{Labor of Love}

Did you guess what my newest project is?

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone??

Probably not (unless you're a Fbook friend) it was sort of a bad hint.  Very vague. Oh well.

It's a.............Chandelier!!

But not a traditional chandelier.  I was getting only slightly sick of the gold 'boob' light in our hallway because I walk under it at least 8 times a day.  I thought I'd test my hand at this little DIY.  I used what I had at home for the most part so the total cost of this project lies in the circle punch at $8 (40% off) at JoAnn's. I'll take it!

I took a hanger and fit it around my blinding gold boob light, twisted it to bind it together and then took thread and attached the top part of a lampshade that I was going to donate to create a lower tier.  That's confusing, I know. It's very strange but strangely WORKS!

I used wax paper and parchment paper to make the "capiz shells". I used 2 long pieces of parchment paper and 3 pieces of wax paper in between.  Got out my little iron and ironing board & ironed the parchment paper/wax paper combo.  The end result was one thick piece of wax paper.  I  then circle punched about 7 sheets of the wax paper and glued 7 circles or "shells" to a piece of thread for the upper tier, and 6 circles for the lower tier. 

A few hot glue gun burns later, I had myself a pretty little chandy.  Bear in mind that this is VERY time consuming, but this particular week my hubs was working late every night and American Idol finals were on, so I had a lot of spare time while watching T.V. I am also really good at multi-tasking.  Cheers to my new light and possibly a mini one downstairs by the garage entry.  There's a cute gold fixture down there too!

The Habitat ReStore is calling both of their names loud and clear.  It'll be OK little lights, I wouldn't want to leave our house either...

Update on the outdoor cushions:  No update. Still can't decide.  Fell in love with some other ones at Pier 1.  Possibly cheating on Ballard with Pier 1.  Going with Mr. HubbyMan today to shop for some. Uh Oh.

Enjoy your beautiful Sunday! I'm going to, it's HOT out there and I love it!

{Wainscoting Adventures: Day Dos}

Well, as much as I hate to say it, there is going to be a "Wainscoting Adventures: Day Tres".....We worked sort of hard today.  We didn't really stress about it...well, Mike didn't.  I was kind of a drama queen/diva today (at least I admit it).  I messed up on the measurements and Mr. Hubby just cut where he saw the lines, I sort of freaked because I didn't want to got to the Depot again!!! They should probably know me by name now anyway.  There was a slammed door in the midst of the measuring/miter saw fiasco.  We were not friends for about 3 minutes.  It was short lived and we got it all figured out, kissed on the stairs when we were passing each other, and I, yes I, apologized first.  Then all was right in the world again.  No biggie I just have to get a little more molding on my lunch tomorrow...Is it the end of the world? Maybe...Should I have been mad at my hubs? Nope. I was wrong! Moving on, let's not dwell on my wrongness any more than is necessary.

Oh, and to thank me for all the miter sawing I made let him do, he made me a crab dinner complete with sweet potatoes, carrots, and rice! Yum.  Be jealous, ladies!



I love love love our compound miter saw.



I have about three pages front and back that look like this! I can do math!

Progress! This was the first piece up on the wall.

 The chandelier! Oh, the chandelier! I love this piece of art! I am so grateful that I spent the $3 on this beauty.  I thought we would have a difficult time putting it up, it had some older looking wires.  We turned off the breaker for the guest bedroom.  It literally took us 15 minutes.  I was holding it and Mike was connecting the wires.  Went downstairs flipped the switch, and we had a beautiful light fixture! It was so simple that I want to get one for the kitchen and re-finish it! I thought for sure it would be an hour ordeal.  Boy, was I wrong! I was so BEYOND excited.  Like, literally people, jumping up and down, smiling ear to ear, kissing my husband.....all for a chandelier....Oh, my exciting life!  I even told Mike, "It's like God is looking down at us and saying you guys really worked hard and did a lot, I think you deserve to have the chandelier be easy to install..."Hallelujah!!!! I opened the shutters and turned on the light tonight so all of our neighbors could see my new light and be green with envy.

Chandelier in it's new home. It's so gorgeous here!

Again, the one wall we finished.  I was so proud to get that far! Obviously, it needs painting and caulking AND spackling, and I'll add some sanding in there too for good measure.

