Another Lamp Meets My Insatiable Desire to Spray-Paint Things

I'm getting pretty efficient with this, I found. Wasn't my first rodeo. To the pictures!

Another day, another brass lamp.  This one came from the Habitat ReStore, and was $3.

Enter gold-braid-trimmed Goodwill lampshade, bought with another $3 lamp.. 5? 6 years ago?  I didn't hang on to it on purpose, exactly... but it's managed to survive three moves. At least it's durable.

The living room rug came bound with these strips of woven canvas tape stuff. I saved them, to cover unsightly gold lampshade braid, of course. (Shrug.)

Wha-bam! 10 minutes with Rustoleum UltraCover in Slate Blue, and some hot glue. 
This lamp sits in the Captain's Quarters and didn't have to match anything; I just wanted to paint it blue. I.. like to paint lamps.  IS THAT A CRIME.

Well, it hasn't fallen down, yet.

So we have a tiny (as in 7' x 8') "office." I'm convinced it used to be a pantry, or something, but the agent listed it as an office, so we went with it. When it comes down to it, it's plenty of room for a desk, a chair, and a bookcase. We also have two filing cabinets that are a little worse for the wear (one was originally my sister's, and is in good shape but for having been moved four or five times; the other came from beside a dumpster at my old apartment complex and claims to contain "Rob's Professional Files." Sometimes I wonder who Rob was, and whether he had another filing cabinet for his unprofessional files.) Right. Anyway, the point is, they're different sizes, so stacking things on top of them looks kind of weird. Eh, here's a picture. It illustrates the "problem" better than anything:

Yeah, that's ugly. Needless to say, none of our furniture quite offered a solution ("yea tall, deep enough for two filing cabinets, wide enough for two printers on top and a trash can underneath"), so we tried our hand at furniture-making. Anybody who actually builds furniture might suffer some sort of trauma seeing the following ("you used L-brackets where!?"), so.. warning. Construction pictures:

Top board, left, and legs. The top board was precut 2' x 4' 1/2" plywood (about $6, I think), and the legs were actually deck rail supports. They were way cheaper than the actual "table legs" we found at Home Depot ($3 apiece), and longer, which turned out to be a good thing. The top, put together:

It sat like that for a week or two. Then we got around to putting the legs on it:

Okay, so it's not going to win any awards. That back brace looks kind of stupid, we realize. But you won't really be able to see it, and if it keeps our printers from falling on the floor, bring on the stupid. I used some of the leftover quarter round from trimming the baseboards around the top edge, and painted the whole thing white to match the trim in the office:

I find I'm often painting things at, like, dusk. So if you come visit, don't stare at anything too hard. It's surprisingly stable. We got it in, festooned it with printers, and I made it a tiny curtain to match the valances I'd made for the windows in there. Here's the "after" shot:

With the paint and lots of L-brackets, it came to something between $20-$25, which is about as good as we could have hoped for. We'll just hope it keeps standing...

Less than $10: An Ode to Craigslist

Speaking of "less than $10," my sister-in-law informs me that somebody on HGTV recently spray-painted a chandelier like we did. Maybe we should demand royalties. But back to Craigslist: for eight bucks apiece, we picked up these two chairs from (as it turned out) someone who lives about three miles down the road from us. They're a neat shape, and the finish looks great with our dining table. They needed some cleaning up, and besides a minor flaw that we discovered when we got them home (their arms are about a quarter of an inch too high to fit under the table), I think they're going to work. I took off the cushions (one was red, one was green. I didn't ask.):

...and recovered them with upholstery fabric.

I may recover them again at some point. This fabric, despite how the picture looks, is not at all pink, but different shades of gold; some blocks are warmer, and some have a greenish tint I thought would blend nicely with the green chairs and the gold-ish walls. Ultimately, the checkerboard bit is a lot less subtle in our house than it was in the store and I still may keep my eye out for other options. At any rate, the Christmas cushions and stains and such are gone and I'm happy with that for now. We still have to figure out how best to fix the arm-height problem. So far our plan is to saw a half-inch off the bottom of all the legs. Either that or screw something into the feet of the table that raises it up enough. Suggestions?

