Small Exterior Upgrade

We've done many exterior upgrades since moving into our little Rancher three years ago: painted our entire house, installed sod, painted of front door, upgraded our flower beds and more. Not long after we painted our house, we changed out the old dated light fixture (that's next our front door) into a chic black one. Total we have three exterior lights, and only upgraded one of them, shame on us! So on a recent trip to Home Depot, I stopped in the lighting department, which I almost always do and decided to was time we upgraded our fugly crooked motion sensor light fixture that rest outside our garage door that leads to our backyard. Here's our old light fixture, yikes right! I detest our ugly it is, its dusty and icky white outdoor lights in my book aren't a good thing.

 I decided to go cheap thrifty on this upgrade because its a sidelight, not seen from the street and matching it with our front door light fixture would have set us back 30 bucks, for this project um no. I found the perfect simple light fixture, a black matte jelly light fixture for only $ 6 bucks! We really like how black accents look on our grey house (black shutters, mail box, and hanging pots) Here's how new light fixture, sweet and simple! I love how it looks, we need to do a little touch-up paint around the light fixture our old yucky house color is showing. I'll tackle that 5 min project this week. 

I never thought a I'd love a simple jelly light fixture so much! lol

Next we plan on upgrading our Exterior garage light fixtures, and removing the over fuglly motion sensor light fixture. The one at least looks in better condition than the one we just replaced! We also plan on going from one garage light fixture to two. We like this light fixutre that compliments our front door light. Hopefully we'll tackle the light small exterior upgrade sometime this month. 

What do you think our simple exterior upgrade, much better huh? 

Lamp Love { Target }

I popped into Target Sunday evening and it was perfect, thanks to the Superbowl I had almost every aisle to myself. I spent crazy amount of time checking out all the new decor stuff Target has. I should also add, since my husband was watching the the game, I felt 'un-rushed.' Hasani is at his Target limit if we've been in the store for 45mins and I only have two items the cart. I need to time to think and dwell on stuff! He really should know this about, by now :)  


Did you notice Target's Dwell stuff is on clearance { napkins, table cloths ect. } I hope this means they're just coming at with new stuff, and not ending their relationship with Target. 


My living room is in some serious need of lamps, I have one sad lonesome lamps, it either needs two friends or its getting placed elsewhere in my house not yet sure. So I popped into the the lamp aisle and found three on contenders. You know I love yellow, so I really think this lamp might me a go, its brighter in the picture { taking with my camera phone } than in real life. I like the base and the height. 


A

I've also been in love with glass lamps. I love that glass lamps don't add extra visual color to a room. I'm not a 100% sold on the oblong shape, buts its a maybe. 

B

Then I looked up and so two more lamps. The yellow one is the bees knees, although might feel short and squat in my living room? I love the glass lamp the base looks like the perfect size! 


C & D

Here's a quick reminder of how our living room currently looks. It's going to go though a serious change once we start building our bookcases in, more on about that here { so can't wait } As you can see we have pops of yellow throughout our living room { pillows, tray, candlesticks, artwork } 

I'm still trying to decide which lamp(s) to get for our living room! I need help! I think the yellow will look so good, but I also like the idea of glass lamps? 

Ok, what lamp do you think will look better A, B, C or D ? Or should I keep on looking, I should also add I often check out thrift stores, but people only seem to donate one lamp, almost never pairs. If I do happen to find a pair, its not cute and not vintage and no amount of spray paint can make it looks good, lol :)

Project Nursery: Bye Bye Boob Light

It's been a few weeks since sharing updates in our Nursery. So far we've painted the walls a soft grey, beefed up the baseboards with extra molding and refinished the hardwood floors in the nursery. Next up on our to-do list was changing out the boob light fixture!! It's the last boob light fixture in our house, good riddance!

Before:

I love pretty lights and wanted something unqie and not to babyish, and of course like our other light fixtures that we replaced, I was drawn to drum lights. Big surprise, no.  After all we have a pendant drum light in the dining room, a modern wood style drum pendant in Tabari's room and a mix of drum shade / chandelier in our bedroom. But back to the lighting hunt for the nursery.


