New Home Kitchen Design

Recently I was asked to create a Kitchen Design for a new home build. The owners are building their final home. They were not happy with the current layout the builder had planned and wanted a designers eye to create something more functional. 

I gave them two layouts and two design options based on what they said they liked. I won't bore you with the layouts but here are the finish boards I created:

Option 1

Option 2:

Option 1 is more traditional while option 2 is a little more edgy though it has a lot of natural finishes. Both have two toned cabinets and wood floors which the home owner likes.

Trying to find a layout which worked well with the flow and feel the owners were hoping for was the main challenge of this project. 

Do you have a favorite?

Shining Some Light On The Subject

The subject being our kitchen sink. Our fabulous builder grade rental home only has 1 light in the kitchen area of the home; which drives me crazy when I'm trying to wash dishes at night. Solution? Rigging up some awesome vintage pendant lights!

You may remember when I bought these a while back, I wasn't sure what to do with them. I always had it in the back of my mind that they would look great clustered together as a ceiling fixture.

But I didn't think it would be possible in our current home given that we are renting and I can't really go around switching and rewiring light fixtures. (Or at least I shouldn't in good conscience because I sure did think about it.)

Well, last week while doing the dishes in the semi darkened cave that is our kitchen I thought- "Why don't I just use some of the Ikea pendant lights I have lying around and hang my green fixtures from those!?"

And a project was born! First up was cutting some wood pieces to fill in the missing tops of the two larger lights. I drilled a large hole for the wiring to go through then painted them to match  and screwed them to the predrilled holes on my existing pendant shells

 (Sorry for the lack of pictures)

Next was hanging them. I screwed 3 hooked in the ceiling and ran the wiring to the wall and down. I kept it as clean as I could but of course hardwiring would have been best.

Hubs making lunch while I risked my life on the ladder.

And then all finished!

No more doing dishes in the dim light and I've added a bit of character to our characterless home! And- Bonus- I can take them with me when we move to our next home! Score!

Where the Heck I've Been

I know, I've been gone for almost 2 weeks! Horrible blogger. Things have been hectic around here. Blogging and project making have taken a backseat. 

First thing that happened was the huge tornado in Moore, OK. Thankfully we live 2 hours away from Moore and the devastation that took place there. But that didn't stop the amazing people in our town (who have friends and family in Moore) to find away to help out. I along with lots of others spent most of that week gathering supplies and donations to send to our fellow Oklahomans (Okies? I'm not sure.) 

Then came Memorial Day weekend where we went down to Dallas to spend some much needed family time together. 

Next was the end of school and we have been summering it up. Spending lots of time outside and at the pool.

So... we're getting into a summer routine but even though I'm posting this today doesn't mean I'll get myself back in gear. The weather has been surprisingly mild so far this summer (unlike last year when it was 110 degrees everyday- not an exaggeration) and the outdoors are too tempting. :)

Ok, enough talking let me show you some projects that are hopefully upcoming!

First up is this dresser that I bought for our bedroom. I desperately needed a new dresser as my old one was way to small and falling apart. I found this "new" one and a long low dresser that matches it (that I neglected to take a picture of) in our AF Base classifieds for a steal! 

Both pieces are in good shape besides some of the wear and tear you'd expect from vintage pieces. Both dressers have some missing knobs and the veneer tops are worn. But they have dovetail joinery, are solid, and the wood looks good.

My original bedroom scheme included a white dresser and I thought I'd go for it and paint this one. But I'm having second thoughts. I may try to fix the veneer best I can and leave it as is. Anyone have a vote?

Second find is this awesome vintage headlight. I loved the chipped paint and overall look of it. The shop owner said it still works and for $4 I thought it was worth it.

My grand scheme is to make a bad @ss light for Con-Man's room. But of course I've run into issues. Auto headlights run on 9v (I think) and our homes run on 110v. I have to convert the light to be compatible with the wiring in the house. I'm not 100% clear on how to do this and of course I can't figure out how to get the darn thing open to take it apart in the first place. It's quite the conundrum. 

