Making the old new again (spray paint love)

Well, since it was seventy-stinkin’-five degrees here today, I figured I may as well take advantage of it and spray paint something.

In my flip flops. And tank top.

Grrr.

I know…it’s awesome and all, but I’m already missing my sweaters. I was just getting used to cozy again. :)

Anyway, when we built our house, we upgraded the elevation, (exterior of the house) but didn’t add any extras to the curb appeal – landscaping, lights, etc. So I did a few updates soon after moving in:

I took out the cheapy bushes that were about two inches tall and replaced them with azeleas and lillies, then added landscaping lights and bricks, and installed window boxes.

MUCH better.  :)

I also replaced our look-away-from-the-shiny!! brass coach lights:

OK, they weren’t even as nice as that picture. They were way too small for the scale of our house and they were practically blinding us with their brassy-ness. Brassiness? Huh? Whatev. They were ugly.

Anyway, I replaced them with much larger versions that were a pretty, dark bronze color:

Well, they were a pretty dark bronze color. It’s been about six year since I installed them, and they sure look their age:

In my book, the only thing worse than shiny brass coach light is a pink coach light.

Back in the day, they matched the light on our porch:

We don’t get much full sun on the front of our house, so I chalk it up to the fact that they were fairly cheap inexpensive six years ago -- $40 each I think?

So because I still love the size and design of the lights, I had a little idea in my noggin. On a recent trip to True Value, I checked out the fantabulous spray paint aisle:

I know. Stop drooling. It rocks. If you can’t find it there, you can’t find it anywhere.

I knew I wanted the lights back to their original dark finish so they would pop off the brick. I checked out a few oil rubbed bronze options and it turned out my old stand-by can be used indoors and outdoors:

Thankyouverymuch Rustoleum! And True Value! Kisses.

I thought I could just take the top off the light fixture and remove the glass, but that wasn’t working. I had to pretty much take the whole thing apart:

I set all the parts aside and cleaned everything well. Even more of the finish came off as I cleaned:

And this is the part where I am taking pictures of a dirty paper towel in our front lawn, realizing my neighbors are wondering why in the world is Sarah standing outside taking a picture of a dirty paper towel in her front lawn.

I would love to know what goes through their heads. You know what…maybe I don’t. :)

I picked up a roll of paper at True Value as well, and taped it up all around each light:

YES…I know I could have just taken the lights down. But that would have taken more time than just slapping some paper up there. And it was extra fun because the paper taped to the garage caused quite a few what-is-that-chick-doing? looks as folks drove by. :)

A sweet little girl from down the street even walked down to ask why I had paper all over the house.

It’s hard to explain the power of spray paint to a sweet five-year-old. :)

I put the parts aside so I could spray paint them separately:

I did two coats on everything – making sure to use very short, light sprays. I didn’t even use primer – I figured if the ORB paint ever wore off, I’d rather the pinky tone show through than white primer. :)

The result?:

Oh. Em. Gee. LOVE:

I ended up giving the glass a good cleaning – wow, they were nasty. Now the lights are about ten times brighter, which is a bonus. :)

They pop off the house now, AND they match the porch light again too:

I like the new finish even better than the old one, so I may spray the porch light as well.

I think coach lights this size in a similar look are going for at least $50 each now – so I figure I saved $100 by just painting them.

Can I get a hollaaa for spray paint? Whoop! Love it!

Now, I have no clue how this will hold up. Even though the can says you can use it outdoors, you never know…but even if they last till next summer, I’m totally happy with that!

It took about an hour to finish, so yet again, the investment was in my time. And one hour to save $100 works for me!

I think they look SO much better, yes?

Check out that clean glass! You can actually see the light bulb now -- I swear, it’s the little stuff that makes me so happy. :)

Have you saved some cash with spray paint lately? Spill it!