Lighting Requirements:


Needs to be close the ceiling
Pretty Turned On & Off 
Gender Neutral 
Unique ( to me )
Fits scale of room ( no dinky light for me )


I always come across pretty lighting on Overstock.com.! I swear I only buy from them if they email me a coupon or if I find one online! I know silly, but hey thrifty is a good thing :)
So I fell in LOVE with this light fixture and knew it would be perfect in the nursery, and Mr. CLH agreed. Here's the light fixture, I found. 

It fit all the requirements and had good reviews! But, my loving husband said it was a PITA to install because of the way the 'hinges' attach to the drum shade. We planned on installing medallion along with the fixture, but it was being a pesky little brat, so its going back to Home Depot, I'll use that refund for flowers in our garden bed, lol. Regardless of how annoying it was to install, I adore this light fixture and love how the crystal adds a little bing to the nursery without coming across as too 'girl'. Here's the light fixture in my baby boy's nursery, yup we still need to paint around it, so just ignore that for now :)

After:

I only paid $ 100.80 for the light fixture after my using my 10% off coupon. Oh I should mention www.Lampsplus.com sells the exact same light fixture for $ 264.99! I paid less than half their price, crazy huh. Oh that's why I love the internet! 


Now I just love walking into the room and flipping on the light, we need to install a dimmer switch STAT, this beauty holds three (count them three) 60w light bulbs. I chose to use the GE Reveal light bulbs which is a truer appearance of color in the room.


What do you think of the nursery lighting?  


Follow Along: As we create a nursery for our baby boy due in June 2011: From the beginning; Nursery Bare Bones, Paint Makes the Difference 

This Made Me Smile

While 'window; shopping at Lowes { yes, I window shop at Lowes! } for possible new interior doors, I noticed a bunch of lighting on cleanrance. A mini pendant drum shade imdeailty cought my eye, and I love the price. While I was looking at the light fixture, a sales associated said she would mark the price down lower if I wanted to buy it. In short the sales associate marked the clearance price from $ 7.99 down to $ 5.00. She also told me they are flexible with clearance prices!  

We plan on installing the pendant light fixture in our kitchen above our sink.Our new light will be a huge improvement over our current kitchen lighting above the sink. Below is how our kitchen currently looks, I know not a pretty sight { much too dark for our tastes } But we do have a plan for our kitchen.

Here;s the pretty little drum shade pendant I bought from Lowes out of the box the pendant came with all the hardwire to hang it. What a deal.

 I love how the mini drum shade mimics our large eden drum shade with have hanging on our dining room. They both coordinate nicely which each which is a plus since our kitchen and dining room share the same space.

 

We also plan on installing recessed lighting our kitchen as well as a 'main lighting' source. For the main light source, we really like this 14" drum shade option from Lamps Plus which will give off plenty of light & look polished in our kitchen 

 

I'm not sure when we'll hang our new drum shade, we want to get started on painting our upper kitchen cabinets soon and taking care of the ugly tile counter tops. Below is the kitchen we adore and want to transform ours into. Lucky for us our kitchen layout how is close to this one. 

{ I came across this kitchen a long time ago, please email if you know the link for this kitchen! }

Buying the pendant shade on the cheap, really makes me what to break out the paint and getting started on painting our kitchen and maybe grabbing a sledgehammer to our kitchen counters. Its OK for a pregnant lady to swing a sledgehammer, right? lol

Find any great clearance deals lately?

 

Finally A Bright Hallway

Over the weekend we tackled painting our Hallway and installing a new light fixture. As I mentioned before painting the hallway was on our ' We'll Get to it Later' Project list. I'm so glad we finally completed this project, our hallway looks bigger and brighter and now seamlessly blends into our living room. No more sudden new color once you enter the hallway like before, which is a good thing.

Here's a look at our hallway ceiling, yep the ceiling is green! To top it off we also had and outdated light fixture and that gave no light light.



Below is how our hallway looked before, very dark. At night it felt like walking though a tunnel. 



