The Story of a Little Light Fixture

This is the story of a little light fixture that no one appreciated.  No one wanted to take it down to replace it because it lived in the ceiling of a vaulted foyer.  It was in a safe place.  Safe from Sarahs and spray paint and electrician people.  Mostly safe because Sarahs are afraid to unwire and rewire things and also because Sarahs don’t own twelve foot ladders.  The little light fixture was safe in the ceiling.  It was happy being brassy and having lots of shiny things to reflect light.  But Sarah was not happy.  Brass equals bad, and blah!  Something had to be done about the little light.

Enter Papa.  Owner of twelve foot ladders and possessing much electrical unwiring and rewiring knowledge.  This Papa came and took the little light fixture down from the ceiling and gave it to Sarah!  Oh Happy Day!  Sarah was joyful that she could scrub, wash and spray paint the little light fixture so it could have a new lease on life, and also so it would match all the other fixtures in the living room.

She took it apart into many little pieces.  The light fixture was sad, and afraid that Sarah would not be able to remember how to put all the pieces back together again.  Sarah was also afraid. :)

Undeterred, Sarah spray painted all the pieces anyway.  The little light was unsure about this fancy oil rubbed bronze spray paint, but what could it do, it was all laid out in the garage in a bunch of pieces!  What would become of it?

Luckily Sarah took lots of pictures of how the light went together and after careful internet research to fill in the blanks, she was able to put the all the little pieces back in the right places.  The little light fixture was kind of excited… it was clean and shiny and all its glass panes were polished and clear.  It was pristine!  Even the oil rubbed whatever wasn’t so bad, it was nice!  The little light fixture was happy again.  The Papa returned and reinstalled the light in the ceiling of the foyer.  The light shone brightly and looked around with new eyes… it was just perfect and matched all the other fixtures in the room!  It matched the lamps and the curtain rods, and the hardware on the furniture.  The little light rejoiced!  Sarah also rejoiced.

People came and saw the little light and said how nice it looked.  It was appreciated, not only for its light, but for its beauty.  The little light and Sarah lived happily ever after.  The end.

   

A place for everything…

And everything in its place!

The beginning of a new year is like a fresh start for a lot of people, myself included.  Last year, after all the Christmas goodness had been packed away, I started in on all the closets—cleaning out, repainting, and reorganizing.  This January, I have been a little distracted… by this:

While I haven’t quite made it to the closets, yet, I have accomplished one thing on my great to-do list!  It’s something I’ve been wanting for a while… a hook rack!  The space behind our front door in the foyer is the perfect place to hang your coat and bag.  Only we had just one hook.  So no one ever used it.  Except for occasionally I would hang some random holiday decoration from it.  :)

Here is our foyer BEFORE:

So, I bought a brand spankin’ new wooden rack with five nickel hooks for hats and coats and other hanging paraphernalia.  And after much fussing, I got it up on the wall securely!

And now, here is the accessorized AFTER:

 

There’s a place for everything… even the dog leashes.  :)  It may be a little cluttered, but at least it’s functional!  And the best part: now, when people come to visit, they no longer have to throw their coat on the floor. :) 

Hopefully I will be back soon with a mini reveal in the master bedroom as well as a progress report on the master bath updates!

Happy New Year!

Staring at Stairs

While my Papa was here pressure washing my house this week, (transformation photos coming soon!)  I had him help me replace the carpet on our lower set of stairs. 

The upper stairs leading up from the foyer are cream Berber carpet while the lower set leading down were sporting the old brown shag carpet that matches the den floors.  And since new den floors are in our future, we decided now was as good a time as any to unite the stairs in one type of carpeting.  Especially now since our fur-Bandit has been using the second step as a scratching place and has shredded the old carpet.  Lucky for us, the previous homeowners had a big roll of leftover Berber carpet from the installation that remained behind when they moved on.  Yay! 

Here’s a look at BEFORE (Abby the bear is demonstrating how to climb stairs while holding a sippy cup):

Here’s one more I snapped of Papa, prying off the transition piece from the steps to the foyer:

My original plan was to do away with the carpet on all the stairs throughout the house.  (It’s so hard to clean carpeted stairs without fancy vacuum attachments!)  Plenty of people in blogland have ripped up their carpet and stained the stair treads in lieu of replacing them with hardwoods.  I love the look of painted risers with stained treads.  Here is my inspiration photo, lovely right?