Flatpackin'

I've already mentioned our trip to our local IKEA (sidebar, those of you out there who actually do live in one of the, what, six? major US cities to have its own big blue store of Swedish modern wonder: to us, "local" means "closer than the others," and a trip to one still means hours--yes, hours--on the highway listening to our own tailpipe rattling, because no matter who you are those boxes don't fit in the back of a Jeep and aren't we lucky that IKEA knows that about us and provides nylon cord for us tie down our hatches if we're unprepared to do so? For some of us, IKEA shopping takes determination and a certain amount of faith in complimentary insurance mechanisms), and there's not much to say, other than we bought a couple of very large pieces of furniture. It's always easier to put them together than I expect it to be. Our MARKOR still flat-packed:

It might sound stupid, but I find the whole thing less intimidating if I separate all the bits-and-pieces first (it's faster, later on, but also make us familiar with the parts so we're less likely to use the wrong thing at the wrong time). A gajillion pegs, bolts, etc., during the sorting process:

45 minutes (or so?) later:

"Bam." Okay, I stink at photojournalism. I was too involved to take pictures. It's now filled with books--really sturdy. We actually got this because what we were there to get turned out to be, like, two inches too big for the wall it had to go on. This particular one wasn't something either of us had picked out online; for some reason it looked a lot better in the store, and we're really happy with how it went up. The other giant thing we got was a wardrobe--the LEKSVIK 3-door, to be exact. We already had a dresser with the same finish. It's ginormous, but it does what we needed it to--we basically needed a second closet in our bedroom, where there wasn't one. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it.

The Miracle Gallon, part.. what, eight?

Yeah, this won't need much explanation. I've already waxed romantic over the Miracle Gallon. Here is yet another of its converts (hitherto known as "the dumpster table," "three-legs," "when are we going to get rid of that"). We saved it from the dump--holy cow, like, nearly two years ago--with plans to do something to it, and didn't, until now. (Read: definitely a case for the MG.) The Mr. lovingly reattached its broken leg and removed the duct tape that had previously been holding it there. (Yes, folks, we're moving up in the world.) It used to have a very dinged-up reddish (I'll call it "corporate office cherry") finish. I forgot to take a before picture, but I think most of you will probably remember it from the corner of our old living room. I got fancy with it, this time, and used some other leftover paint for an inset on the top. In process:

And, the finished product:

It's currently enjoying a second life as a side table for the aforementioned fauxfa. Two-inch painters' tape made that inset really easy.

Another Episode of 'Things that Were Brass, and Now Aren't.'

That about sums it up. I spray-painted something else--in fact, another light fixture. This time it was a two-bulb brass lamp (of the "bankers'" variety, I think?), purloined from the Mr.'s parents' garage. (Apologies if, by letting us have it, you expected it to stay brass-colored...) A "before" picture:

It then got the same treatment as the chandelier. Well, not quite. Home Depot doesn't sell the same spray paints that Lowe's does, so I tried one of those supposedly "hammered metal" ones. (Sidebar: I like the result, but I probably wouldn't go for it again; it seemed like it took a LOT of paint to get an even finish, and I think I like the matte metallic finish of the Valspar Metallic stuff I used before a little better.) Anyway, I wiped it down, taped off the pull chains and the bulb sockets and went to town. During (my toe was an integral part of the process):

I don't know how I escaped before, but for some reason this particular spraying left me completely paint-flecked. Maybe it was windier. Again, I'd suggest wearing goggles to avoid the "OMG I FLECKED MY EYEBALL" thing. I topped it off with a new JONSBO shade from Ikea, and voila!

I should have taken a closer-up picture of the finish. It does look hammered-metal-y. I'll try to remember to update.

Paint Paint Paint! Paint. Paint Paint. Paint?

Wow, words look really funny when you repeat them a lot. Anyway, I've gone slightly paint crazy. It's a new dawn, really, from all the anxiety over picking the right blues (I was really trying to avoid an "I've got the blues" pun, there--I hope you appreciate that.) So what started it all? Imagine with me, if you will: the perfectly ambiguous shade. It feels cottage-y and informal, yet mature and elegant. Reads as a neutral when you want it to, and a color when you don't. Now, for the cherry on top: imagine you were able to find an entire GALLON of this color-of-all-colors, mixed with the most expensive semigloss base sold at Lowe's.... for FIVE DOLLARS. Yes, because someone else shunned it, I have a whole gallon of Valspar "Signature Colors" Semigloss in "Cliveden Gray," which is, I think, the perfect color. (Or maybe--just maybe--it's not 'Cliveden Gray,' which is, in reality, far from the perfect color; instead of following its orders the paint mixing machine WENT ROGUE, and in a fit of creativity never to be understood or fully appreciated by those around it created a masterpiece...) Okay, whatever. I really like it. I'm going to have to rein myself in a little bit, though, because in the last 48 hours I've painted an armoire and a coffee table and I already have plans for a nightstand and a side table. And I haven't even used half the can. Turns out semigloss is a nice finish for furniture, and I wasn't kidding--this is the most chameleonlike color I've ever seen. In a good way. Pictures aren't going to do it justice, but here are the first two victims of my glee:

*Some of you might recognize this as the former bearer of art supplies and serving dishes. He has found new purpose as a DVD-and-board-game peddler in the family room. And yes, I just personified an armoire.

This was a thrift store find--a $15 coffee table that had a yellowy "oak" finish on it. The sides were veneered but the top was solid, so the Mr. sanded it down (getting some mileage out of that rotary sander) and stained it with the stain he's using on the countertops (spoiler!). Then the rest got the miracle-gallon treatment. This picture stinks, but without the flash it was too blurry. So, come see them. You'll swear it's cream, then you'll look at it again, and you'll be darned if it isn't sage green. Really.

The $5 Chandelier Experiment

Well, before I get too far I'd like to take you all off yer tenterhooks and say that the experiment was a success, thanks in no small part to the help of my father-in-law (and my mother, who didn't say, "you're going to do what to it?" and instead helped me prepare it for a makeover.) Back to the beginning. While ceiling fans are great (we know, we've been living without them), we wanted something a little closer to the ground (have I mentioned the ceilings in the old part of the house are 10 feet?) in the dining room. I'm not a huge fan of overhead lights that hug the ceiling, so a chandelier seemed an obvious option. New chandeliers, however, are expensive. I didn't like a lot of what I saw in home improvement stores. I liked some things I saw elsewhere: Pottery Barn:

Restoration Hardware:

But! spending $300-500 on a light fixture would be painful, I think, even if we could. So we (admittedly) went pretty far in the opposite direction and decided to try and make a $5 chandelier we found at a Habitat ReStore work. The last vestiges of the old fan (sorry for not taking a more complete 'before' picture):

I'm having trouble finding the picture I took of the chandelier, pre-makeover, but it looked pretty much like this--only older, and having been ripped unjudiciously out of the ceiling of its former home:

My father-in law attached a new wire and chain to the top (the old one was about 2 feet long, and since the old fan was in the middle of the room and the table wouldn't be--lest you need to crawl over it to get to the kitchen--we needed some length to swag). We then hung it in the carport to be spray-painted (which, by the way, was an interesting look; it's surreal having a fairly formal-looking chandelier hanging over the hood of your car.) I then spray-painted the whole thing, chain and all, with Valspar "Metal" spray-paint in "Graphite," which is a tad browner than it appears in this picture:

The above was taken after the "candle" sheaths were replaced. They were removeable, so we took them off pre-spray-paint and wrapped painters' tape over the bulb sockets inside. A close-up:

By the way, it wasn't dark when I took this. It was overcast. This was one project that was going on during the "great moving-weekend storm" that left puddles of mud inside and out, made our yard look like a convention of chia pets come to roost, and effectively splattered all of the tile-and-saw-dust from the goings-on with the floor all over the side of the house. But you know, whatever. We got a good chance to tell if there were any roof leaks. So... given the chandelier, the wiring kit, and 2 cans of spray paint (I probably could have gotten away with one, but I wanted to be sure it was as even as possible), we're now up to about $27 for the whole project. Finally, my father-in-law attached the whole thing to the ceiling where the fan had been, and we flipped the breaker. Success! In situ, with ten tiny shades attached (these we found at Lowe's):

Not too shabby, for a total of about $60 (including the shades, which weren't strictly necessary, and the extra hardware for the swag hook, which needed to be longer than the one in the kit due to how the ceiling was constructed). We're really pleased with it, and it makes the room look a whole lot different. So.. lessons learned, I guess--it's great to have a family member who's handy with the electrical stuff (had we not--I'm thinking of that Pepsi Max commercial. "Ready?.... Nooo."), and don't try to spray-paint the underside of something while your face is four inches away from it and upside-down. Especially if you wear contacts. My eyeballs haven't fallen out yet, but it was iffy there for awhile. More pictures to come, once the room is clear of boxes and we get the table/chairs in place. Thanks to all who helped!