I painted the ceiling bright white using Olympic Paint Low VOC ceiling paint, and painted the wall the same color that's in our living room. I debated going with a modern yet expensive light fixture, or going with a more affordable option. In the end we went the budget option. While I was looking at paint colors at Home Depot I stopped in the lighting department a found a simple light fixture for $ 9.99! I like the price and energy star rating, plus it was ten bucks cheaper than the Lowes option I was planning on buying.

Here's the in progress view of our hallway after the the ceiling had been painting and the new light installed. Even with half of the hallway painted it looks so much bigger and brighter.

Here's a better picture of the new hallway color against the white trim.

Consider our hallway completed for now. I'm still on the hunt for a great mirror, and plan on hanging some pictures in the hallway. We also plan on replacing all our bedroom doors / bathroom door etc with new panel doors. The new doors will make our house feel so nice and freash and much more modern.

I'm glad our hallway project is almost completed, we slowly taking on those 'We'll Get to it Later' Projects. The little things all add up!

Did you tackle any projects this weekend?

Light From Above

Among other diy projects this weekend, I really want to tackle a painting our hallway. Months back when I repainted our living room Woodrow Wilson Putty, I skipped painting our Hallway. Fortunately no one noticed or said anything to me! My plans on Saturday are morning is paint the Hall way and install a new light fixture hallway & hang a large to help bounce light around our dark hallway.

First up our hallway with its dated light fixture - it has hard to get a good shoot. Did you notice our ceiling looks a little green? Yup, I will be painting the ceiling a nice bright white. The ceiling is one of those left over projects we never got around to doing! It's of of the those projects that are b-o-r-i-n-g. 

I love modern elegant light fixtures, but for the hallway I wanna keep it thrifty cheap and it must be a close to the ceiling light fixture / flush mount. Also the light fixture can't be to big, because next to it is our HVAC filter vent. I started my search at Lamps Plus more for inspiration, since they don't have many budget friendly options. I quickly fell in love with this flush mount light fixture { Possini Euro Design White Flower } ! Its so pretty and unexpected in a hallway, but I wasn't loving the price tag of $ 89.00 for a hallway fixture. I quickly google coupon Lamp Plus, praying a valid 50% off coupon would pop up! Alas nope Nada, plus its too bug :( 

I decided to start my search over and look for basic ceiling mount light fixtures ( that weren't too boring) I like this Design House Millbridge light fixture simple base and clean looking light shade. Certainly not as amazing as the flower fixture from Lamps Plus, but that's OK. The price only $ 14.97 from Home Depot

I also found the Design House 8 inch light fixture a with a more modern light cover. For only $ 19.47 also from Home Depot.

I also popped over to Lowes virtually and checked out their lighting options, I came across the Portofilo light fixture which is in stock at my store! For only $ 19.97, the ones from Home Depot are available online only. 

In the end I decided to go with the Portfolio light fixture, its not was modern as the one I first fell in love with, but but the price and size are a perfect fit. Plus we've been consider adding another light in the hallway and buying another one of these will be super affordable. 

What projects to you have on your 'I'll Get to it Later' project ?

Lighting the Way

Last night I was chilling on the sofa while Mojo our lovable Chihuahua was laying on my, when I glanced into our dining room. I realized then that our house has come a long way since we bought it late December 2008 and moved in January 2009. I think one the changes I love most that we've done thus far is the lighting. Finding the right light fixture has been the starting point of most our room re-dos. When we first moved into our home, our living room had the ugliest ceiling fan. It was an ugly faux wood grain brown one. Although I'm not the biggest lover of ceiling fans they are a must for No. California heat waves. See what I mean. 

Since the fan was a keeper, we did a quick update with white spray paint. Perfect solution for updated a dreary ceiling fan. Our ceiling fan now blends into the our what ceiling and is not not and ugly eyesore. See you can barely tell its there.

Since spray painted our of ceiling fan white, most of of lighting updates have happened this year. Since I love the look of drum shades over dining room tables, they look so chic and give off a great cool vibe in a room, we upgraded our old basic dining room light. Here's how our old dining room, right after we started taking the sucker down. Yay its was really up there! Lovely. 

