Blue Light Special

This past weekend we decided to do absolutely nothing. How often do you do that? For us, almost never. There is always something waiting to be done.  But we ignored it all and just relaxed. Tom napped in the hammock for hours, and I read an entire book.

We did manage to fit one little project in though. Something just for fun. I had bought a large glass vase at Homesense a few weeks ago and Tom decided to turn it into a lantern for the deck.

I realized afterwards that no one took a picture of the vase before we started. If you can imagine no rope around the base, this is what it looked like in the store.

It's about 14 inches high and it gave the living room a much needed pop of colour. And then Tom swiped it. I guess I'll just have to buy another one, won't I, Tom?

We started by building a wooden base to give it stability. Tom drew two concentric circles on a scrap piece of wood and cut out the outside circle with the jigsaw.

He used the router to carve out the inner groove that the vase would fit into and a smaller circle in the centre for the light. I'm sure there is a more poetic way to describe this but it isn't coming to me right now.

I puttied the holes, sanded all of the edges, and then did my favourite finish - two coats of Minwax Jacobean stain, two coats of watered down beige paint, and then a coat of wax.  

The light is just a little flashlight. It has one centre light and four outside lights for different levels of brightness. We glued it into the center of the base to keep it steady.

While the glue was setting, I hot glued thick twine to the top (formerly the bottom) of the vase. The base is very rustic looking and the top needed something to balance it out.

It's pretty cute, right? The edge of the vase fits tightly into the groove in the base, yet it easily slides out to turn the light on and off.

Some wicker and starfish to give it a nautical edge.

We waited around for dark to take some more shots. Unfortunately the mosquitoes were so bad that I could only get a few. And my arms ended up with a dozen bites anyway.

Tom is so proud of this one. We paid $14 for the vase and $5 for the light. Everything else we already had. So less than $20 all together. How much do you think it would cost in a store? 

I'm kind of proud of it, too!

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I'm linking up here this week!

Main/Guest Bathroom Redo (and Redo Again)

Raise your hand if you've decided to paint a room spur of the moment. Now how many ran right out and bought the paint and did it? Keep your hand up if you then decided you didn't like it and painted the room again the next weekend. Am I the only one with my hand up now? I hope not.

But that's exactly what happened. I told you previously about buying the oops paint and starting on the main bathroom. Let me break down the rest of it for you.

I'll refresh your memory with a picture of the bathroom before we moved in. There was a whole lot of turquoise goin' on.

I tore out the medicine cabinet, the towel rack and the toilet paper holder, spackled, and got to painting.

Here is the first version.

I love the paint colour, I really do. But it just wasn't right. Part of it is because the room is small and has no window so it seems dark. Trust me, in this picture it looks far lighter than it really is. And part of it is the blue counter top. It looks kind of grey in this picture but it is very blue. Almost navy blue. 

This wasn't a gut job, and replacing the vanity isn't at the top of the to-do list, so we had to work with what we had. And taupe wasn't working with the blue. It does as an accent colour, but this blue is very overwhelming. Plus I wanted to decorate in greens (had already bought the shower curtain and the artwork), so it just ended up a big ol' mess.


Last Friday night (please don't sing) I decided I wanted a light grey-blue wall instead. With white accents and the blue countertop it would be perfect, right?


I made Tom take everything down off the walls again and I got to painting again. I think I'm finally ready to show you the result. Remember that there is no natural light source so the pictures aren't terrific.

The colour is Behr's "Reflecting Pool". And yeah, it looks white doesn't it? Hmmm, there may be some more painting in my future. But I'm going to think about it for a while first. Plus I'd like to move on from spending all my time in this room.


Details:



I had Tom build a new - bigger! better! woodener! (not a word) - medicine cabinet for me.

I put him through so much with this thing. I changed the size, I changed the bottom. And then when it was done he dropped it on the garage floor while he was drilling pilot holes for the wall screws. I'll admit I cried. He had to rebuild the doors and I had to repaint the handles. But it's all good now. I'll write a separate post showing how it was built and finished.

One thing I needed was a place to hang my "tools". I found these knobs at Home Depot and I love how matte they are. Originally the board was part of the cabinet, but I had Tom cut it off and hang it a couple of inches lower. It had sides before but I think this gives it a cleaner profile.

I've shown it with just the hair dryer hanging but this is what it really looks like day to day. So much better than piled up on the door handle!

The entire room is done in oil rubbed bronze-esque tones, though they aren't all matchy-matchy. 

The medicine cabinet handles are from Lee Valley. They were spray painted with two coats of anodized bronze and one coat of oil rubbed bronze (after the little cabinet mishap). That way there is complete coverage with just a little bit of sparkle.

I even painted the soap dispenser. Thanks to House of Hepworths for this idea. I don't have a Cricut or Silhouette so I tried painting on an S, but it didn't turn out. So I sprayed over it. I kind of like how you can still see the S ever so slightly.

Tom also built a frame for the mirror that is routed on both the inside and outside edges. I finished it to match the cabinet and it is a thing of beauty. Our first mirror frame was very plain compared to this one. 

It makes the mirror look huge. And hopefully makes the room look bigger also. The best part is that it was made completely from scrap wood so it cost $0.00!

Some little touches -

a chippy basket for extra rolls of paper

extra towels and bath salts

one of my beach photo bottles

baskets for makeup and nail polish

The shower curtain is a twin flat sheet that I hemmed to floor length. I found a dark bronze shower curtain rod and matching ring clips. I love that with these clips you're no longer limited to traditional shower curtains.

I found a painting that has all of the colours of the shower curtain in it, but in circles instead of stripes. When there is more time I'm going to have Tom build a frame for it to give it more presence. 

(Who messed up my towel?)

That's it for today's bathroom tour. How about a before and after?

Please tell me someone else has gone through this much hassle to get the room they wanted?

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I'm linking up here this week!

Stripe-Painted Wooden Utensils

I managed to fit in a small project this weekend between re-painting the bathroom that I hadn't even shown you yet (oh yes I did!), going out for dinner with my sister, and shopping & cooking in preparation for today's start of the Whole30 (more about that later in the week.)

I picked up some inexpensive wooden mixing spoons at Walmart last week and decided to paint them to match our kitchen.

First I wrapped some painters tape around the handles at the height I wanted the paint to stop. (Don't worry about that grungy background - it's a bench my father-in-law used to use to store his paint cans on.) I then gave each handle two coats of BM Ranchwood, left over from painting the main floor in January.

After each coat, I suspended them from a crate that had holes in it so that they weren't touching anything and any excess paint could drip off into a container below.

You could also just dip them in the paint, but I found the paint too thick and it wasn't dripping off fast enough for me. Maybe if it was watered down it would be better.

Once they were completely dry, I removed the tape and applied new tape further down the handle. Because I started out dipping them, I had planned to dip in Ranchwood, dip in white, and then dip in Ranchwood again, moving the tape each time. But since I was brushing it on I just applied tape above and below where I wanted the white to be and then painted in the middle. Does that make sense?

I left them to dry again, and then peeled off the tape.

The edges of each coat were a bit rough so I sanded them gently with a sanding sponge and there you go! Funky little utensils that are cute AND functional. We are planning on putting up a white beadboard backsplash so that will tie in with the white. I like how crisp and summery they look and they took almost no time at all.

Oh! I forgot to mention that I am going to spray them with a clear-coat (just the painted parts) to keep the paint from washing off.

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I'm linking up here this week!