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So, I got a new chandelier for the dining room.

Would this be the dining room that just got a new chandelier last year? Yep, that's the one.

Now, before you go putting me in the loony bin for buying yet another lighting fixture for the dining room (this makes #3), let me state my case. It is a vintage bamboo chandelier at a wicked good price. I couldn't very well leave it behind once I saw it. What if someone bought it who wouldn't have taken care of it? There was a lady with a bedazzled purse and a scrunchie eyeing it at the same time my mom and I were fawning. I couldn't let this light go home with Mrs. Scrunchie, that's just mean. So really I rescued this light from certain doom. I'm a humanitarian. Me and Angelina.


The only problem I had with it was the color. I am a card-carrying member of the black fan club but I've already got a lot of black in the dining room and the walls are darker so adding this big and wonderful black light was just sucking the remaining light out of the room. And the black was hiding all of the great detail that made me love the light in the first place.

I wavered between something sparkly and something with more pop. But while I wavered, I made myself useful and primed.


Sparkle took over and I went with gold. I think I had spent a few hours play dress up with the girls before hand, so that might have influenced my decision. But the subtle, glam, vintagey gold I was looking for didn't happen.


Bust.

It was a little too Golden Girls for my taste. I suppose I could have taken some rub n' buff to the thing to tone it done a bit, but have you taken a close look at this thing? It has no fewer than 47 sides. It's a mathematical anomaly. It was hard enough to spray it, I wasn't about to hand rub the sucker.

I decided to go with what my gut had told me originally and go with my color pop. Why I ever tried to ignore you gut I don't know. My apologies. After something red, with a bit of orange in it, I went to Michaels to look thru the hard core arty spray paint and landed on Cadmium Red by Liquitex.

The color was perfect and the paint goes on wonderfully. It dries super fast and the odor is almost non-existant.


I will warn you though this stuff chips like a... it chips really bad. I wouldn't use this on anything that would get any sort of day to day use, but since people rarely touch my chandelier, I figure it will be safe.


So up she went, looking beautiful. All of her pretty details showing up so much better now in her bright red. But she was missing one last detail. This was the perfect piece to try out one of my favorite blogger 'I want to try that one day' DIYs.


Yep, I followed Emily's lead and added some polka dot fabric to my plain little candle sleeves. You can go to Recently for the full DIY but I will tell you this was easy as can be. All you need is some fabric, scissors and Mod Podge and you'll be done in 10 minutes.


So the moral of the story is this - ignore trends and always go with your gut. Your gut will never lie to you. And never pass up a good light because you already have one. There is always room for one more chandelier in your life.

What about you? Have you added something to your house only to replace it with something else a year later? Painted anything with 47 sides? Watched Golden Girls lately?

bad basement lighting

And she lives!

Thank you all for your get well soons while I was out. That was no doubt the worst flu I've had in...as long as I can remember. I wouldn't say I'm back to 100% yet, but 85% will do. I've heard that the flu shot isn't so strong this year, but I'd still say get one if you can. Although, people seem to have strong opinions about wether or not to get flu shots. Have you ever said 'flu shot' in a crowded room? Oy! Anyway, do what you can to stay healthy.

As I ease myself back into the standing position I thought I'd share a simple DIY that took all of 20 minutes. (my favorite kind)

I picked this bench up off the side of the road (better than a hitchhiker) and then promptly put it in my basement for the next two years. Par for the course, I know. These are the only true before pictures I have.

I don't even want to know what the stain on that seat is from. Dirty. Ugly. But sturdy.



I love the color and pattern on this fabric but thought it was a bit too delicate to have as a pillow in this house. Who knows if a bench will keep it safe any better than a pillow would, but we shall see.


It appears to be a wonderful place to sit and look out the window with friends.


Mother tested. Kid approved.

This bench will be residing in the living room. Along with several other things that have been finished and added. This week I'll be featuring a completed project everyday. I feel bad about the big tease last week and then bailing last week.

So how was your weekend?

I've been in need of a new bedside table. The one I used in my bedroom reveal was on loan from my daughters' playroom. Turns out, they didn't think it was as wonderful next to my bed as I did. So back downstairs it went and the hunt was on.

At least though I knew what to look for because that table taught me I need more space. I don't know about you, but I keep a lot of crap important stuff by my bed and as dreamy (ha, no pun intended) as cleaning off my night stand on a regular basis sounds, it's not happening. 

So more storage was needed. But also, I wanted something different. Something certainly different than anything I had. Nothing that screamed 'hello, I'm a bed side table. Won't you lie down?'

A tall order but nothing I can't find after a little digging. And right around my birthday, this table was found at a local shop, by the same name actually - found. Happy Birthday to me! It had plenty of storage and an industrial/vintage feel. This sucker can take a beating. Not that I'm particularly abusive with my furniture, but you know.

Getting this table for my birthday ment I've had it since July. So why haven't I posted about it until now? Because I wanted to live with it for a while. See how I liked it and get a feel for what I would want to do to it, if anything. I was waiting for my table to talk to me.

And now that I've lived with it I'm thinking I want to fresh it up just a bit. Specifically its color.

Ever since I picked up this orange greek key tray in Florida, I'm thinking orange might be the way to go. Pretty surprising I know since we all know my fears about orange. I must be growing. Or drunk.