 We customized the Eden Drum shade we purchased from CB2 by hardwiring it and using a down-rod similar to styles you see in resutrants, which gives the light fixutre a nice clean look for our dining room.

I love the the ambiance the light gives off when its on. 

Next we upgraded the same light in our sons room (the previous owner installed the light fixture in every room in the house! I think they took the more is the merrier approach. Again this light fixture was ho hum.

The look of is bedroom change the instant Mr. CLH installed his new light fixture. I found a wood grain style drum shade on clearance at Lowes for $ 53 bucks (read more about it here) His new bedroom light is a serous upgrade and cool. 

Inside of the light fixture is a cityscape, I love the warm glow in casts in his bedroom.

I saved the the best for last, Ok maybe I'm a little biased because the light fixture is in my bedroom! We swamped out the same light fixture that was in my sons room for a modern version of the chandelier. For me its the wow factor in our bedroom and I love it, we also added a dimmer switch on the chandelier. Here's the chandelier in the late evening with the dimmer switch on. 

And with the lights all the way. I love the shadows the light fixture cast in the room.  

So far we switched out or upgraded five light fixtures in our home, I know ones missing our bathroom! But thats a post for another day. For me lighting and paint is one of the best ways to add instant drama into a room and make it personal. Have you've been slowly updated the lighting your home? What's your biggest wow factor lighting upgrade so far, or what will it be?

Sons Tween Room: Light the Room in Style

I couldn't wait to replace the boring lights our son's room. He had a very basic light fixture in his room that gave off adequate light, but it's boring. It was the same light fixture we had in our dining room, and master bedroom before we updated them. My son and I start looking for lights for his bedroom a few weeks back, starting our 'looking trip' at Ikea. I like that Ikea has a great light options that are affordable and great value. I really liked the Borja pendant lamp, I liked the look of the basket weave, but $59.99 was a bit more than I wanted to spend. 

He like the Fado pendant light. I thought it was cool too and like the price of $ 29.99, however I worried it might be too small for his bedroom. We decided while he was at his grandpa's that I would continue the search for a light fixture and gather more ideas, if I found nothing he liked I would buy the Fado pendant from Ikea.

As luck would have it while shopping for a Carpenters Clamp at Lowes for his bedroom, I spotted a the perfect light fixutre for his bedroom. It was a large drum shade { you know I love drum shades! } pendant light fixture. Now I've seen a few of these at Lowes before, but at 
$79.99 they weren't in the budget - so I kept it moving! However this one was on clearance and I loved the look of the shade. The shade resembles dark walnut wood grain. Very cool vibe. It was on clearance for $ 53.98, I just couldn't pass it up knowing it will grow with him & with all the DIY projects were doing for his room, it will be the splurge item. I pulled out my Blackberry and Googled the style pendant drum shade, and found out I was getting a steal, compared to a similar version at Bellacor for $ 268.28! 

I've been crossing my fingers for a few days hoping my son would like it when he got back from his grandpa's. Sigh of relief he thought the light fixture was cool and likes the inside detail of the pendant shade the best.

Here's my sons old light fixture, basic and boring. I now how three of these light fixtures to drop off at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Remember to take your no longer needed home goods to their restore { light fixtures, bath vanities, doors and more } they resale the items and then the proceeds help fund construction on Habitat homes. It's also a great place to shop for bargains. 

Here's his new light fixture in his bedroom. We choose to use the shortest portion on the down rod for his bedroom, so the drum shade still has impact while being kid friendly. I love when the lights on, came with a large bulb that doesn't hurt your eyes if your directly under it. It's the city scrape perfect. 

The dark wood grain is so pretty and unexpected.

Here's the light when its off. I took the picture in the evening, so it looks a darker then what it actually is. 

Months and months ago while shopping at Kohls I came across this cute table lamp on clearance for $ 3.99. I love the fabric on the lampshade and the colors work perfectly with his bedroom. Sadly the little bench the lamp is current;y sitting on will be stored in the garage, since he's out grown. 

I'm glad I continued my light fixture search. What do you think of his new drum shade for his bedroom?

ps: Here's a recap of completed projects for our sons bedroom: Painted the Bedroom (here) Tools Used in Decor (here)