place. You can buy it online here but it’s 50% off in store maybe every other week.

This is after I removed the cover. When I first did this, it was to see if I even could. Once I decided it would work, I didn’t really finish anything because I was too busy gleaming about my success. Anyways, the base was left ivory, but wasn’t meshing with the crystal cover.

A little Rub n’ Buff took care of it! I had it out when I was doing the buffet. I was lazy again and didn’t tape anything off. I was shooting for “good enough”. From the floor, it looks flawless. I’m satisfied.

Once the lightbulb was changed and checked to see if it worked, it was time to put the cover back on. The screws are a part of the original light fixture so I took a paper clip, wrapped it around the crystal cover securely then wrapped it around the screw. There are three screws total I did it to each one. It takes longer to get the ladder out than to actually do this. I originally did this about a year ago, and have had zero problems with it except the light bulb burning out. It’s really easy to take it off and put back on so it’s not permanent.

There you go! Lights ON.

Lights OFF.
Anyone else attaching random objects to the ceiling and calling them light fixtures?

Antiquing an Antique

It’s possible, and I totally did it. I have a buffet that backs up to some chairs in my living room. I absolutely love the piece, but was having a lot of inner turmoil over whether to paint it or not. Believe it or not, sometimes wood it pretty. The buffet was lacking something and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. I’ve had this almost three years, and just kind of let it be because nothing was lighting my Christmas tree if you know what I mean.

Last week I came across a post of an updated buffet using Rub n’ Buff, and let me tell you, it looks amazing!  So I aspired to do something similar because, that’s what blogs are for??? Inspiration?!?!

 

Here’s my ingredients,

• Rub n’ Buff in Silver Leaf (It’s what I had on hand from this project.)
• Paintbrush
• Paper Towels
• Folk Art Antiquing Medium in Apple Butter Brown
• ONE finger

First off, I rubbed in the Rub n’ Buff into the wood trim. As soon as I would finish one part I would be like “Oh this part would look cool in silver too! Oh and this part! And THIS part!” I ended up silver leafing the trim, embellishments, hardware and legs.

Here’s a quick comparison. The silver wasn’t so bold in person, but it needed a little more dimension.

This is the original hardware and I lovvve it. It’s in really good condition, but also needed a little more emphasis. I put the tiniest smidge on my finger, because a little goes a LOOOONG way and lightly grazed it over the hardware just to hit the top of it and not go into the crease. So easy. Why did it take so long?

This is what it looks like when I put on the antiquing medium. Brush on, Wipe off. I don’t leave it on very long at all, maybe 30 seconds? I’ll bust out the stop watch next time.

This photo most accurately shows what it looks like. It’s still very silver, but has a nice aged look added to it now. I think it could have looked incredible in gold, but I didn’t have enough foresight to see that through. Most of my spontaneous projects evolve out of what I have on hand. I’m still happy with it though.

For a little sneak peek to the inner workings of my brain, I started the day preparing to clean the floors, that is so desperately needed based on this picture but quickly realized that updating this piece would be SO.MUCH.MORE.FUN!

This is the finished product for now product. The whole thing took about a half hour since all the parts I highlighted were raised, I didn’t need to tape it off for a crisp line.

I just need some magical potion that will help with the scratched and water spots on the wood. It could use a little rejuvenation without being completely refinished. Anyone have any recommendations?

P.S. the floors never did get cleaned either.

Art Therapy

What gives lately? Not with you, but me. I’ve been feeling a little sluggish and uninspired, but I just need to push past it. So, I’ve been doing a little “art therapy” and I think it’s working.

For me, I can’t go wrong with a brightly colored painting to lift my moods.  It looks so good on my chocolate bathroom walls.

It’s seriously hard for me to NOT paint with bright colors. Most of the furniture in my house is all very neutral, but art is one place I like to go caaarazy with. MMmmm…. Cooooloooors.

I’ve also got that other makeshift art in my bathroom, and oh, it’s colorful too.

What’s your “therapy”?

Some of my others include, retail therapy, mom therapy, puppy therapy and snuggle therapy. Right now, art is the only one I have access to!

I’ve also listed this painting in my Etsy shop here. If you want it, its yours!

No Soliciting, Thankyouverymuch.

Hmm… So thaaaat’s what it feels like to fall off of the face of the earth. Now I know! I’m glad this blog is a personal hobby, otherwise I would have been fired a long time ago. The thing is, I’ve been plenty busy painting furniture, glass doors, family heirlooms, going out of town, losing my dog and praying he comes back home and those people who have him will RETURN OUR CALLS SO WE CAN GET HIM BACK, UGH! Had to get that out, but no real time for plucking words out of my head and turning them into pixels. Ultimately, I missed blogging so I’m back!

