Tag Archives: Dining Room

Light it up!

08 Tuesday May 2012

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I have been dreaming of light fixtures for the past 3 months. Literally, chandeliers dancing around in my dreams.

Last week, I teased you all with picture of our dining room sans lighting. Here is what we have been working on…

After many hours of failed shopping and praying to the lighting gods, we decided to rework our current chandelier. I was dazed by the pricing of these puppies… it didn’t help that I am super picky and only liked ones over $500.

So here is what we were working with:

Orangey bronze. Asymmetrical pendant shade with brown swirls. Enough said. A little too art deco for my taste, but we work with what we have.

Chandelier - Before

I started by taping up the shades with painters tape and plastic bags.

We used this Rustoleum Metallic Satin Nickel spray paint.

Bronze to Silver Chandelier

Here we are after 2 coats.

After this we turned our attention to the light shades. The shade to the right was original to the light. Beige with a little brown swirl going through it. I thought that spray painting it with some glass frost would hide the swirl and brighten it up a bit. No go. At this point I was getting a bit desperate and I sprayed a few light coats of white. Eh. Not so much.

Lucky for us, Lowes has two types of pendent shades that matched the size of the original ones. The shade on the left is the type of shade we ended up choosing: Portfolio 5-3/8″ Alabaster Mini Pendant Shade for just under $7 a piece. Winner!

The biggest hurdle of this mini makeover was the electrical work that needed to be done. Steve spent HOURS re-building one of the electrical sockets. The plastic in the socket was warped and had cracked. There were no ready-to-go parts available at Lowes, so Steve retrofitted electrical elements, PVC elements, a rubber washer and some heavy duty glue. He worked some magic and it works like new!

Refinishing a Chandelier

So much better! More modern. The room feels so much brighter. I am loving the pendant shades.

Total cost- $42 for the shades, $7 for the spray paint and $5 for the electrical elements gives us $54. Woo hoo!

Chandelier - After

I hope you like it as much as I do!

Anyone else attempted a chandelier redo? Rewiring electrical? What big projects are you working on this week?

~C+S

Easy Updates – Painting Vent Covers

26 Thursday Apr 2012

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In my last Easy Updates post, I talked about replacing the vent covers in our master bedroom. Although the end product came out pretty swell, i wasn’t very keen on repeating this throughout the house. At a little over $10 a pop, it wasn’t exactly the cheap. Therefore, I got spray paint happy on the three registers on the main floor – Den, Kitchen and Dining Room. Here is a view from the kitchen to the den.

Notice how these little registers stick out like sore thumbs? All grimy and old looking. No Thank You.

I removed these bad boys and found a plethora of dust, debris, and dead bugs. Yum. Sucked it right up with the vacuum and moved on.

We decided on Rust-olium’s Painters Touch with Ultra Cover 2x in White – for just short of $4 at our local Home Depot.

Register Covers - DIY

After running a damp cloth over these to catch any loose dust, it took about 4 relatively thin coats. Mind you… I would rather over coat than under coat.

And here is a nice comparison of what they look like before and after. Bet you can guess which one is which. Can you believe that all three of these were that yucky color and were actually on my ceiling. Major yuk factor.

I am glad that we were able to reuse these suckers. They are good quality registers… solid metal with flaps that move easily.

This was super easy and cheap. Rather than spending $30+ on new registers, we spent $4. Ca-ching. On top of this, it was a great way to brighten up the room and make the rooms look cohesive and modern.

How anyone else painted their registers? Anyone had problems or stories to share?

~C+S

Buffet me!

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

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In last week’s post on upholstering my Ikea chair, I mentioned that we were expecting… some buffets!

My Grandma had two buffets in her barn waiting for a home. She graciously brought them out of their cold and damp abode and gave them some love. They were refinished (!!!) and buffed with Scott’s Liquid Gold - magical stuff!

Making their debut in the Marien house are our buffets:

Here are just a few of the things I LOVE about these beauties:

  • The color- So rich! They add so much depth to the room
  • The lines- The doors a fabulous. These are old buffets, but the doors feel a tad modern. Love
  • The storage- That’s right! I can finally unpack dishes and wine glasses that haven’t seen the light of day since we moved or even since our wedding (gasp!)
  • The size- They aren’t too overwhelming in our dining room. Plus, I think they fit perfectly under our new pictures.
  • The sentimental value- They are my Grandma’s… and that makes me happy.
Here is how this room is shaping up…

 Notice how I have not shown a picture of the other wall (opposite of the buffets)? Well, you aren’t missing much. There is nothing there!

Anywho… now that we have this super rich mahogany wood next to my cheap Ikea dining set, it is making me rethink the timeline on getting a new set. We also are searching for a new chandelier and curtains. Painting is down the road.

Anyone have a good suggestion of where to look for chandeliers? I have been scouring the internet….

~C+S

Dining Room Pizzaz – Chair Reupholstery

05 Thursday Apr 2012

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When we added the new pictures to our dining room I was pretty happy with the result. But after a few days I decided that the room needed some pizzaz. Just a little something to push it into a fun contemporary place.

My first thought, of course, was paint. After a LONG time trying to come up with a color that complemented the wood trim, the rug, furniture, and is neutral enough to run into our hallway…. I called it quits. That is a project to tackle another day.

Next… give my chairs a facelift. These little chairs hail from Ikea, as does a lot of our furniture. BÖRJE in brown-black with a white cushion. Now I love white… but it is not the most practical for a seat cover. They needed some love.

I ventured to our local Joann Fabrics last weekend to find some fabulous fabric. Here we are with a little grey zebra print. Definitely bolder than I would traditionally choose to used, but… life’s an adventure. What is wonderful about this fabric is that it is neutral so, eventually, when the walls are painted we can keep everything as is. The fact that is it grey also dulls down the print, so it doesn’t scream “Look at me… I’m tacky zebra print”.

The wonderful thing about this project is that the cushion is SO easy to remove. In fact, this whole project was done in 1 episode of Restaurant Impossible (I love that show!).

As we can see, Flair was eager to help :)

I removed the cushions from the chair, cut the fabric (with a few inches to spare, just in case), removed the existing Ikea cover, and placed the cushion face down on the fabric. I made sure that the “stripes” were perfectly horizontal. Using my handy dandy upholstery gun, I stapled the fabric on the left side of the cushion every inch or so. I pulled the right side taught and stapled that side as well.

Then I stapled the corners, pulling everything in to make it smooth and wrinkle free.

Repeat stapling on the top and bottom.

Ta da!

Easy Peasy. I screwed the cushions back onto the chairs and they were done. Group shot!

Not too shabby. Let’s talk cost: Upholstery gun? $20. Fabric? $15. Pizzaz? Priceless.

What is next for this room? We have a special delivery coming on Saturday! Two buffets are making their way to the Marien household by way of my Grandma. I can’t wait to show you these beauties. After that, we DESPERATELY need/want a new chandelier. Not the type of look we are going for. The next big step will be paint, but I have a feeling that will be down the road a bit.

Has anyone else ventured into the world of reupholstery? Have you redone any Ikea furniture lately?

More the come!

~C+S

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