So, what say you? Know of any good orange spray paint colors? I've got to have spray paint - can you imagine brushing this sucker? Any other color ideas?

Grab your cocktail and lets get this party started! I'm happy to report that I'm done. I don't think the room is done (are they ever really done?) but I am done.

There has been blabbing aplenty on this room so I'll try to talk (type) less and show more. Most of you know how hard it is for me not to talk, so this will be a challenge.

To recap, here is what we started with. A sad little space. The space of a couple who was too tired working on the rest of the house to put much energy into said space (or apparently into proper pillow placement).


Initially the plan was to just throw some lipstick on it. Add a bit of paint and maybe some new bedding. It was to take no time at all. Ha! I'm such a fool. When will I ever learn?!

A little paint led to more changes and more changes. It was that whole 'and they told two people, and they told two people, and so on.' This turned into a lot of 'and so on's.'

Here is my 'and so on' space.
The gold spray painted lamp shades were moved in here and I love their pop of black against the panels.
Bedside tables are still a topic of discussion (in my head) but these are a good fit for now. Both are castoffs from the basement.
I shopped my basement and brought up this old iron headboard and added ribbon trim to bamboo roman shades (also from the basement) to soften them up a bit.
Giving the ribbon treatment to the existing bedskirt and making my own monogramed shams meant that all I bought for the bed itself was a throw pillow from HomeGoods and new sheets (which I lurve) from TJMax.

I covered it with a 1/2 yard of fabric purchased with a Hobby Lobby coupon and a can of spray adhesive. I mean I used the coupon to buy the fabric. I don't think you can pay for things with spray adhesive.

The floor lamp was found at a garage sale while walking the dog. I only had $1 on me and the wonderful woman was happy to take it. Holla!

The old frames came from my parent's basement (what's with me and basements?) and my mom was nice enough to hand them over under one condition  - "don't you dare spray paint them!"

A rug is still needed (I'm waiting for one to speak to me but I'm told rugs don't speak, so that might be part of the problem), and I'd still LOVE to talk the hubs out of chucking that ceiling fan in favor of a great old chandelier. But for now - I'm just going to enjoy.

So in the words of the Beastie Boys - that's it that's all that's all there is.

P.S. - I made a challenge to myself at the beginning of this project to try and take a second look at things I already owned rather than going out and just buying a bunch of new stuff. After all, if I bought it at some point, there must be something I liked about it - right?. Almost everything in here was something I already owned and just altered. As for the items I did purchase - paint, ribbon, wrapping paper, fabric and a few estate/garage sale items - I did this whole room for less than $125. And that makes me happy.

P.P.S - For anyone who thinks my bed stays that straight all the time - here it is just 10 minutes after taking these pics.

Now what am I going to do with all this free time?

I've had such fun following the Color My World series that several of my favorite ladies have been participating in over the last several weeks. Today is the last day of the series and to celebrate, they are having a link party. Being the party girl that I am, I thought I'd jump in on the fun.

Although it might seem a bit predictable, my 4-year-old has become rather vocal about her room lately and she demands PINK. I've wanted to add pink somewhere for quite a while and I'm totally in favor of using my children for my own gain. Don't worry, social services has already been notified of my poor parenting. So pink it is!

My mom gave these wonderful watercolors to my youngest for her birthday and I immediately thought, 'this is my chance'. So I took some old black frames and a can of Rust-oleum Berry Pink

Hello beautiful.


I was loving the color so much I decided to repeat it on the other side of the room. It was the perfect chance to add that mirror my 4-year-old has also been begging for (primping starts young in this house). So I gave the Berry Pink treatment to an old mirror.

Along with some pink laquered boxes from The Container Store the room is now a bit brighter and we are all...tickled pink. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Make sure to check out all of the wonderful women who rocked this challenge over the past month. You are going to be craving color in no time!

I'm guest posting over at Living Savvy today, talking about some of my favorite spray painting projects. Tiffany is one of my all time favorites, so I'm pretty excited. Head over and check it out!



Happy Weekend!

What's that saying? "Never blue and green without something in between"? (or something like that) Well unless that something in between in the creamy center of an Oreo, I disagree. I know, I'm just that crazy. Just call me the rule breaker.

Take for instance this $4 tray from Michael's.
I've been trying to think of a way to tie the green I used on the mirror for the bedroom to something else in the room. And also I haven't picked a color for the walls yet, so I'm stalling with a smaller project. This still totally counts as 'progress in the bedroom' though! (Get your mind out of the gutter)

No problem, I'll spray the tray green. Easy, but still pretty boring.

I thought about a stencil like this

via Pinterest

or some sort of Greek Key inspiration, like I found in these bookcases.

via Bibbidi Bobbidi Beautiful

But I wasn't convinced.

Then while browsing J. Crew, I found this honey.

I used a piece of the same size tape for my spacer, so the lines would be as symmetrical as possible. I just moved the spacer piece of tape after each line was set, working my way out to the ends.

Sorry for the Miami Vice lighting in this picture

One taped tray and I'm ready for paint. I love it already.

I knew touch ups would be needed, especially on the edges, so I was pretty liberal with the paint...as you can tell.

I used Navy Blue craft paint, as I couldn't think of a safe way to use Navy Blue spray paint with out a LOT more taping. It did take several coats to get even coverage but it dried super fast so my impatient self was satisfied.

My best Vanna White impression