Fireflies in the trees

So I’ve wanted to do this little project for the longest time, and I finally got the courage up this weekend. It involved one little part that totally had me intimidated.

I’ve always wanted to hang DIY glass lanterns along the trees in our backyard – I’ve seen it done with mason jars and regular jars and I’ve planned to do it for years. But I knew it would mean I’d have to drill a hole in the bottom of the glass to do it.

Otherwise they will fill up with rain water and I’d have to dump them regularly and I know myself and myself would never do that. So they’d become little mosquito breeding grounds and those guys like me enough as it is.

SO. I knew all along I’d need to drill holes in them to avoid mosquito production and my well being. :) I finally bit the bullet and just did it this weekend. My original plan was to use mason jars, but I didn’t want to put a hole in the ones I have because I use them quite a bit during the fall and holidays. So I took a trip to Goodwill, where I’ve gotten EVERY ONE of my mason jars over the years, and they had none. None!! Well, I did find one itty bitty baby one marked at a dollar, which just annoyed me so I put it back.

You know how I feel about Goodwill prices lately. :)

So I was just going to use food jars and wire, but then while shopping the other day I found some super cute mason jar versions for $2.99 each (Kirklands). For that price it was worth it to just get them instead of DIYing – they had cute wire already and everything. They are SO much cuter than a jar too!

Here’s what I ended up needing to drill the holes:

The drill bit gets hot so you need to have water near the spot you’re drilling. You can do that by just pouring it constantly, but you need three hands to do that. (Or you can stop constantly to pour.) I found the easiest way was to fill a bucket just higher than the height of the jar.

I picked up a drill bit just for this, and it was pricey at $18, but I know I’ll use it for other things in the future. There are two types of glass cutting bits:

I used the one on the left. From my understanding you won’t be able to use these on tempered glass, so don’t try it on that. (It just won’t work.)

Getting started was the hardest part. I was seriously wondering if I’d be able to even do this because the bit kept skidding all over the place. You need to start at an angle at first, not flat – so the bit can get a grip on the glass.

This pic was a little later when I had straightened it out a bit more, but it gives you an idea of how I did it in the bucket.

Once you get that grip it’s easy, but that’s the hard part:

Those half moon shapes are where I started. Once you get those going you can straighten out the bit and put it straight down:

By the way – use gloves, eye protection and if you are not doing this in a bucket of water, I’d use a mask as well. With the water there was no need for that.

OH, and use a cordless drill. No water and electricity please. :)

When you get the bit going it’s not bad at all – you just have to be patient. You don’t want to push too hard, just let the bit do it’s thing. I’d say each time took about 30-45 seconds of drilling once I got a good grip:

Here’s what you’re left with:

I got overconfident by my fourth one and pushed too hard:

Nice. I was pushing the drill too hard and it pushed through. So just be patient! Patience is really not my thing.

I seems intimidating but honestly it wasn’t bad at all. Having the glass under water was a huge help because I wasn’t worried about the bit getting hot or glass flying everywhere. Overall it was actually kind of a cool DIY.

I’ve had little indoor/outdoor tea lights from IKEA for a about a year for this project:

By the way, I used the wire from the jar that broke to make another lantern with a jar from the fridge. :)

I hung them from the trees along the back:

And waited for the sun to go down:

I have these tea lights in white and yellow and love the yellow out there – I feel like they look more like fireflies or something. :)

I can’t find the lights online at IKEA though. I hope they still carry them because I want more:

Now I want to do this along the whole length of the yard – how pretty!:

I want them everywhere. ALL THE JARS.

Of course we have to turn on each light but that’s no biggie –- we won’t use these every night. I’m pretty much in love with them though:

I’ll be making more but will be raiding the fridge for jars to the do the rest.

I love how they turned out and love that they’ll have very little upkeep – I’ll probably have to clean them every month or so, but they are secure (I made sure not to hang them too close to each other so they won’t bang together during storms) and will drain easily.

I knocked two things off my list – a project I’ve been wanting to do forever and a DIY that I’ve always been too intimidated to attempt. :) Here me roar.

The possibilities are endless now that I know how to drill through glass. Have you ever tried it? I’ve seen tutorials on cutting wine bottles and that looks interesting as well.

Barn light love

Hey hey all! I’m back today with a little progress in the mud room. I am SO excited – I love when things come together the way they look in my head. :)

Because this space used to be a laundry/mud room combo, and it drove me absolutely mad, and was always a disaster: 

We had outlets in that little nook where the washer and dryer were. I kept them when I added the DIY bench and the beadboard. I’m not sure what we’ll ever use them for, but I’m not one to ever cover up an outlet:

You never know when you might want them!

