Fabulous Reader Question (with a fabulous answer)

I received an email from Jan last week asking if I had any ideas on what to so with old silver trays. She has a bunch of them and has already come up with the great idea of using them as ceiling medallions, but was wondering what she can do with the rest of the ones she has.

I racked my brain and searched the internet and came of with a few ideas:



I saw this great idea from Apartment Therapy. Chalkboard paint is all the rage, this chalkboard would look great anywhere in your home!

Also along these lines a mirror glued to the center of the tray could be really beautiful. It would be nice to hang in a makeup area or above a dresser.

Drill a hole in the middle of the tray and make one of these lamp/ tables? It could be really unique and functional as well.

I saw this idea at Real Simple. Build or use an exisitng side table and use the tray at the top.



A candle holder? Some glass stones might help bring up the sparkle factor and hide any tarnish.

Also from Real Simple depending on how many you have they would make great wall art.


Hope these ideas are helpful! 



TV Location: Over the fireplace?

When our realtor came through our house to look things over one of the first things he told us is to "Get your TV out of the fireplace!"

I know, I know- how embarassing. I've tried not to show that end of the living room because I knew it's not the best design move ever. But in my defense 1930's homes weren't built with TV location in mind. Our fireplace should be a focal point in the room, but where to put the TV? Our living room is our main hang out spot so we use the TV a lot.

There is much debate about TV's and living rooms. Should you try to hide it in a cabinet?

Leave it out in the open for all to see?

I thought of several options for our living room when we first moved in.

On a TV stand on the small wall between the dining entry and hallway entry? Nope, it's the first thing you see when you walk in the door and not good for traffic flow.



Switching the TV and the chair location? I didn't like this very much either. Covering a window didn't seem like a good idea. Even if we had pushed the TV up into the corner I felt it would have been awkward.

We always thought we'd buy a flat screen and just hang it above the fireplace, we just never got around to it though. So with our house going on the market we finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago and bought one.

Hello HDTV! We've been enjoying our new TV and I don't mind "The Big Black Box". It's something that is a part of our culture and lifestyle and I don't feel the need to hide it.

I know a lot of people are against having the TV above the fireplace. Some people feel it it should be reserved for art, or it's to high for viewing, ect.

What are your thoughts on this great debate?

Spreading Easter Cheer

Ok- I think that it's safe to talk about this now since I think everyone has received their "surprise" in the mail. A few weeks ago I saw this post on the Givers Log and it totally inspired me. 

She mailed out plastic Easter Eggs stuffed with candy and small toys to friends and family. How cute is that? I had to try it out.


I bought a few packs of the jumbo plastic Easter Eggs, some candy, and Easter grass- about $5 in supplies. Then filled them up with a little note from our family.

I taped them up really well, I was hoping they wouldn't get smushed and explode in the mail.

I felt like the Easter Bunny when I dumped the eggs onto the counter at the Post Office- "I'd like to get these weighed please?". The workers got a kick out of it, I suspect they don't get things like this handed to them very often. Other patrons thought it was fun as well. I'm hoping my little cousins think the Easter Bunny came a little early this year, and hoping to bring a smile to my family and friends face.

This is a fun and easy project. The supplies are cheap and the postage was only about $1.40 per egg. 

Try it out and spread some Easter Cheer! Linking up to the CSI Project

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!

Bathroom Design

Thank you all so much for the encouraging words about our master bath. I thought I'd share what our plans were going to be for the bathroom if we had been able to renovate it.  

Here is what the layout of our house was:

You can see the kitchen in the center with the original layout; the one counter with the stove and fridge on the opposite side with a door leading into our bedroom. The master bath is attached to our bedroom. The bathroom and the sunroom were a remodel done sometime in the 70's. The kitchen has a window looking into the sunroom and you can also see the stairs in the sunroom that lead up to the loft.

The highlighted area is the space I thought we would expand into the loft to give us more space in the bathroom:

Here is what the space under the stairs looks like in real life:

So here is the new layout in plan:

You can see that in the kitchen we closed off the door to our bedroom and ran cabinets all the way around the space. Notice the bathroom expanded into the sunroom. I had thought we could use the area under the stairs for a closet.

I would have left the large windows and frosted them so the bathroom would be light and bright. The toilet is partially hidden from view behind the sink cabinet for privacy.

I thought the sink area could look something like this:

I really miss having a double sink! I love the contrast of the dark wood with the white counter. Frameless mirrors are awesome! I wouldn't have done the glass sink bowls, I like under mount sinks better. Love the glass tile on the wall!

For the shower I thought frameless glass would be nice:

And some kind of tall storage like this in the same dark wood near the counter would have been great for all our towels and toiletries:

It was going to be awesome! It was going to be fabulous! It wasn't going to be yellow with brown flowers!

In the end we renovated the kitchen first and are thankful we did. Since we're moving the bathroom dream did not come true. I'm hoping people looking to buy our house can see how cool and functional the house can be with just a little imagination.

Where do you go for inspiration on for your home? What sort of dreams do you have for your homes future?

Working with What You Have

Beautiful Bathrooms:

Images from HGTV.com

Some of us have them, and some of us (like me) don't


When we moved into our house we knew we wanted to redo either the kitchen or the bathroom. We decided to go with the kitchen since we'd get a lot more use out of it. Since we've only lived here 3 years we haven't been able to much with the bathroom.


I've mentioned it a few times on my blog but have never really shown it; mainly because it's kind of embrassing. I don't even show it to people who come over to the house. But, here it is in all it's 70's retro glory.

Fabulous Flowers!

So there it is. Now you know the truth- our "Master Bath" is not only incredibly small it's also pretty ugly.

Since we don't have the time or money for a full reno and with our house on the market it was time to make something out of nothing and make the space a little more liveable. I focused on this space behind the toilet- (affectionately known as the "Pit of Despair")

To make this space more functional I decided to create some shelves to hold towels and bathroom necessities. The space (or hole however you want to put it) already had these tracks and shelf mounts in it. What happened to the original shelves, I have no clue.

So I went to Home Depot and bought a piece of plexiglass for about $9. I measured the space and measured and cut the pieces to size with a plexiglass cutter.

Not a perfect cut but it works... with everything installed it looks pretty good.

So with little money and minimal effort I now have a functional space to keep towels, soap, ect. I don't know why I hadn't done this before!

Have you ever had a project you put off, but were so happy when you finally finished it? Do you have an element, room, area of your home you're not particularly keen on?