Light It Up! Creating Stylish Lighting On The Cheap

Happy first few weeks of Summer friends!  

We've been spending our time enjoying the sunshine, our backyard swingset, exploring the local parks, and having lots of "water days'. So far, so good. 

Lucky for us, long days of playing outside mean early bedtime for the kiddos. And as any parent knows, the most productive hours of the day typically happen after the sun has gone down and your "helpers" are away in dreamland. 

Among larger projects like updating the trim and finishing the mudroom makeover, I've been slowly working my way through the house addressing our light fixture situation. Our "fixuation" if you will. 

From the moment I saw the listing pictures, immediatly I thought to myself, "Well these have to go" to pretty much every single light in the house. Nothing about them brought me joy. Their color, their shape, their resemblance to a certain part of the female anatomy, nothing. In fact, right in the middle of move-in day, my mother-in-law accidently stood up under one of the chandeliers and busted the glass dome into a million pieces. Thank goodness she was unharmed, but in the middle of her endless appologies I finally had to hold my hands up and shout "I HATE ALL OF THESE LIGHTS! It is MORE than OK that you just broke one!"

But replacing all of your light fixtures can be a pricy task, so I didn't want to try and purchase everything at once. So the first item of business came up during Black Friday, we pulled the trigger on this brass chandelier from Wayfair. 

I love the crazy arms and how you can adjust the height and orientation of them. The brass coloring wasn't quite what I envisioned though, so one day a light bulb went off (ha) and I bought myself some Rub 'n Buff to add more brassy-ness to it's finish. 

It was after that moment that things really took off. Rub 'n Buff is SUCH an easy way to bring that warm antique gold to almost any surface. So instead of purchasing new lights for our kitchen, toy room, and hallway, I just buffed the current semi-flush ones we had, and honestly, I really love how they turned out! The old style that turned me off so much before, suddenly had my heart fluttering. 

Funny story, so remember how my MIL head-butted one light? Well her son took out another. Poor Eric was doing dishes one evening and crashed into the hanging light above the sink, shattering the (ugly) shade. Which gave me the perfect excuse to swap it for somethig more modern. 

And most recently, the many boob-lights that were upstairs in our hallway and closet are now brassy and classy! Those were just $23 flush lights from Costco, major save from the similar designs you'll find for $70 or more. 

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll for sure have seen the adventure of this beaded beauty. She's a Facebook Marketplace find for $60 and right now is on Overstock for over $480! She is sooooo pretty, and I was overjoyed when Eric figured out how to remove the chains and make her work for our mudroom. 

So that's where we are right now! A few purchases, but overall we really just utilized what we had by jazzing things up a bit. There's still our bathrooms and laundry room to do, as well as upgrading all bedrooms with ceiling fans. 

But you know, one bulb at a time.

To turn the light off on this topic, I'll leave you with some pretty satisfying before and afters. 

Have you ever used Rub 'n Buff? What other tips and tricks do you know for updating light fixtures? How many boob lights are in YOUR house? 

Check out all of our home improvements, by visiting the OUR NEST page.

Squeezing in Some Small Stuff

Every relationship has it's dry spells. 
Giant gaps of time where excitement is at a halt, and nothing occurs except the very predictable and mundane. 

Every since wrapping up the kitchen bathroom makeover, our poor house has hit a major dry spell. It's not that we've run out of things to do, oh no, it's just finding the time to do it! Between Eric's sports schedule, weddings, trips, and the holidays; September through November have completely escaped me. And looking ahead, December will be quite the same.

But even though the big projects are still on the back burner, there HAVE been a few moments here and there to squeeze in a couple tiny improvements.  

First up is the demise of yet ANOTHER boob light. 

The upstairs hallway is where our latest victim resides, and I've been searching for the perfect replacement for a while now. It couldn't be too big, or hang too low, otherwise Eric would hit his head. It needed to be flush with the ceiling, but also interesting and attractive. 

A few weeks back, I found this beauty on Craiglist with an asking price of $35. I adored the clean lines and geometric shapes of the glass, and just knew it would be perfect. A few text messages, and a little visit with a BEYOND adorable couple and their two dogs later, and it was mine! 

When I first saw this light, it instantly reminded me of a similar version I had seen at Shades of Light...except without the smack-you-in-the-face price tag.

I have no clue where this original fixture came from, but I like to tell myself I found the deal of a lifetime. 
$35 is better than $169 any day.

A quick removal and installation via the husband, and our good friend Jared who stopped by, and we were in business! 

The lines and shadows casted on the ceiling just add to its visual presence, and I think it's magical. 
Chalk up another win for Craigslist! 

Another thing that's constantly being tweaked is our gallery wall. When I last mentioned this wall, it was back in August of 2014 (click HERE to see the post), and looked like this. 

Over the year, we've added quite a few pieces to the puzzle (thank you weddings!), and it now looks like this! 

I freaking love this wall. Finding new art, pictures, and funky treasures to fill in the blank spaces is a challenge I'm constantly working on. 

Moving outdoors, Eric has been determined to finish up the remaining details of the pergola before Winter. He added a few more thin beams to the top, covered the support beams with nicer planks, and stained everything to match. 

I still can't get over how great this looks. Once the weather warms up again in the Spring, we'll start planning the patio reconstruction. Fire pits and twinkle lights are definitely in our future, but for now I think we're at a pretty fantastic stopping point. 

In a few weeks we're hosting our Framily Christmas party, so getting the house to full on holiday-mode will be my next big task. 

But not until AFTER Thanksgiving, because well...I'm not insane.  

Super Quick Boob Light Cover Up

Dear ceiling fan, 

It's time to ditch the boob look. 

C'mon, let's cover it up now. 

Sincerely, 

It's not me...it's you. 

What is a boob light you ask? Well they're lights, that have an uncanny resemblance to a certain part of the female anatomy. 

To be honest, I had never heard the term "boob light" until about a year ago. When we bought our house, we inherited a few of these perky pesky light fixtures, and now I can't look at them without thinking; "there is a boob...on my ceiling...and it's staring at me" .

One of them is in our kitchen.

My plan for this project was pretty basic:
Unscrew hardware, take down light cover, replace with lamp shade, screw hardware back on...done. 

Remove light = check! 

I did run into one little hiccup. The lamp shade I purchased, when held up to the fan so I could reuse the hardware, hit the blades. Sooooo either I needed extra hardware to make the shade sit lower, OR I flip it upside down and attach it that way. 

Finito! 

I think it looks pretty good, considering how simple of a fix it turned out to be. 

This was just one item on the lengthy list of "To-Do's" scheduled for this weekend. 

I feel like its been FOREVER since we've done anything to the house. The weather is supposed to be nice, and Eric and I are actually staying in town, so I plan on being CRAZY productive over the next few days. 

Wish me luck!