Lighting the Way

Lamps have been getting a makeover at my house lately. This lamp used to be on my desk until it got a new home in Princess' bedroom.

I'm gonna change the white ribbon out for white gimp. The ribbon doesn't lay flat like the gimp will. This fabric is actually from my sister's house. She gave me the leftovers from her curtains. I love it. The green is very similar to the green on the walls in Princess' room and it looks fabulous with her main fabric!

This is the lamp in the dining room.

It came from Ikea. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. It's just a little too plain for me.

Notice the new curtains. They're faux silk. I love them.

Here's the shade after I added a little gimp. I had actually taped the gimp around a different lamp in my living room and loved it, but decided that the dining room fixture needed it more. It's a tiny change, but I love how it makes the fixture look so much more finished. It's just enough of a small detail. I just measured up from the bottom and down from the top one inch and drew a line with a pencil. Then I glued the gimp on with hot glue. It's not perfectly straight, but it's much better than I could do free hand. And from a normal distance, not a camera close-up, you can't see the imperfections as well. The gimp is a deep blue-green. One of my favorite colors.I love it when a small change makes a big difference.

Bridget

The Dresser

We found Princess a dresser. It is old and beat up and someone tried to do a green paint and glaze effect.

I love it.

We paid $65 for it.

I have fabulous plans for the top. I'm purchasing the materials this weekend and hope to have it done by the end of next week. I can't wait to show you. I love the lines of this dresser. The simple details. And I am totally leaving the green, glaze, funky treatment.

I am changing the knobs, however. And it's on wheels. Which is going to be very handy once I get done transforming the top. Plus, because it is up off the ground I can stash a couple of baskets under it for Princess' shoes.

Perfection. I'm also transforming the insides. Actually, I've already transformed the insides, but I don't want to show them until everything is done. It was all about having a nice clean drawer for Princess' clothes. I just couldn't put them inside without doing something and I was very ready to get her clothes out the the wire baskets they were in and into a bonafide dresser. So I got right on fixing the insides.

Plus, I moved the wire baskets to the laundry room and am loving the extra storage.

Bridget

My Jewelry Display

I have had an idea for displaying my jewelry for awhile. I saw it in a magazine and it burned on my brain. You just cover an inexpensive bulletin board in fabric and then use pearl tipped straight pins to hang your jewelry on it.

I've been waiting to purchase another bulletin board. However, when I was finding places for all the new Christmas presents I saw the brown bulletin board chilling behind my bedroom door and decided enough waiting. Time to use what I have. So this is how things started out: My pitifull broken jewelry box. It hardly held half my stuff. The rest was hanging on my robe hook in my closet and in boxes on the highest shelf. I never remembered what I had and hardly wore any of it.

Hopefully this new system will get me wearing more of my stuff.

I know the fabric makes it hard to see the jewelry, but trust me, it's there. I've almost filled the whole thing and its a big board! I also hung my silver polishing cloth on there and since this is just a half bath I'm not worried about too much moisture hurting my stuff. Basically, all we do is brush our teeth and do our business in there.

It does bug me a bit that the fabric is sideways and rather busy. I have some blue silk that I might change it out for. But until then, I'm really enjoying having all my jewelry at my fingertips.

Bridget

I didn't hang up all my jewelry. I have a few valuable and family pieces that are staying safely put away.

A Tale of Two Tables

Like the title, honey?

Hubs loves alliteration.

So here is my tale: Over a year ago I took a trip with two friends to Dallas. Can you guess where we went? Nope. We didn't go there. We went to Ikea. Hello!?!

If you were reading this blog around that time you probably read this post and possibly this post and then maybe this post where I finaly showed you my coffee table. Suffice it to say (what does that mean really?) that the coffee table bought on that Dallas trip was everything my heart desired. Unfortunately, it wasn't everything my children couldn't destroy. Four busy, active kids had finally rendered that coffee table inactive.

Enter table 1.



This bueat came from a family friend that had it hanging out in his garage. The positive points are: it is solid wood, the drawers pull out on both sides (STORAGE!), and it has the simple clean lines I like with just a bit of detail. The negatives points: U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi! You UGLY!!! Luckily, I can work with ugly.

Enter table 2:


Removing some unnecessary items and all those drawer pulls (what was that?) and then adding some TLC in the form of sanding, priming, and painting along with fewer new drawer pulls and voila! A brand new table.

I chose to paint it the same color as my kitchen walls. I was tired of painting all my furniture white and I love it. It is a fun shot of color smack dab in the middle of my living room. And since we have our computer hooked up to our tv, the keyboard and mouse vanish so nicely into one of the drawers. Brilliant!

Isn't she lovely?

Bridget

Don't forget to check out the solution to The Case of the Missing Cobra directly below this post.