The story about the bathroom… floor

We have almost finished the upstairs bathroom remodel.  I can’t believe I was initially against remodeling it!  I didn’t want to put any more money into this house, but my husband made me see the light.  Sometimes he has a good idea or two.;)  Let’s start from the ground up, the floor.  I found this great deal on Craig’s List for honey onyx tile and that was the jumping off point.  But I didn’t want to do yellows and browns, I wanted to do yellow, gray and white.  No cream, no brown, white and grey thankyouverymuch.  Here is a shot of the honey onyx on the floor:

 

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Foyer needs an update

I hate my front door.  The Brady Bunch called, they are missing a door and two mustard glass side panels, blech.

Husband, always the practical one, says just paint it black and be done with it.  Sorry, paint can’t solve those modular 70s inset panel thingees, belch.  Or the groovy glass side lights:

And then on the inside I replaced the foyer light with this steal from when Home Expo was going out of business, and of course now I don’t like it.  Which proves another one of my husband’s theories ‘don’t buy something just cause it is on sale.’  Don’t tell him, but he was r i g h t this time.  I can’t even say the word, had to spell it out.  Here is aforementioned light fixture:

You can’t really see it, but the glass is amber colored.  I wonder if I replaced that it might help things.  I’ve also wondered if I painted or glittered the part that holds the glass it might help… but at some point it is just like lipstick on a pig.  What is REALLY bugging me is that I purchased it and now I want something else like this:

But I’m already $70 into the other light and a crystal beauty is just not in the budget AND to get something else I would have to admit to hubby I was w r o n g.  That pig would have to grow wings and fly if you know what I mean.;)

So.  I will focus on the door and sidelights.  I am headed to one of my favorite places for old junk today, Urban Ore in Berkeley, I always find some treasure there.  Today I will try to focus on doors, although I have heard that simply replacing a door without also replacing the frame is difficult… but how hard can it be really?  Measuring my front door so we know what we are dealing with… wish me luck!

It’s the little things…

that sometimes make the biggest impact, don’t you think?  We’ve all seen the reproduction light bulbs that look so super cool, like these from Restoration Hardware:

The issue with those is that they are pricey and they are not energy efficient, I guess the latter is the bigger crime especially here in Northern California.  So when I replaced my dinky standard lights in my kitchen with these beautiful statement pieces my next step was to get gorgeous lightbulbs.  If the glass shades are naked revealing all that is underneath, what is underneath better be looking good if you know what I am saying.

I put them up and they looked like this in my space:

See, they were gorgeous, they just needed that final little extra sumpin sumpin, right?  So when I saw these gorgeous compact fluorescent lights I immediately ordered them:

You can order them from www.rejuvenation.com, you are welcome;).  Be forewarned, they are $30 a pop, but they are energy efficient and green and renew resource reblah.  Here they are in my kitchen:

So happy with them!

Great Lampshade Glitter Project

I’m in the final stages of finishing (is anything really ever finished?) my living room makeover.  The fireplace is the focal point, and I am trying to downplay the huge TV over it.  I have really liked these lamps flanking the TV on the mantel, but the lampshades have not yet come up to speed.  Here is what they looked like before I started futzing with them.

I went back and forth between black and cream lampshades.  They were $17 from Ikea, so it wasn’t like choosing between a Chagall and a Picasso.  I settled on cream because I like the warm glow, but the plainness of them was bugging me.

They needed to be dolled up somehow.  I glued some trim on there thinking it was the perfect fix, and then I didn’t like it!  Maybe it was the trim I chose, who knows but they still were not working!

So then I thought GLITTER!  A bit of glitter makes anything better, and hadn’t I seen Martha Stewart glitter the inside of a lampshade once?  Yes, here!  Here are the itty bitty teeny tiny sconce covering lampshades that Martha glittered, note the slight variance in size between these and the honking lampshades I was determined to glitter:

So.  Initially I was going to glitter the inside of the black shades with red, I love the warm glow the inside of a lampshade gives off when it is red or pink.  I would love to glitter the insides of the cream ones, but the color of the glitter would show through and I didn’t want big pink lampshades in my living room, although there is nothing wrong with a huge pink lampshade just not the look I was going for in my living room.   So, I got out my big black lampshades and pulled some shades from my glitter color library and the green called out to me, as often green does.;)  And away we went.

Here are a series of video clips documenting my glitter escapades:

Great Lamp Glitter Project part 1

Great Lampshade Glitter Project part 2

Great Lampshade Glitter Project part 3

Great Lampshade Glitter Project part 4

Great Lampshade Glitter Project part 5 COMPLETED!

The final result:

Closeup on the inside of the lampshade:

And here is a closeup on the type of glitter I used, tinsel glitter:

And the final product!  On to the next project!!!  These look so good I am all up in the insides of all of the lampshades in my house trying to resist myself from glittering the whole lot of them.