This is what it will look like with the chair rail type board, It's not attached yet, we just held it up to see what it would look like.

So pretty.  I'm happy with the progress. I expect to be totally done by Sunday!

 Thanks for stopping by. Have a nice day!

Before & After and Update!

Hello Mates!  I completed one project and am progressing quickly on the other two! I am completely finished with my chest (I hate to say that can't we call it something else?) project!!  Remember the little oak (?) chest that my sweet little mother-in-law wanted to give away?  I was seeing all sorts of projects when I met eyes with this beautiful piece of furniture!  I was visualizing it as a little bench behind our front door.  Like a mini-mudroom feel. I would get some pillows and a mirror to go above it and maybe some wall sconces, a la this picture...



I know, I know! Bad quality. I guess that's what you get for taking a picture of a computer image on your iPhone. You'd think I would have learned by now..

I am still looking for a bench like this. There is one at (MY FAVORITE STORE) HobLob that I like but don't love. And my motto is if you don't LOVE it don't buy it! There is way too much junk out there.  You will definitely be able to find what your looking for with some time and patience (the latter I struggle with daily...).

I then came up with the brilliant idea to put in in our room.  What a great decision it was! On to the before and after.



Before







   



After



It is the perfect size to hold our heated blanket during the warm months.  So, so, so much better.  The significance of the numbers you may ask? First off, the little n. stands for number (I love the number trend) and to be honest I wasn't going to do this but with all the numbers that are everywhere (Pottery Barn, Ballard) I thought I would do something CrAzY today!! The numbers 51510 are our wedding date (May 15, 2010 Romantic I know). 

There is a funny story behind this...When I texted Mike the picture of the finished project (he is at work, I'm off today) he texted back " It looks good but why 51510?" .............Pregnant Pause............. ummmmm HULLO?? Hi, I'm Earth, have we met? (Name the movie and you get a cookie) 

I sent him a text back with a bunch of periods my favorite overused punctuation ".....our wedding date...." I better be getting a really nice dinner soon, or maybe some jewelry, or we could just go to Home Depot and make a day of it. As long as it doesn't involve a time of the year that begins with "M" and ends with "arch Madness".  Oh, I despise it!! But I think I'll be OK if KU takes everyone down! I digress...

I L.O.V.E the result. 'Nuff said!

I also am progressing on the pretty gold chande that I snagged for $3. Take a look at it's fancy new coat of Heirloom White. Of course, I had to prime, then sand, then prime and tape off the copper wires. Beauty is pain people, beauty is pain.  I think she's looking like a breath of fresh air, which is convenient because it is starting to feel just like spring outside. 

Edited To Add: I am NOT hanging this chandelier outside.  My mother-in-law texted me and said "I'm looking at you blog and I'm confused about the chandelier".  I didn't clarify in this post, so for everyone thinking I hang chandes on trees, I don't. This chande is going in our shabby chic guest bedroom.  We had an ugly gold dome light in there before that met it's new mommy named Goodwill today, and I think this chandelier will be the perfect addition to that room.

Oh, How I love the look of chandeliers hanging from trees, especially at night.  If only all of my trees could have chandes hanging from them. I would be the neighborhood weirdo...

On another note, we now have all of the wood for our upcoming wainscoting project! So exciting, this project is going to cost us a total of about $70! Can you believe it?!  Well, that is considering that there are no major problems, which is highly anticipated!

Mike and I both took off Thursday, lets see what kind of shenanigans we can get ourselves in to.  Actually, we both decided we are finally going to  r   e   l   a   x  on Thursday.  It's supposed to be 74 degrees and we are going to enjoy the beautiful weather!  For now I'm going to go get some Starbucks Starmoney and enjoy this day after all my hard work! YEAH!



I Found It!!

I found it, friends!! What you may ask? I had almost given up hope of ever finding a cheap old chandelier that I could make beautiful until two days ago, walking around one of my favorite antique stores (River Market Antiques.  If you ever visit KC you will find many gems in there) I FOUND IT!! The chandelier! Ahh so pretty, the gold has GOT to go but look at the shape.  Literally just what I was looking for.

I feel it maybe was mismarked. One price said $10 and one said $3, so I stuck with the $3 price tag because one thing I've learned from working retail is that they have to honor whatever price is on the item. Even if it is wrong.  Even at $10, this would have been the DEAL OF THE CENTURY!!