A couple of weeks ago, it was a friday night and about 8 o’clock which means it was totally dark already. I’m home alone, which doesn’t really bother me until… Doorbell. Oh great, the neighbor kids are ring and running again, I’ll show them!!! I grab the door to open it and any residue of pleasantness on my face just falls off. SMACK! It’s on the ground. I am not a happy camper. It’s a solicitor, not a cute little girl scout, it’s one of the questionable ones because as he is giving me his spiel I detect the faint odor of alchohol.  Of course, I pretend like I’m not home alone, but it doesn’t help me after he leaves because I know that I’m home alone. I always feel so bad when I reject whatever “sponsorships” or magazines they are selling, because they are standing at my front door and KNOW where I live.

I know there are legit solicitors and then there are the questionable ones, this was the latter. I’m no stranger to charity so don’t leave thinking I’m all grinchy. Heck, last night I left a 50% tip at Chili’s!

Now that I practically wrote a stupid long college paper, here’s what I did to prevent this from happening. Alright. My front door. Don’t mind the colors and general unmatchedness OR the spring/summer wreath that I have not yet switched out for my winter/fall wreath. Obviously I need to expand my wreath selection, like, ANOTHER day.

On the front of my storm door, I wrote out what I wanted with dry erase marker on the OUTSIDE of the door. Once I got it how I liked it, I painted the INSIDE of it white. You know, so they couldn’t scratch it out, ring the bell, and claim it doesn’t exist.

From the inside, it doesn’t look like the paint covered all the well, but it did. I wasn’t too fond of the general chunkiness of the type, I was limited by my brushes. To fix it, I took and X-acto knife and shaved the letters down for something prettier. It ended up taking a little while. After it was all said and done, I think I tripped over my Silhouette machine and was all like hand to forehead, DUH! Coulda, woulda, shoulda used it but oh well, it’s done and I don’t mind it.

From far away… I like to think of it as a soft gentle reminder. Like someone saying in a sweet voice, “Please don’t ring my bell” rather that the giant black and silver stickers with that harsh, bold font that screams, “GO AWAY!!!”

And the close up… Problem solved!

So far it has a 100% success rate and can easily be removed when I find it in my heart to be more charitable.  I used to work at a women’s restoration program in a questionable part of town where people would come up to the door selling fruit and holding a giant knife to, I guess, cut? the fruit???I had explicit instructions to NOT unlock the door for ANYONE unless given approval thus my justified fear of strangers at the door was born.

Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable when certain people come to the door unannounced?

Doggie Duvet

I am a mean, terrible, horrible person. That’s what Elway would say if you asked him about me. You see, I refuse to let him sleep in the bed. He is too BIG and DIRTY and just plain INTRUSIVE. Who wants that??? Well, Caleb for one, but not I. They both lost this battle. Being the only girl in the house, I get a little more veto power and I exercised my right. Elway still constantly gets up on the bed and it drives me INSANE. He literally jumps from the kitchen onto the bed which is crazy far away. Sometimes I want to strangle that dog.

He has grown out of the stupid chewing everything phase which demolished his previous dog bed. You know, it’s kinda hard to force a dog to sleep on the floor without giving them an acceptable alternative. I figured I could make him a bed because they cost way to much in the store, aren’t even big enough, and don’t match anything. The last point is VITAL.

Enter my old curtains. Perfect amount of fabric, doesn’t clash and don’t need ’em anymore for . SCORE.

I wanted this to be a BIG bed so I didn’t even cut it down. To start, I folded it over inside out and sewed along the edges.

Once the sides are all sewn up, I just turned it right side out and put in a giant pillow that I made from old stuffing and styrofoam  I had laying around the house. Seriously, it was an old cushion that was too big to fit in the closet so it was just standing against the wall in the living room.  Something HAD to be done.

Here it is all stuffed up. My own little, er GIANT, doggie duvet. This is the back side so you can see how it goes in.

This is the top side. I know it looks kinda lumpy, but c’mon, it’s for a DOG. He doesn’t care. He eats poop. And dried worms. He is SO not a diva. Durant on the other hand totally is. What is it about small dogs?

Elway loves it! And it’s a better size compared to his old one which was the extra large size but was NOT extra large because half of his body hung off it. He actually sleeps on it! But sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I find him sneaking onto the bed, then I do the figure S snap in the dark and he hops down feeling all defeated. I win.

