catching up on projects

Decorating is never done. Especially when... you're me.

I made my headboard a few months ago. Our bedroom is almost complete! I'll be posting final pics on that soon.

Light Makeover #1

Here was our living room.. it was coming together except for this dang light.. which you can't even see really well but I've always hated it. The style just wasn't right and Aaron wasn't stoked about me spending a lot of money for a new light.

So, I went to Habitat for Humanity Restore a few months ago, looking for potential gems.

I found this really ugly, broken chandelier for $15. Really I should have asked for it for free, and I think they would have given it to me.

This thing first got spray painted black... but it looked too spooky-Halloweenish. So then I sprayed it light blue. I didn't love it. So I went back to gold. I wanted no shades, and I wanted round bulbs to make it more modern.
I like it, I don't love it, but hey... $15? To be honest, I've been thinking about spraying it magenta (!!!) Or orange.

 Light Makeover #2

When we moved in, there was only builder-bland lighting, of course. These pendant lights were simple, not exciting, and they hung way too low! Like anyone taller than Aaron or myself would smack their face on them if they leaned into the island! They had to go...
But it wasn't a "need" and I couldn't find a good enough deal to justify brand new pendant lights.

Enter IKEA. Brand new line... and they were $25 a piece!!

And they had gold touches. My favorite

 But I wanted more gold (duh) so I spray painted the inside of them gold as well. Unfortunately you can't really see it from this picture. But they were a pretty sweet (and cheap!) upgrade ;)

 Bathroom Project

Everything in our master bath is BEIGE. Floor to ceiling, and it drives me nuts. One day Aaron pointed out to me that there's an outlet for a light fixture about the tub, and wanted to know if I planned on getting one. Uhhhhh..... is that an invitation?! So I ordered a little chandelier, and decided to paint the curve above the tub. I originally wanted horizontal stripes, I thought it would look really cool with the curve. So I painted it white (with the intention on white and mint stripes) and then went to measure things out. Using a level on a curve to measure straight lines is IMPOSSIBLE!! I gave up after 3.5 minutes.

I remembered a cool abstract paint job I saw in a bathroom once. It took literally 20 minutes and ended up being pretty cool. It looks better in person, because the lines photograph all wonky. I'm probably going to end up painting the rest of the bathroom the same color.. once I get to that ;)

 As if I didn't have enough to do, I've also been trying to get Mason's room decorated =) Here's the plan, and it's almost all done, and looks pretty close to this! It's almost all DIY and on a small budget.

This was my little sugar plum admiring the snow a few weeks ago. He was so confused but then kept trying to catch it. So cute

not sayin I'm a gold digger...

But I really love me some gold.
Not the real kind. Liquid gold..
No, not breastmilk.
We are done with that.

I'm talkin gold spray paint. I think I have a 5-month permanent high from fumes.
But my house and its formerly ugly contents are thanking me, so we're all good!

Maybe I've already showed this.. the gray file cabinet in our office came with simple gray knobs that were cheap looking. I wanted to change em out for real brass hardware, but it's cheaper to just spray paint those little nubs! And so I did...

And I took an old brown clock and a cheap brown frame...

Goldies!

 Dollar bin at Target had plastic dinosaurs. Mason had it comin....

BAM! Gold

 Another Target gem... cheapie neon table, that's probably cool for college... but not my living room. I sprayed the wire, and covered the top with wrapping paper. I need to spray a protective coat on the top still, but you get the idea =)

More office accessories: 

Scissors that used to be sparkly purple... GOLD. Ugly orange plastic Ikea pot... now GOLD. And yes that is a turtle shell on my wall. Actually I have 2. They're not gold... they're mustard and they actually came that way. I bought them with the purpose of spraying them gold, but I ended up liking the yellow. So strange of me..

 And this is a gold makeover of sorts, but I did not use spray paint for this one. Target (again) was the source of these lamps, but I thought the shade was blah. I had purchased these gold stud stickers at Joann's months ago, knowing I'd certainly find some project to do. And that I did..