Blinded by the Light (DIY Branch Light)

Helllllllo there.  Me and Shane have been gone, but certainly aren't dead.  Yet.  The past month has been filled with every activity under the sun, and lots of Project Runway watching.  Lots.  Needless to say, something had to go.  So bu-bye blog for one month.  I've got a feeling things will start to settle down here within the next, oh, five years?  Regular blog sessions will ensue after.

One, or maybe two... probably two months ago I started another lighting project.  My favorite.  I came across this idea by checking out Home Depot's DIY section.  One of my favorite bloggers from Little Green Notebook hosted the how-to class in Tempe, AZ, and documented the process on her blog too.

Let's first begin by looking at the light we did have:

I think it was just too typical and boring for our personalities.  It isn't a bad light per-se, so if you have this light in your house and love it, good for you!  There could be worse things in life!  Hooray!

Our hallway doesn't see much for natural sunlight, and the dingy flush mount light just wasn't cutting it.  Half the time you could hardly tell it was on.

Enough is enough.  This little light of mine, I'm gonna make you shine, dammit.

First things first (I'll eat your brain then I'm gonna start rockin' gold teeth and fangs) thanks Nicki.  I started out by purchasing a very simple porcelain canopy socket for around three bucks and seven socket splinters- around $2.00 a piece.  I wanted to experiment with placement before painting the unit first.  While doing this the hubby kept looking over my shoulder.  He didn't even need to tell me what he was thinking, because I already knew, but decided to anyway.  Fire hazard.

We Picked Teak

The last update we had on the deck was, well, awesome.  I mean, did you see it?

Well, now it is even better.  We got the deck board stained.  Initially we were going to go with Rustoleum 4x Deck Cover, however, after carefully reading reviews, and getting pointers from anyone who wanted to give them, we determined that this product would be awesome if we lived in a warm, dry place, free from snow, rain, freezing cold temperatures, wind, dogs and people in general.  We spent all of this time on this deck, and it would be a bummer if the paint was peeling up after one Minnesota winter.  Not the risk we were willing to take.

We headed off to Menards to check out prices on stain and left with stain in hand.  Yes!  We did have to head over to the competition store (Home Depot) to pick up a lambs wool applicator brush for the deck.  **Menard's does not carry this product, so hopefully that will save you some time looking.

For the color, we picked teak.  Cabot Honey Teak to be exact.  We used an oil base instead of a solid or semi-transparent stain.  We really love the look of natural wood.  Not this painted on wood color stain sh*t that the previous owners left us to manhandle.

So, what better time to stain a deck then 8:00 at night?

Shane got the debris out of every nook and cranny using his trusty air compressor.

The first bit of the oil was added.  Major nail biting type of situation here.  We weren't sure how the color was going to turn out on our wood, and after the first application, it was looking mighty dark.  Eeek.

But we kept on keeping on...

As far as product used, we pretty much finished the whole gallon of stain.  Our deck is roughly 176 sq. feet.

We got done around 11:00 or so, we followed the instructions to a T, and made sure no one was walking on it for 48 horas.  We left the deck that night thinking our color choice was a lot darker than we would have liked...

It was like Christmas morning the next day.  Both me and Shane shot out of bed (not really... more like a slow, cumbersome drag) and checked out the deck.  Let's just say it looked a bit different than when we left it the night before...

...and boy, did it look awesome!

Well, it's been two years. Time to paint the bathroom (again).

Hellllllllo everyone!

So many updates, not enough time to blog.  #firstworldproblems

Let's get crackin'.

So, we have this bathroom downstairs where more spiders occupy that space than living, breathing humans. The amusing thing about this said bathroom is Shane initially purchased the house because "this bathroom was so nice."  Funny how much your sense of style changes as you live through your 20's.  Seven years ago we were thankful for a bathroom that didn't have floor to ceiling laminate.  Now, I can't help but notice the baby blues and soft pinks prominently embedded in our tile.  The early 90's called and they don't want that tile back.  Our bathroom was painted in Benjamin Moore's color, Meditation.  Although this is a very clean and masculine color, it did nothing for our bathroom space.  In actuality, it made the space more closed off and small looking.

Living in a typical split, the size of the bathroom doesn't stretch far beyond a skinny rectangle.  This particular bathroom was built with ceilings just low enough that some friends and family members are unable to occupy the space.  Raising the ceiling has reserved itself on our "if we stay here long enough" list.

If I had a dime for every dime-sized spider I saw in our bathroom, I would probably have eight dimes...  To me, that is eight dime-sized spiders too many.  It was time to make a slight change.

As you can see in the above photos, the bathroom is too dark.  Thankfully, a few weeks ago I was going through all of my old paint cans and came across a paint color that I bought, but had no idea what I was going to use it for.  I think maybe it was for the bathroom?  The color is BM Moonshine, and I love everything about it.  To me, the color has a bit of an industrial-modern look to it, but still serene and lovely.

Although there are a few things that need to be done to this bathroom to achieve completion, I think just changing the paint color made a world of difference.  Enough of a difference where I haven't found ANY spiders dwelling there for two weeks.

 ... and for the bonus.  The pink and baby blue hues in the tile aren't as noticeable with this paint color as it was with the other.

Almost there...

* Paint 

* Paint bathroom cabinet

* Pipe shelving

* New faucet

* New door/trim

* Crown Molding

* Raise the Roof