So because the two outlets were perfectly spaced on the wall I got an idea a few months back, and it finally came to fruition:

Sconces baby! Yeah!

Our electrician friend has been crazy busy so I figured I would do it when he was available. He was free a few days ago so for $150 I had these installed in a couple hours!

Did you know if you have an outlet, you can add a sconce above it? You just need to tie into the electrical and add a switch – no biggie. ;) Actually, it doesn’t seem that hard, so I’m determined to figure out how to do this on my own. I have so many spots in the house I’d like to add some wall lighting.

I am so thrilled with how they look! Ack, I just love them:

I was so happy I celebrated by painting the door trim in the room! Everything still needs one more coat of glossy white, but I’m just happy to not have the bare wood staring at me every day.

The galvanized barn lights were from Lowe’s:

They don’t match the hardware in there exactly, but I’m not worried about it. It’s the same lighter tone. It is SO nice to have added light in here: The main light in the room is a fluorescent light, and while it is very bright, it’s so dang ugly. :) I’m thinking of replacing it so it will be nice to have another light source.

I just think they are adorable:

That little mark on the wall above the pillows needs to be touched up – that was where he was going to put the light switch but our old dryer vent was there, so it’s on the right instead.

It’s coming together! This room has undergone a HUGE transition and it’s functioning so well for us. I’m so grateful we were able to move the washer and dryer to the basement.

Our cats LOVE that bench cushion, by the way. One of them is laying on it every time we walk in the door:

Even our elusive Maine Coon came out for photos. ;) He doesn’t show up here on the blog often.

I’m getting closer to the end of the DIY list for this room…a little more painting, touch ups, the storage on the wall above the bench, crown molding…and then some fun final touches like art and a few accessories. Can’t wait!!

Have you added sconces anywhere in your home? I’ve used plug in versions a few times in our house – in our master, the basement and two in the Bub’s room. Love the look of them!

Updated 80’s light fixture

Hey hey! I’m back with a project that I let sit around for nearly two years. It’s been moved around the house – the garage for a while, then it’s future home (the dining room/library) for the past year or so. Just sitting there. For a year.

It was time. I found this light fixture at the Habitat Restore almost two years ago, even before I finished up the bookcases in the dining room:

It was $20 and I loved the shape so I snagged it up!

I think the main reason I let it sit so long was the work that I knew would go into transforming it. Meaning taping all that off to paint it. Bleh. Not fun.

I pulled out my rub n buff first, thinking I may be able to get away with no taping off and spray paint. But the dark color I had was dried as hard as a rock, I couldn’t get any out of the tube. Wah wahh. So I knew I’d have to spray paint it. I did consider just leaving it – the brass didn’t horrify me. :) But I wanted it to stand out more and I knew a darker color would make that happen. And the brass looked fine in some areas and horrible in others, so it needed to be covered.

It came apart into two pieces and I cleaned it well:

This one helped:

Then it was time to tape all that off. I came up with an idea that helped though! I just laid the painter’s tape down over the glass and then used my razor to “cut out” each one:

It worked GREAT. I timed myself and it took one hour and 15 minutes to tape off the whole thing:

That’s 64 sections in one hour and fifteen minutes, so not too shabby! And when you’re sitting in front of the TV watching Flipping Out the whole time it’s really not too bad. :)

About half way through I realized the inside would still be brass, but you pick your battles. No way was I going to try to do the inside. So it’s still brass, but you can’t even tell.

I took it and the smaller pieces outside (YAY for spray paint weather!!) and primed them with black primer, then sprayed them in oil rubbed bronze spray paint (I’ve tried them all and all look great). Then I hung the light part in the garage and sprayed it the same way:

Those white sleeves were brittle and falling apart so I just kept them on to protect the electrical stuff while I painted.

By the way, I don’t always prime my metal light fixtures – it’s not something that’s going to get wear and tear. But I was almost out of my ORB spray paint so I wanted to make sure it had a dark base.

When the parts were dry to the touch (about an hour later), I installed it inside:

The chandelier we’ve had in here has looked odd to me since we started the transition to a library instead of a dining room. (Read more about that here.) Our old kitchen table still sits in here, only because we haven’t made the new furniture a priority. (Four matching chairs isn’t going to be cheap!)