And last but not least is this set of enamel pendant lights. I bought them a few weeks ago, have no clue what to do with them, and they have been sitting in my closet since. 

Again I thought they were cool looking and for the price I didn't want to pass them up. Maybe I'll turn one of them into a light, but I feel like I could make something else with them too. Who knows?? 

Thats part of the fun I guess. Waiting for inspiration to come along. Or figuring out how to figure out how to go about doing something you've never done before as in the case of the headlight.

Master Bedroom Progress

I've had 5 million things going on (Well more like 4 but it feels like 5 Million). One of them, the marathon, is over with. But the other 3 I'm still working on and am dying to to share with you- it's just not the right time yet. 

For now you'll have to settle for some photo updates of our Master Bedroom. I made up my mind that I'm not going to procrastinate and let this room sit unfinished like I do with so many other rooms in our house. So here are some before shots just to remind you where we started:

Updating a Light Fixture...

Quickly and Easily without upsetting your landlord (hopefully!) 


Hello All! It's been a steamy 105+ the past few weeks here in lovely Altus, OK but that didn't make staying inside and unpacking any more enjoyable. Everything is pretty much finished and I'm ready to tackle some projects I have in mind.


First up: the Breakfast Nook in our kitchen. It currently has this light fixture:

Which is actually quite nice especially compared to what we had in our old house. I felt that it didn't flow well with my dining set and overall feel I wanted for the room. Plus I had this lamp shade I had scored from West Elm for $20 when it was going out of business a few months ago:

I wanted to hang it but wasn't sure how our landlord would feel about me completely switching out and rewiring the lighting in our home. So I thought it might be easy to just change out the glass bowl of the chandelier and simply replace it with the shade! Easy right? Just unscrewing a few things and screwing them back together. 

Wrong.

The holes of the two fixtures are not the same size, so I couldn't reuse the parts from the chandelier to hold the shade in place. This required me to use my brain and think of a way to rig the two together.

After much pondering and a few missteps this is what I came up with:

Basically I screwed all the pieces together to make something of a thread, nut, washer, sandwich. These supplies are cheap (less than $5 for all) and readily available at Home Depot or Lowes. Just don't look in the lamp department for 20 minutes like I did, I found everything in the hardware section.

I used my Dremel Tool with the cutting wheel bit to cut the treaded rod down to a smaller size then pieced everything together. I reused the rod from the original chandelier to help keep my new thinner and longer rod from tilting from one side or another.

Without Shade

With Shade

Success!

I think it turned out pretty good. I had to turn the shade upside down to hide the bulbs, so it still tilts a little to the side because it's top heavy. I like the way it looks though and it was an expensive, easy way to change the look of the room. 

What do you think? I feel like the room could still use some warming up, any suggestions?

What tips and tricks do you have for switching things up in a rental home? I could sure use them!

Super Easy Tea light Holder

One of the things that I love about our house is that it is a gift that keeps on giving. Our dog, Gracie, loves to run underneath the house and bring me presents. It's usually just an old beer can or two that was left behind by construction workers when they built the home, but this time she actually brought me something useful!

She brought me this awesome chunk of wood! Most people might dismiss this as trash but I like it, it's all weathered and distressed and cool looking. (I have this problem where I can't throw things away- it drives my husband nuts.) Anyway- I knew I could make something out of it but what? 

Hmmm... a tea light holder? Yes!

This was super easy to make and only took about 30 minutes from start to finish and I had all the materials to make it already on hand. If you want to make one of these yourself all you need is:

A piece of wood (If you aren't fortunate to have a dog who fetches you wood your local home improvement store can cut wood for you to your desired length, usually for free!)

1 1/2" Drill bit 

Power drill

Sander & Sandpaper

Stain or paint

Tea Lights

First I sanded my wood to smooth it out and get rid of uneven edges.