But alas, it was not meant to be, my stairs were never made for that.  Of course.  They are just regular pine with nail holes and a nice big gap running down both sides.  And so, we settled on the second best option… matching the carpet.  Here’s what the steps looked like sans carpet, with the dingy but still cushy carpet padding on the treads: 

After ripping up the old carpet (and trying not to inhale the 7 pounds of particulate filth embedded in the fibers), we pulled out all the remaining staples and gave the stairs a good vacuuming.  Next, we measured the width, trimmed the edge of our new carpet and starting stapling it down over the existing padding.  Here’s Bandit helping to hold the 4x4 we were using as a makeshift carpet stretcher.  Lots of pushing, pulling, smushing and stapling ensued.

And voila!  The finished product:

So much better right? 

Here’s a side by side BEFORE and AFTER for ya!

  

Although it looks a bit strange now with two different carpets meeting each other at the bottom, someday when we get new den floors, the view will be lovely cherry laminate on the floor transitioning into carpeted stairs.  So, what do you think?  You like the new look or do you think we should have stuck out for hardwood stairs?  For now, I’m enjoying the lighter look and also marveling over how clean the new carpet is compared to the Berber upstairs!!

Hope you’ve enjoyed coming along with me while we stare at my stairs.  I’ll be back with updates of our squeaky clean house exterior and deck (as soon as the rain quits for me to take after pictures) as well as a sneak peek of a new painting project I’m working on!  Stay tuned!

 

Foyer Refresh

I was browsing our local Habitat Restore the other day when I stumbled upon these two framed prints.  I’m always on the lookout for nice frames that can be fixed up, but not only were these two nice frames, but the art inside was lovely!  They are originally from Target and were marked with the super awesome price of ten bucks!  Score!  The hard part was deciding where to put them.  While I thought they would look great in our master bedroom, Michael suggested we hang them in the foyer for everyone to enjoy.  They were the right size, so I took down the monster flower poster (yeah that’s right, poster, complete with its plastic poster frame) from the foyer and put these up in its place.  Ahh, refreshing.

They feature a detailed frame with a double mat and prints of flower bulbs—orchid and narcissus.  They go nicely with our other orchid print which hangs on the upper staircase wall.  I heart.

What do you think?  You like the new look?

Fantastic Foyer

Well, that’s not a fantastic foyer… that’s just a ho-hum foyer.  That’s because this foyer is the befoyer (before foyer).  As in, before we moved in.

Our house is a split foyer; as you enter through the front door, you are greeted by a split staircase, half going up, the other half down.  And here, in the befoyer, you were also greeted by a tree.  Who doesn’t want to smack into a tree every time they open the front door?

Anyway, I digress.  Somewhere in the evolution of this house, someone came along that was enamored with hunter green (before that it was blue).  All the trim in the upper level was hunter green!  The door was hunter green and the shutters are hunter green.  The stair railings were too!  I would like to thank the realtor that said to these homeowners, “Paint the trim white.”  My arms also thank them.

Paint, they did.  Much to my dismay, they left the lovely shade of green on the front door and all the trim in the befoyer. 

There is a picture window above the front door which we love because it lets in lots of light.  What is not so great about this window is that it is 12 feet off the floor!!  Perhaps that is why they did not paint it? 

Before:

Oh, and did I mention that not only was the door and trim green, but also distressed!  Like, sanded to look crappy… yeah… that.  (I can take a little distressing, as is evident in my work jeans and the back of the couch where Bandit sharpens his claws implements of human torture. hehe) 

After living with the green door for a while, I realized that a couple coats of paint could snazzy up the entrance of our house.   After priming with Kilz and slapping on two coats of white semi-gloss, I thought I was done.  A third coat is really needed to cover that dark green, but alas, I haven’t got around to that yet. :)  All the trim in the house needs a third (or second?) coat.  I’m sure we’ll get to that as we paint each of the rooms in turn.  So far:

Laundry Room … check

Foyer … check

Hmmm… progress is progress right? ;)

Here we go on beautifying the befoyer:

 

 

That’s my Mama on the big ladder doing the window trim. (Thank goodness for handy parents with giant ladders that miraculously still fit into the foyer when unfolded.)

And now for the big reveal:

 

Ahh, so refreshing… and easy on the eyes!  I love the new clean look… how bout you?