Archive for the ‘dining’ Category

CH-CH-Changes…Part Duex

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

As part of Spring Cleaning/Barterfest ’09 I decided to change out the thrifted bubble lamp for something a little more exciting.

Above is the dining room before with the $6 Nelson Bubble Lamp. Although I love this lamp, it was originally intended to be a sconce. It was a little under scale and a little too white to really pop.

Shazammm. Hello darling, welcome home.

This vintage baby was found at Amsterdam Modern during my recent trip to Los Angeles. Definitely visit Ellen if you get a chance – the place has an AMAZING selection of imported vintage pieces at pretty reasonable prices. I know I’ll be back.

It has a really neat feature – the lamp has a pulley system that adjusts the lamp shade up and down to customize the height.

Here it is finally installed in the dining room. I love it.

This is the other addition to the dining room that I actually bartered for. Its GORGEOUS, and I can’t wait to fill it with beautiful serving ware and pottery!

I do miss the vintage portrait, so some rearranging might still be in order…

FILED UNDER: after, before, dining

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Decorating!

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

l have a disease called decorator-itis. I’ve been futzing with my interior decor and can NEVER STOP or be happy. But I have made a few significant thrifty contributions.

Below are the dining and living rooms Before…this is what we call slow decorating…



And After…

Yes, it is the ubiquitous Ikea Stockholm Rand rug. Scored for $75 bucks in the as-is section. There are some small spots and I had to beat and vacumn the dirt out of it, but for its size (9 x 12′ !) and awesome graphic punch – it seemed like a great deal. It does kind of make your eyes go all wonky.

SHAZZAMMM! My new baby is this lovely vintage Danish expandable teak table. Found it at a thrift store and had to argue and LIE to get it. I may have used Christmas and dinner and FAMILY and the LORD to finagle this beautiful gem for $150.

Totally worth it for the surfboard shape and great condition. Oh yeah, and the tulip chairs are from the Long Beach Flea Market. I can have a real grown-up dinner party with matching chairs and actual room on the table for eating.

Get ready for some more of the After tour:

The Bertoia diamond chairs were a steal off of Craigslist. $40 a pop. A friend from Los Angeles picked them up and delivered these beautiful bad boys.

I’ve been installing new Ikea ENJE roller shades in the dining room and living room…and I’m still working on it. Eventually those horrible mini blinds will be GONE.

Here are the new roller shades in the dining room instead of the curtains.

Curtains:

Ikea ENJE roller shades:

These little windows are getting the Ikea ENJE roller shades as well. They had to be cut down to size to fit the 22″ width (which I will outline the fabulous: How to cut Enje shades!)

FILED UNDER: after, before, decorating, dining, fireplace, furniture, living, thrifting

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Dining room pendant

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Do you remember that awesome vintage Nelson Bubble Lamp I thrifted for $6? I sure do…it was my greatest thrift find EVER.

I love it so much I wanted to hang it in all its glory in the dining room. Here is what used to be there:

Yuck, a cheap mission style ceiling fan from Home Depot. I hate ceiling fans.

With some brute strength and good old fashion finagling we got that sucker down and were left with this…

Yeah! Another monster hole. The previous owners loved to dig giant holes in the ceiling.

Here it is getting prepped for install. I did the unthinkable. I cut the plug so I could make it a hardwired installation as opposed to a plug in…the SHAME.

I had to buy a medallion and a cap cover at the Home Depot. To get the pendant to stay at the desired height, I tied a knot in the cord inside the cap cover. Quick, cheap, and easy.

All in all I spent about $20 on the whole project – $6 for the lamp, $11 for the ceiling medallion, and $5 for the cap cover. It took about an hour and was pretty painless.



BEFORE and AFTER action:



Its a subtle and small, but I really like it! I always imagined a saucer shaped bubble lamp, but this will do. Now since the newly installed bubble lamp is so white and the walls are so white – I’m thinking of painting the walls in the dining room a color – like a medium gray, or a funky wall paper, or Kelly green. It just never ends.

FILED UNDER: after, before, dining

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