Then take your drill bit,

And use your tea light as a guide to measure the depth to which you will cut, then tape it off. This way you will not drill to deep into the wood.

Next use a pencil to mark the spots you will drill. SInce I was only drilling 2 holes I just eyeballed it. If your using a longer piece of wood and drilling several holes, measuring might be the way to go!

After I drilled my holes I sanded a little more around the newly drilled holes. Then I used some Minwax stain I had on hand and finished it up. Remember to wipe off any extra stain before it dries for an even finish. This allows the wood grain to show through. 

Then light it up!

For such and quick easy (And free!) project I'm happy with it. Something like this would make a great gift, and to change things up a bit you could use colored tea lights for different seasons, what do you think? 

Linking here!

New Dining Room Fixture

With our house on the market I decided it was finally time to get rid of this old ceiling fan in our dining room:

Blah

I had originally intended on using this shade I bought at a West Elm store closing ($20!) for a modern vibe. But I decided to hang on to it and use it in our next house. ;)

So instead I found this guy at our local Habitat ReStore:

It's not my #1 choice but I thought some spray paint could help with the brassy-ness. (Side note: I saw one of these fixtures at Home Depot in Silver for $70. Ha on them!) I used an metallic antique brown spray paint color to match the finish of the fan we have in the living room.

Before I get to the final reveal, I want to share with you some lighting/ wiring basics. In my last lighting install I wanted to but didn't have a chance. This is a fairly simple project to take on once you know the basics.

First of all, if you're going to work with the wiring in your house turn off the breakers for that room! Electricity isn't scary unless it's still on when your messing around with it. Otherwise it's pretty simple. (P.S.- these are just basics to give you an idea of how wiring is done, if your nervous ask for help. Don't try and sue me if something goes wrong ok?! Ok-thanks!)

After you've turned of the correct breaker you can take down your fixture. It's usually as easy as unscrewing a few screws.

Once it's all down you'll have a mess of wires all attached to each other.

(P.P.S.- If your house is newer than mine; which it probably is since mine was built in 1930, you'll have something like this that houses your wires. It's also what your fixture is screwed into:)

So, there should be 3 wires. A white which is your neutral, a black which is your hot, and a green or gold one which is your ground wire.

Here's a link to handy diagram of wiring which lays it out clearly:

http://galbreathassoc.com/maintenance/ele-fixture.htm

Side Note: My new fixture had all gold cased wiring instead of white and black. 

If yours has this as well you can tell the difference between the neutral and hot wires buy the texture of the wires. The hot  (black) has a ribbing on the plastic casing you can feel. The neutral (white) will be smooth.

Unscrew all the plastic caps connecting the original fixture to the ones coming out the ceiling. 


In the picture above you can see the exposed wiring coming out of the casing, the wires in the ceiling will have the same look. Twist the exposed wires of each fixture around each other by matching the colors together- white with white, black with black, ect and secure with the wire caps you took off earlier. 


Then before screw everything back together, test it out! Pop a light bulb in there, turn on your breaker and see if your hard work has paid off.


If you have light then you're good to go! Screw everything back together and admire your handy work.

(P.P.P.S.- Over at the Brooklyn Limestone she also has a nice tutorial on replacing light fixtures with some good pictures if you want to check it out!)

Good luck!

Valentine's Wine Weekend

Not much time for DIY'ing seeing as the Hubs and I had a weekend getaway in Texas Wine Country! We stayed at a little bed & breakfast- The Back 40. It was a little ranch that had horses, fishing, and cute little cabins.

Our cute little Texas Ranch Themed Cabin:

And of course on the Wine Trail we had wine! 

And Chocolate!

And check this out:

They totally copied my wine bottle pendant lights! Or maybe they had them first, I'm not sure. Either way I bet mine were a lot cheaper!

Hope everyone is having a great Valentine's Day. I also got some fabrics in that I had ordered for my dining chairs. I can't wait to share them with you!w