Be Our Guest, Be Our Guest.....

Once upon a time, our guest bedroom was not a very welcoming place.  The walls had numerous and very large holes in them that marked where the former owners had hung various pieces.  As you can see, I got a bit ahead of myself, and forgot to take a pic of the room before I stripped the old items out.

 Before Take 1

Before Take 2

I went ahead and painted the room a wonderful robin's egg blue.  It is called Woodlawn Blue by Benjamin Moore.  I just absolutely love this color!!!!  Also, I gave all the hand-me-down furniture a new fresh look with the some black paint from Benjamin Moore (you will have to forgive I am not listing the color because I am too lazy to walk down stairs and look).

Getting closer to a final product...

Almost there....

Another shot of getting closer to the final product...

Final product as the room looks today.... Take 1....

Take 2.....

Take 3....

Take 4.... You might remember this little side table I sanded down and repainted awhile back...

Take 5.....

So there you have it..... It took about a year to put this room together, but I am happy with the results.  There are a few things that I would like to add (crown molding and a chair, but in due time we will add these items).  My goal was to provide a restful retreat for our guests, and I think I have done exactly that..... So often we rush rooms, and repent in leisure.  I am glad I took a slow approach to putting this beauty together.

For those that may have missed my paint mention above, the paint color is Woodlawn Blue by Benjamin Moore in a satin finish.  It is just the right robin's egg blue color.... Can't get enough of this color!

Public Enemy #2: Before and After Foyer Light

Your looking at public enemy #2.  The dreadful brass builder foyer fixture.  Many of you share my pain if your house was built in the 90s.  Our home is full of lots of shiney brass items (door knobs, hinges, lights, etc).  Slowly, I am working through exiling all of this brass.  I first started with our dining room light, and now I am here to give the good heave ho to this foyer fixture. 

My mom taught me to say nothing if I have anything negative to say, so I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

I have spent about six months looking for an affordable replacement to this beast above. I had found a few options that I liked, but at $500 and $800 a piece, I couldn't stomach spending that much on a light that I was not 100% in love with. Enter Overstock.com..... I spend a decent amount of time looking for various items I am in the market for at Overstock.com each week. One day, I ran across this item pictured below....

I swooned in my computer seat....It is called the Accolade 12-light Chandelier.  It fit the bill for what I was looking for: nickel finish, traditional with some modern lines. Drum roll for the best part..... It was affordable.  At $177.99, it was offered at an attainable price.  It should be illegal to be this well priced, right?  So I got my order on, and received this beauty within 2 days. Score!

Of course since we do not own a ladder, I had the electrician install the new beauty for me.  It was a breeze to install, and was up and ready to illuminate within 15 minutes. :)

Full view...

What a commanding presence it offers. 

Looking up from the door way....

Finally, the night views with all 12 lightbulbs blazing......

Another angle with the dimmer switch in action....

Finally the view looking up with the lights on.....

I am so in love with my purchase.... I am giddy with delight.  Don't you just love when you feel that way!

Getting Hemmed up....

I have a little confession...... This is a bit embarrassing, but I have had these IKEA drapes hung, but unhemmed for months now in our living room. I must admit, I sometimes suffer from not finishing projects 100% before I move on to the next one. I am a little bit ADD about it (which is super hard for me to admit because I am pretty organized with most aspects of my life). Anyhoo, when I hung the drapes the first time, I loosely pinned them so they looked ok (or so I thought- see below). The thing is we generally have a couch in front of the window so most people really do not see the bottom of the drapes.... That is until Christmas hit, and we moved the drapes, and centered the tree in the middle of the window..... Let's just say, it wasn't pretty....

So I finally bit the bullet, or should I say, the snow storm trapped me in the house today.  I completed the project will all items I had around the house: iron, hem tape and a ruler.  The drapes needed to have six inches hemmed up on them so I pinned the drapes after measure the length with my ruler.  The whole project took about 20 minutes, and let's just say, I am so happy to be able to check it off my to do list....

Here is a view of both angles from the carpet looking up....The drapes look so tidy. Do not focus on the fugally side table to the left. Once the weather improves, I am going to sand that baby down, and refinish it. I am still not sure if I am going to stain it, or do a painting treatment that will mimic a stain.... That's for another day...

So there you have it, the drapes finally got hemmed up! :)

Mirror, Mirror Leaning on the Wall....

Spray paint sure is a girl's best friend..... I found the below mirror when I was stalking Craigslist a few months back.  If I recall correctly, the mirror was about $25ish, and I thought that was decent for a 35 inch mirror.  I know some of you might disagree, but I thought it was a worthwhile investment.  I was not a big fan of the light wood finish so I decided to take the mirror out to the back yard, and give it a little TLC with Heirloom White (I forgot to take a painting pic this time; opps!)

And there you have it..... This beauty now calls my living room home, and it thanks me every day for giving it a new lease on life..... How do you all like it leaned up against the wall?  At this point, I am digging the look, but I am toying with the idea of hanging it on the wall.  Your advice would be swell. :) 

Presto Chango: 2 Quick Improvements

We decided to make a few quick improvements around the house specifically in our bathrooms.  Both of us are big fans of rain showers.  We have had one in each of our bathrooms for years.  When we moved into our house, that was the first improvment we made in our bathroom.  Although, we did not do the same thing in our guest bath.  See the pic below of the before.

One day I was picking up supplies for a project at Menard's and I spotted the below shower head on clearance for $20ish.  I thought at that price, why not.  So I snapped it up, and ran home to install.

I will admit that I just watched when this rain head was installed.  My husband has mastered this skill so I left it to him.  It took him less than 5 minutes to get it up and running. 

The other wonderful improvement we made were installing two more slow close toilet lids in our upstairs bathrooms.  You may recall that I blogged about the addition of a slow close lid in our half bath renovation.  I think these slow close seats are heavenly because they eliminate the noise the toilet seat makes when your male counterparts are putting the seat down.  I picked the below featured seat up at Menard's for $22 on sale.

It is very easy to switch out a toilet seat.  All you do is open the clamp thingy up at the back of the seat.  Next, you unscrew the old toilet seat.  You will want to clean underneath the clamp (this is where this project is a bit gross).  Once you have this clean, you just screw the new seat on, and then close the new clamp thingy.....

Presto Chango!  The above projects were completed in a total of 30 minutes.