A little (breakfast) nooky

Posted in DIY by Christina

… Um, a little breakfast nook action? Er, wait…. A delightful little post about our breakfast nook! BAM!

So, when we moved in, the breakfast nook was one of the very few areas of our home that needed little to no work…

I loved the flooring, paint color, trim, and don’t even get me started on that awesome sunlight seeping through the french doors. You can “oooo” and “aaaah” now. I won’t stop you. 😉 Of course, we are effectively thumbing our noses at the dated countertops and nose-cabinets in the kitchen portion of the room. They continue to taunt me with their tacky ways and unflattering schnozzes, thus are destined for eventual renovation.

After moving in, we basically just plopped down some furniture that we already owned, which left it looking like this….

That huge red artwork is my favorite. My mother-in-law made it and gifted it to us when we moved in. I love the scale of it and the pop of color that it lends to the space. It’s pretty much the definition of awesome. The ceiling fan that we inherited in the nook was also pretty darn nice as far as ceiling fans go. Although, from the get-go, I’d planned to move it into one of the bedrooms to replace one of the other fugly ceiling fans that we also inherited. What I really wanted to do in this area was add a pendant light above the table.

My other dilemmas with the space included furniture + furniture arrangement. Though they aren’t terribly offensive in pics, I was never a fan of that table and chairs in the photo above (in this space anyways). The table was my previous craft table that I stripped and painted for our last house, and the chairs were craigslist finds that I refinished and recovered. They both looked great in our last house, but thrown together in this house, I wasn’t jumping for joy. First off, the space is a high traffic area. It leads to the laundry room, which leads to the back patio and our pool bath, the french doors lead out to the pool, and the garage door (not shown) which is our main mode of entry to the house is located on the other side of the red painting. So, a square table just wasn’t maximizing the flow of the space. The nook was screaming for a round table, preferably a round pedestal table.

I also didn’t like the off-centered arrangement that we had going in the photo above. It was weird. After we moved in, it took me a while to get a feel for the flow of the space, so I experimented quite a bit with furniture placement. And the arrangement above was one phase of said experiment. One aspect that really threw me was the location of the ceiling fan. It was slightly off-center and really close to the french doors, which meant that a table could never be oriented beneath it while still allowing outdoor access. So, functionally, the table was in an okay spot, but visually, it really bothered me to not have the table beneath the fan.

After several months of playing with the space, I finally decided that the table needed to be centered in the room and that there was adequate space to be able to do that. I found a round pedestal table on Craigslist, which I refinished (post coming soon… The table is now complete and curing in the garage looking all sexy and fresh). I can’t wait to (1) finally get it into the space and (2) show you guys.

But, in the meantime, we’ve (waitforit) installed a different lighting fixture. And I’ll tell ya… It’s new. And it’s specTACular.

Oh, yes.

See, my birthday was in April and although I said no gifts, Joey gave me the black metal hexagon lighting fixture from World Market…

I loved the shape and boldness of it, plus the price couldn’t be beat. I’d mentioned how much I liked it a while back and Joey remembered. Way to rack up the Husband-Points, Joe. 🙂 So anyways, after about a month of sitting in the box, we finally got it hung as shown by this lovely iPhone shot (it was only temporarily like this while we shopped for swag hooks)…

We left the chain long, because we wanted to swag the fixture to a better location to allow it to be centered over the table. We plan to eventually have an electrician come out to do a bunch of electrical work, including moving the junction box to a location above the pendant, but until then, swagging was a good, cheap, easy solution. I purchased this swag kit from Lowes for about $4, then spray painted one of the hooks oil rubbed bronze to match the fixture….

Since the fixture would be hung from drywall only, these were the components from the kit that I needed…

The kit also came with a wood screw for securing into beams. I began by screwing the anchor into the screw-thing (technical term escaping me at present, sorry)…

Then, I threaded on the hook…

I measured my location on the ceiling (centered in both the room and on the doorway to the laundry room) and used a 1/2 ” drill bit as suggested by the instructions on the package to drill a hole in my chosen location…

Next, I folded my anchor down and slid it into my hole…

Once it was through the drywall, I heard the spring mechanism engage indicating that the anchor had reopened. I tightened the hook by basically pulling down to apply some pressure to the anchor into the drywall and screwing it in place. Which left this…

I swagged the chain, leaving the fixture approximately 30″ above the table which is a standard height. Initially after swagging, the fixture looked like this…

It was okay, but I felt that the chain was too long and baggy, which resulted in a messier aesthetic than I was going for.

Cue the handy husband…

Joey removed some chain links using a pair of needle-nose pliers and fed the excess wire into the junction box, which left the swag much shorter and less obtrusive…

Neater too, right?? From the front you can barely even tell it’s swagged now…

And here’s the breakfast nook as it currently stands…

It’s amazing the difference a lighting fixture can make. I’m reminded of this every time I change one out, and yet I always put off doing it for whatever reason.

Photo bomb!

And with the light on…

I love the design that it casts on the ceiling. Snazzy. Plus, it draws the attention away from the plant I’m killing in the corner. Ha! Score.

So, next we’re finally moving the new table into the space and I’ll post about that once I get it photographed.

**Check out the following posts for how our breakfast nook looks now after refinishing a pedestal table and recovering the chairs/adding a few antique finds***

Tell me, does anybody else credit lighting fixtures with being life-changing? Just me? Shall I name it? I do that, ya know… If you’ve followed this blog for long enough, you’ve met Drex, Fri, Kivvy, plus more! Perhaps they need a new friend? 😉

20May2015

“License (plate) and registration…”

Posted in DIY by Christina

Can you tell I’m married to a police officer? Hehe. And guess what?? I’ve been married to that guy for 7 whole years now!!! Woot!