Durant likes it too. He thinks its just his size. I think not.

Check out that booty! Showoff!

You know what was harder than making it was trying to get a decent picture of the dogs. It felt like The Ring or some horror movie, every time I took a picture then looked in the camera something terrible came up.

Oh no! Seven DAYS!

So that’s all. I’m off to get my THIRD cup of chai today.

I.

have.

a.

problem.

The Pillow Formerly Known as Tea Towel

It’s Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday!!! I don’t know why I’m so excited about that but, oh wait! I do know… It’s my anniversary! Been married for three years now. It has gone by so fast. Sometimes I still feel like we’re in highschool. When the heck did I grow up and become old enough to get married and how in the world has it been THREE years?!? I never in 4.2 BILLION years (because that’s how “old” the “earth” “is”, Guffaw!) would have thought that at age twenty-three that I would have been married for three years… to a captain of the football team. Me?!?!? The Art Nerd! I love you Caleb! Happy Anniversary to ME!!

Okay, so this tea towel. It’s such a lovely shade of turquoise and my mom picked up these two at an estate sale. They kinda sat in a bag for a while before I decided to put them to use. I’m on a kick of getting all of the tiny little projects done, and this is one of them. Oh it feels so good to clean out the clutter and MAKE STUFF. No more “someday” or “eventually” excuses.

My one condition is that I didn’t want to spend any money on it, for like the filling. I did what any sane person does and tore open some old pillows I didn’t use anymore but didn’t have the cahones to throw away. What if I NEED it someday! I think that’s a hoarders mentality.
Here is is all sewn up now. I made it the fastest way which doesn’t include a zipper or a way to get the stuffing out. It’s okay though because it’s going in one of those not used very much rooms.

It looks lumpy because I was just testing it out. Success, it works! I really love the  pillow with all of the colors with the newly painted side table.

Haha dog butt! He’s been working out and just wants to be applauded for his efforts. Silly Durant. Maybe I’ll submit this to pets on furniture.

Well, that’s one less bag of stuff to do laying around. What have you been working on?

Linked up:

Look at all Those Legs: Part Duex

I know I just posted about this table and called it done, but I couldn’t convince myself that I really liked it. It looked lazy, and unfinished and it didn’t take long for me to get on it and show it a little more appreciation. First, let’s start from the beginning.

Just the plain ol’ wood…

Then the gray with white stripes.

I guess I kind of liked it, but it lacked a bit of pizzazz. It fell flat in the room, more like a piece of furniture was thrown in place rather than it intentionally placed there. Be warned, what I’m about to show you is a little “out there.” I can tell you right here and now that not everyone will love the after, but for me it’s perfect…. until I change my mind again. At least, I don’t feel like I’m convincing myself I like it, but my tastes may change down the road, who knows.

I still wanted to do stripes, but a more interesting version. Out came the bright colors and painters tape. I started with what I already had and built on from there.

I think I’ve been subconsciously inspired by all the Target Missoni hoopla because I think the finished product channels it a little bit. I didn’t intend to hence the subconsciously inspired bit.

It’s a cornucopia of color now and helps tie in some of the other colors in the room that may have felt a bit disjointed. I feel like it fits my personality so well, my decorating personality that is.

Here you can see a tiny peek at the green ceiling. It’s all coming together!

It makes me so much happier than the previous table.

Linked up at:

Little Projects Take the Longest

This may not be true for everyone, but it’s true for me. Some of these little projects take forever to finish only because they take forever to START. See this chair…

I’ve had it as long as I’ve had my other chairs which were made over when we bought our house almost two years ago. I didn’t finish them at the time because the table we had wasn’t big enough to hold six chairs. THEN I got a larger table that is the perfect size for the room, it just had to extra chairs sitting around mismatching like crazy…

They may look like the green chairs, and they are EXTREMELY similar, but they aren’t. One is a gala apple, and the other a fuji, at first glance you can’t tell at all but on closer inspection, you can. Anyway, off came the seat so it can be recovered.

I bought extra fabric at the time I did my other chairs knowing that these would also get redone down the road. I didn’t know it would take me two years, so it is definitely a good thing I bought it when I did since it’s no longer for sale. I badly wish it was because I want this fabric for my master bedroom curtains. Oh what could have been!

I didn’t even take off the old fabric, I just put it right on top. I did “test it out” to see if I could see the fabric underneath it in the sun. Nope, onwards.

Align, staple, pull, staple, pull, staple.

Staple

Staple

Staple

Fold

Staple

Staple

Screw back into place. How’s that for a tutorial? I’m awesome.