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Thank you to my sponsor!:

So cheap it’s scary

Can you believe Halloween is just days away? The days are going by SO FAST! I’m so excited for Monday though – November 1st is the first day I really allow myself to start thinking about Christmas. And I have a fun holiday event I’ll be announcing on Monday that you won’t want to miss! ;)

So anyway, we’ve had Halloween all over the place for a while now, but I’ve let the Bub kind of take over. I tried putting things out just so…and that lasted about ten minutes. What can I say – he’s like his Momma and is crazy about the holiday decor! I’m not going to fight it. :)

I’m so proud!! Sniff.

I’ve had the buffet in the foyer decked out for weeks now, but today the Bub and I finished it up with a little somethin’ somethin’ on the walls.

When we started working on that spot, our bright, fun lamp (consignment find) wasn’t looking so spooky. :) I wanted to Halloween-it-up a bit without having to do anything permanent.

We found some super cute downloads from the Silhouette site and used them to dress up the lamp shade a bit:

ACK! Are you dying? I adore these little guys.

I just gave them a very light coat of spray adhesive and stuck them on the inside of the lampshade:

 

They were cut out of black card stock, and if you don’t have a craft cutter, you could easily download designs and cut them out. You may want to just find spiders with thicker legs if you are cutting them out by hand. :)

I love them so much! And how about snowmen for Christmas? Or snowflakes? DYING.

I finally made it back into Goodwill a couple of weeks ago, after a loooong time away. I found a $2 vase that was perfect for my Halloween “tree”:

I filled it with some Dollar Tree netting, then grabbed some sticks from outside, spray painted them black and just stuck them in.

I know…I think I’m the last blogger on earth to do this. :) I wanted something with lots of height and it was perfect! I added some of my Pier 1 spiders ($1.50 for ten I think?) here and there, and some foamy bat stickers we had:

The Spooky sign was from a couple of years ago and is just a $1 word mounted on Halloween paper, in an old frame:

We couldn’t resist another spidey on the platter. :)

I found some sparkly spray paint on a recent trip to True Value, and knew I had to use it somehow:

Don’t you love that name – Titanium Silver? The little skull above was from Michael's and is a cardboard texture. A little Titanium and he was ready to go!

Our other skull head friend was an ugly plastic guy from the Dollar Tree, and because he was slick plastic, he got a coat of spray primer (also thanks to True Value!) and then a couple coats of the Titanium:

I propped him up under a cloche and wrapped my cute beady stuff around it. Doesn’t he look so happy now? He’s positively beaming. ;)

The pumpkin was another cardboard-y thing from Michael's. I really wanted to use one of the Funkin pumpkins, but this little guy was only a couple of bucks – way cheaper! I sprayed it white and attached some strips of black gems in the grooves(a buck on clearance!):

Our final project today was to add the bats flying off on the wall:

I cut out the ghost (by hand) out of window film I bought forever ago for the new pantry door. (You may remember it took me about six months to get that baby up.) I didn’t like it’s texture though – too bumpy for what I wanted. But perfect for a ghost in the mirror! Buwahahaha!! I love him!

We used the Silhouette to cut out the bats, but again, these are so easy to cut out on your own! I just stuck them to the wall using tape:

I plan on keeping all of these – I think they’ll hold up another year easily!

We love our spooky foyer!:

The best part – the whole thing was less than $10!

The cut outs are my favorite part by far…I’m so excited to do even more with them next year. ;)

Are you working on any last minute Halloween decorating or crafts? We’ve got a couple more little projects to work on over the weekend. That’s what the Bub tells me anyway. :)

For more Halloween goodness, click here for past projects!

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Before and After Party: Buh bye ceiling fan

Hello there! Welcome to the October Before and After Par-tay!

So…I got nothin’ against ceiling fans. Really. We have three of them in our house. Well – now two. :)

We’ve always had one in our bedroom -- we hand picked it when we built the house:

And pretty much since the first week we lived here, I’ve wanted to take it down. :)

We used to use it fairly often, but over the past few years, it’s made hubby and I both feel like we have a cold the next day if we have it on all night – so we haven’t used it in a long time.