I will never stop laughing at Joey’s face in that picture. Hahahahahaaa!!!

Well done, Joe.

We celebrated our anniversary this past weekend and it was total a blast. We didn’t do anything crazy… Just coffee, dinner (really, really delicious dinner actually), and drinks, but it was super fun. Date nights are just much needed sometimes, ya know? Good times.

Speaking of times, I say we talk about a clock.

That’s where this post all started after all.

With a clock.

A cute little clock that I found for $9.99 at TJ Maxx.

See, Lucas had requested a clock in his room from day one. He can’t tell time yet, but for some reason was completely enthused about it. I’d been casually keeping an eye out for a clock that would compliment his room, but up until this point, I hadn’t found one that I liked. When I saw it, I knew. It was simple, graphic, and inexpensive. I brought it home, and propped it up on Lucas’s dresser to surprise him. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to hang it, so I figured that it’s temporary spot on the dresser would do until I hammered it out.

When he walked into his room, Lucas was absolutely ecstatic about his clock. It was all he talked about. “Thank you, Mommy!” “I love my clock, Mommy!” …And that’s when the nagging began. You wouldn’t think that a four year old would be so obsessed with a clock. But, holy moly, y’all. From the time he first saw it, he wanted it hung on the wall, like, YESTERDAY. It was every 5 minutes. “Can we hang my clock now?”, “Can we hang my clock now?”. And oh, the hysterics… At bedtime, he broke into tears because he didn’t want to go to bed without his clock hung on the wall. I tried to explain that I was simply trying to decide where to hang it, and once I’d figured it out it’d be done. But, no. That provided no solace for my clock-loving baby boy. It wasn’t enough that the clock was sitting, displayed nicely on his dresser. OH, NO. It had to be ON the wall. Yikes.

Now, don’t get me wrong… I totally get it. I mean, I’ve cried over decor a time or two myself (sortof). And he IS my son, after all. And really, his excitement for the clock was pretty awesome. But, dang. The nagging did not speed my creative process. Like, at all. It did, however, make me resolve to always hide the item in question until I know where to hang it next time. Heehee! Duelly noted. 😉

So anyways, after three days of dramatic clock banter, inspiration finally hit. I knew that I wanted to do something with the license plates that hung in his last bedroom (plus, I have a about 20 more now than I did then). And although I ultimately want to create a giant statement wall with these license plates, I decided to hang the clock within a smaller grouping of plates for the time being to appease the child and then slowly add more license plates as I decided on how to execute my statement wall.

I started by figuring out the arrangement of the plates with the clock on the floor. I basically moved them around until I was happy with it, which landed me here…

Then, it was a matter of transferring this arrangement to the wall. I basically used the above photo as reference the entire time. I measured the middle of his bed, measured the height of the arrangement, and figured out how high I wanted it to go from his headboard. Then, I started at the bottom, like so…

I used small finishing nails to hang the license plates and made sure each plate was level before tapping it into place. I gradually worked my way up…

Until I had everything hung on the wall as it was on the floor…

I’ll admit that the above shot was taken after I raised the entire arrangement a few inches. The initial starting place ended up being a little low for my taste once I had it all up there.

Here are a few close ups…

I love the thin chrome frame and the white inset. It’s reminiscent of an old-fashioned wheel in my head which is a great play for his transportation themed room.

Here’s that side of the room now…

The funny thing is that despite Lucas’s persistent nagging for me to hang the clock, he hasn’t seemed to notice that it has no batteries in it. Lol! It’s been 10:11 for over a month now and he hasn’t seemed to mind. Oh, four year olds…. 🙂

Since it’s been a while, let me show you the other tweaks I’ve added to his room as well…

The painting over the dresser was another TJ Maxx find for $11 on clearance. I initially purchased it simply for the canvas as boats aren’t really my thing. But then I realized that it coordinated with Lucas’s room perfectly. I want to add some lime green accents to the painting modern it up a bit and tie it in even more, but I haven’t gotten around to it.

Last we looked at Lucas’s desk area, it looked like this…

Since then, his desk got a little organization, a lamp (found for $8 at Target on clearance), and some art. My parents had that “Lucas’s Hot Rod Shop” art made at a car show. The hot rod in the pic is actually my dad’s car.

Pay no mind to that wood chair. It’s just there because we had it, but I’m on the hunt for something sleeker.

Straight when you walk in, you see the Rubik’s cube art that I made in memory of my brother, a metal bicycle which I spray painted orange, and his magnet board.

And here’s the rest of the room from the doorway the last time we looked…

And now…

I quickly lost that rug beneath the tent because, well… it looked weird. I just forgot to snap another pic after the fact. We had to give the white table that was there before the boot because both chairs broke and then the table started getting wonky thanks to some little 4-year-old-monkey-who-will-remain-nameless using it as a leaning apparatus. He likes to hang out in his tent, so we figured, why not. Since taking his pic, I’ve added a blanket “tent floor” that ties into the rest of the room for a bit of color and Lucas seems to love it. I also cleaned up the hap-hazardly “styled” shelves by using similarly toned baskets that I already had on hand.

And just for fun, here’s a before shot when we first got the keys (before we installed new windows, changed out the stained carpet, and painted the room)…

His ceiling fan light recently went kaput, so that’s next on the agenda. No overhead lighting = total bummer. I’m also still tweaking and trying to work out some of the decor/wall art, so I’d say that his room is about 85% done at this point. Not too shabby. We’ll definitely get there. And I’m definitely having fun on the journey…. This is why I love to blog… looking back at previous pics is so rewarding. Even simple and free tweaking can make such a difference.

***For updated pics of Lucas’s room as it is now, check out this post.***

So, what do y’all think? Any ideas for my license plate statement wall that you’d like to share??