I'm planning on priming and then spray painting it Heirloom White.  I may at some later date add some little crystals as there are some tutorials for that online and I can tell it's very simple! I am so excited to get our guest bedroom looking a little more French/shabby chic.  It will also be an easy transition to a nursery when that time comes!

Yet another project for that room has taken off. EEESH, our guest bedroom is making all the other rooms in the house GREEN with envy.  We started taping the walls in there to map out where the wainscoting will be. Let me tell you after every piece of tape that went down, I got more and more excited.  This room is really coming together exactly how I want it to and I can't wait to see the final product. Don't lie, you can't either! I can see it in your eyes...

The wood that we bought for the middle molding was $1 for each piece and one will cover a whole wall (THAT'S $5 for all that wood!)! I got an extra one just in case. I'm a novice at big DIY projects and Lord knows I need that extra room for mistakes!  We still do need to get the molding for the picture frame boxes.  This may be the cheapest project ever! On another note, I love our compound miter saw! It makes projects like this SO easy!!

Here are some pictures of the taping process.  The blue tape is obviously where the molding will go.  Moving right along. Woohoo!

That's all for today. You saw the beginning of some projects, stay tuned for the happy endings!

Projects, Projects, Projects

My mind is so full of decorating ideas!! I am going to list all of them here that I would like to complete by the end of this month summer. I just can not wait. These three, or, um four things (who am I kidding there will be way more than 3-4) will improve the overall look of our home SO MUCH!!


First things first:

1. I want to paint our U.G.L.Y ORANGE kitchen cabinets. I want to thank Centsational Girl for sharing with me this new product! What a wonderful idea! No sanding, I'm down!

I'm absolutely swooning over the all white kitchen look but I'll be honest/sad and say that it doesn't go with our decor...it's a little too cottagy (surely that's a word...if not it should be) for our taste and decor. Plus, Mr. HubbyMan has made it clear that while he does support my design decisions, he WILL NOT stand by me on this one. He likes the color black, not white. I'm thinking a compromise is in order bottom cabinets black/top cabinets white!! A la this picture..

I can't remember where I stole it from but the layout is identical to our kitchen. (Sorry blogger out there with faboulous taste!! If you ever come to my blog let me know if this is your kitchen and I'll put your name under it!!) What do you think?

I'm thinking all dark cabinets will make our kitchen too dark. Which sort of leads into my next project....I sure hope Mr. HubbyMan is not reading this....Hi, Mike! Think happy thoughts!

2. I want to paint our kitchen. It's RED. I'll be honest it's really not bad. But "not bad" is not good enough for me. It's a brick sort of red but I got to thinking if we paint the cabinets black and white I want something beigey-gray on the wall I'm thinking BM Camouflague or Bennington Gray (leaning towards Bennington Gray). I guess mama knows what she likes!

So that'll be another project! Getting excited yet?!?!?!?! I AM!

3. Look away Mike, it's for the best...I want to paint ALL of the molding in our cute little house from that oak that i love soooo much to white! I love the look of white molding against all paint but the oak is so dated. I've lived with it long enough and I've had ENOUGH of it!!

4. The 4th project will be wainscoting in the guest bedroom. Mikey and I just love, love, LOVE the look of it! Eventually the guest bedroom will become a nursery for the baby that's not even a twinkle in our eyes yet, and I know I want wainscoting in the nursery. NO, I. AM. NOT. preggers but I am thinkin' ahead. I don't want to be doing all this crap fun stuff when I'm pregnant (athankyou) I know, I know. Just say it. "She is so smart"...and keep those sweet comments coming. I like this picture frame look better than beadboard and the thicker bordered wainscoting.

Centsational Girl

5. I have my heart set on beautiful chandeliers at the moment too...My goal is to find 2 of them. One for the guest bedroom and one for the kitchen. The kicker is I want to find them CHEAP! I mean really cheap. That's the thrill of it. I love doing things all by myself. I don't like to make it easy and just buy everything ready to go. Nope, I like to make it as difficult as possible. :) But, I digress...

I want to find one cheap that looks a little like this beaut ...

And turn it into something like this beaut...



Possible? I think so. I have some time but I'm ready to get things rolling! NIGHTY NIGHT