So…for a few months now I’ve been planning to replace it with a gorgeous new chandelier. But I have no gorgeous chandelier. DANG!!

And the Dave Ramsey plan (that’s WORKING, by the way!!) makes it so we need to pick and choose our splurges, so it wasn’t really on the horizon anytime soon.

And then…while I was working on the basement a couple of weeks ago, I moved a light fixture I’ve had forever around about 20 times before it hit me. DUH.

Why don’t I use this?:

I got it from our local Habitat for Humanity Restore at least a year ago – maybe even longer. I didn’t know for sure where I’d use it, but it was BIG and only $22, so I just couldn’t pass it up.

I wasn’t crazy about the finish, but I figured a coat of paint would help that:

I knew I could totally make it work! Whooeee! And since I bought it forever ago, that made it FREE! According to my way of thinking anyway. :)

So I set it up in my fancy spray paint station in the garage, (a.k.a hanging it on a hook with a sheet behind it), and covered it with one coat of basic black spray paint from my local True Value:

If you’re like me, you get spray paint finger pretty easily. To prevent my hands from turning into claws, I’ve used a few different spray paint handles over the years. But they never work great -- I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been spraying something and the can falls right out of the handle. Drives me batty!!

I saw this one at the True Value and decided to give it a try:

I LOVE it! I don’t know how it’s different, but I didn’t have one issue with it. The can stayed put the whole time (and every other time I’ve used it). LOVE.

My sweet Dad came over and helped me hang this one. I had never taken a ceiling fan down before and wasn’t sure which wires would go with what. Because the light fixture didn’t come with any of the usual accessories needed, we got a crossbar to hang it:

And a new canopy as well (that I still need to paint black!):

True Value also had some frosted bulbs that I wanted to try:

And after a quick coat of spray paint and some help from my awesome Dad, we had the new light up in record time:

Don’t you love the frosted glass on those bulbs? I think I may change out the lights in our dining room fixture to these too – I just love them. It makes the light just a bit softer.

Dad must be my good luck charm, cause this one was up in no time flat! Seriously, I think start to finish, it took us about 15 minutes.

And I LOVE it!:

It’s not the blingy, crystally (word?) chandelier I’ve been dreaming of, but for now, it works beautifully. I may raise it just a tiny bit more, so it doesn’t complete with the canopy rails (which are staying because my hubby loves them).

Because it’s on a dimmer (I had the fan light on one), it’s super bright turned all the way up:

Like, surface of the sun, bright. :)

But most of the time it’s turned down:

Sigh. Dimmers rock. Try them – you won’t be sorry. (They are so easy to install – check out my post here to find out how to do it.)

So here’s this month’s before and after! The ceiling fan before:

With the previous bedding, lamps and drapes.

And the after, with the new bedding and some fab drapes for a steal at JCPenney's:

One of my lovely readers, Missy, gave me a heads up about these drapes. The are only $12.99 each -- even for the longer lengths! I wasn’t sure the color would work, but I ordered them because of that price. Turns out the color is perfect!

They are reversible too – and the buffalo check side is gorgeous, it just was a bit too country for this room. I’m going to add a liner behind them so they are more solid during the day, and maybe a little detail to bring in some cream – not sure about that yet.

You can find the drapes here – but I think this is the only color left.

Ohhh, I almost forgot! Did you catch the Nate Berkus show today? It was “our” episode! Proof I was there:

(I’m in the back in the purple sweater. See Rhoda next to me?)

That’s me nodding, saying “YES Nate, you are adorable. And YES I would be happy to come on your show! And YES Nate, I know I am dreaming!”

:)

I totally zoomed in on this shot…but still. COOL!

Alrighty, let’s see your before and afters! Please remember to link to your post, not your blog. I’ll keep the linky open till next Monday evening, so feel free to join in!

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*