No more clashing! Why did I put off a half hour project for so long? I’m glad the fabric swatches aren’t wasting space anymore. It makes me want to put to use so many other items laying around the house and TRUST ME there is puhhhlenty of that going on.

I think I’ve convinced myself I like having the chairs mismatched a bit with the paint and wood. I’m mostly talking myself into it because I REALLY don’t want to sand, prime and paint anything right now or in the foreseeable future. Laziness prevails.

At least it looks intentional now, it only took TWO years.

Look At All Those Legs

I believe in miracles
Where you from,
you sexy thang

I like to sing my songs with a little twang in ’em. You know, I’m from Oklahoma after all. We ALL talk like that and ride horses into town. But I digress.

MEET MY MILLIONAIIIIIRES! I mean table…

Do you SEE those legs?!? Just stare them up and down until that table feels uncomfortable.

So pretty. You may think it was a crime to paint over the wood, but it was just mehhh. At first, I wanted to keep the tabletop with a stained wood grain, but I did something to screw that up. I’m still not exactly sure what I did, I put something on it that wasn’t stain and then the stain wouldn’t take to it regardless of how much I sanded it down. It’s a shame because the top was really pretty.

I ended up painting it gray with a little red accent. I love blue, but sometimes it just needs a break and I find red is a good color for that. You’re probably DYING to compare this side of the room to what is looked like before, so let me oblige you…

Unimpressive. It was pretty plain before, almost anything would have been an improvement. My favorite part? I PUT A BIRD ON IT! Can you find it below?

After I painted it gray and did the red, it still felt unfinished so I put some diagonal white stripes on top. I’m still on the fence about it. I intended to do the WHOLE top, but got this far and thought the whole thing might be a bit much. Maybe I’m wrong. I does  kinda give me an 80’s neon vibe. I guess if I’m complaining about it this much that might mean I don’t really like it. Ohhh I don’t know! The indecisive mind! Gahh!

I also wanted to point out my cute new bookends! My mom picked them up from an estate sale and I snatched them up first chance I got. Victory!

ANDDDD my cute new feather tray! I got it online from Kohl’s along with my coral. The tray was only $8. I’m telling you Kohl’s has cute home stuff.

That’s all!

I Bought Some Stuff

I’ve been feeling a little brain dead lately. I’ve been getting plenty of projects done, I just don’t have the words to explain them! Here’s hoping this one will get me jumpstarted.

Words

Words

More Words

Ugh. Okay, time to stop stalling. So I really like my house, and style and the way it has all been coming together transitioning from a kid to like adult stuff. There are still a few gaps when it comes to certain things, especially accessories.

My built-in cabinet that I painted a while back never really got the full star treatment it deserved. It was poorly decorated once it was done and since then, most of the items have been transplanted to another part of the house. All of the frames went to the gallery wall in the studio and the other knick knacks went on the shelves above the sofa. It was totally desolate.

‘

It sat empty for awhile because styling isn’t exactly my forte. I just don’t have enough stuff but I really don’t feel like spending a ton of money on those things. I was watching Interiors INC on HGTV and they decorated two large bookshelves and mentally I was trying to calculate how much it cost to decorate them and I bet it ended up being over a thousand dollars. I don’t have a thousand dollars for ACCESSORIES. But I do have $25.

I bought a couple of items from Kohl’s. Don’t underestimate their home decor items. I bought two coral pieces online. (Find it here and here.) I used a 20% off coupon to discount it even further to $25 for the two. I won’t buy anything from Kohl’s without a coupon, it’s just foolish even if it is already heavily discounted, the extra discount helps! I was excited when the package finally arrived so I sucked it up and got to finishing my cabinets.

This is the finished picture. I’m going to try to make as few excuses as possible because I don’t LOVE the finished product. But here it is. It’s PROGRESS. Not everything can be wham bam done. Especially for a neurotic person like me. I would be staring at these shelves till one in the morning and Caleb would beg me to come to sleep.

Here is one of the coral pieces I got. I so wish I had a beach!

Here’s the other.  Still not crazy about this shelf but I love my new coral.

This is my favorite shelf, I love the colors and that white bird. All the vintage books come from my mom, I keep telling her to pick up more for me. I want the appearance of being well read. I’m just not a person that OWNS a lot of books.  When I was in high school the only “real” books I would read were true crime books written by FBI profilers. Something about it fascinated me even though I could never go into a field like that.

Now I’m way off subject and have run out of words to say. I’ll leave you with this…

Words

More words

Even more words

Words.