Anyway, the old light was too detailed for this space and I wanted something a bit simpler. I think the darker paint makes this light look a million times better!:

Eventually I may get something else (I’ve had my eye on another light for a long time now) but for now the $20 one that’s been laying around for years works GREAT. :) I won’t do anything until we get the furniture for this space anyway.

Part of the reason I finally got this done is because I’ve been wanting to move the chandelier that was in dining room to the bedroom:

I’ve had another Habitat light up there for years but I wasn’t loving it anymore – and it was just a place holder till I could get a chandelier in there. :) This worked out perfectly!

The chandelier was from Home Depot and I got it because it was so similar to the Pottery Barn version, for about $200 less:

(PB: source, HD: source)

I LOVE this light! It is gorgeous in the master bedroom:

I’ve been planning to use this one in there since I finished up the bookcases in the library, so it’s nice to finally get it installed!

So there you go – a $20 light, spray paint season is BACK and a little light switcharoo! I feel like I got two lights for less than $25 – I had to get new white sleeves for the dining room light so that added a few bucks. And when you buy the light two years ago, does that even count? :)

Have you spray painted a light fixture lately? It’s amazing what paint will do to help update them!

The right distance

Hey heyyy! So I’ve been planning this post forever because I get these questions a LOT. They are serious, important, life-changing questions like…how high should I hang my light fixture?

See, this is DEEP people.

So I compiled a bunch of frequently asked size/distance questions and my advice. These aren’t rules cause I don’t believe there should be any rules when it comes to decorating your own house. But they are guidelines to help you make things look and feel “right.”

First up, the headboard. I’m asked a lot about the size of our DIY headboard:

I wanted the width to be just ever so slightly bigger than the bed. So I went with about 77 inches wide. For the height, I hung it so the headboard was about 57 inches high off the floor. I’ve read that 48 inches is a standard height for a headboard but that’s too low for me. I wanted to be able to sit in bed and have my head rest comfortably. Our old headboard was shorter and that drove me batty.

The height depends on your room, the ceiling height and the look you’re going for too. Some want an exaggerated, high headboard for the drama of it, which can totally work.

Now, let’s talk lights. First up – the size of the light. The general rule is adding up the dimensions of your room and that will determine the width of your light. So if your room is 15 by 15 feet, you’ll want your light fixture to be at least 30 inches in diameter.

Of course there are exceptions to that too – we have an open kitchen/family room so I went larger in there, even though the nook isn’t big at all:

I err on bigger instead of smaller for my lights, at least now. I’ve had smaller lights in that spot and they never felt right to me. This one feels right, but it’s also a fairly “light” fixture – not heavy feeling so that helps it from looking massive.

Also, if you have super high ceilings you can throw those dimensions out the window and go pretty big.

Where you hang you light matters too. The general advice is 30 to 36 inches above your table. I’ve also read a standard 66 inches from the floor to the bottom of the light, but I like to base it off of the table, not the floor.

Here’s the thing – I hung our dining room fixture (this room looks completely different now) at 36 inches above the table:

And I find that WAY too high. It has always looked awkward to me. I prefer a lower light. The light above our kitchen table is only about 25 inches above the table and I love it so much more at that height.

Again, on this one I say err on too low instead of too high. Not too low that you can’t see each other across the table of course, but low enough that it kind of grounds the space.

And when you hang a light or have someone do it for you, make sure to leave enough wiring up inside the ceiling so you can adjust it later. I’ve cut so many too short and can’t change the length or move them around. (You can add wiring but I prefer not to do that.)

The experts -- I read it in a Pottery Barn catalog ;) – say bathroom sconces should be at about 66 inches off the floor, but again, I kind of buck that advice. In our powder room I wanted to clear the wall treatment so I went higher, about 77 inches:

Because here’s the thing – at 66 inches off the ground you’re lighting the sink and the floor, not you. I wanted the lights to shine down on our faces, so I went higher and I really like it:

I did the same in the basement bathroom – you want to work off where the mirror will comfortably go:

Those are about 75 inches from the floor. This is one that you’d have to play around with to see what works for your family.

Hanging art is such a personal preference too. Overall the advice is to hang the middle of the art at eye level:

The thing is, I’m 5’9” so my eye level is a few inches taller than most of my friends. ;) So again, it’s a personal thing. We have nine foot ceilings in most of the house so I feel like I can go a bit higher with the art. Otherwise there’s an awkward amount of space above it that I don’t care for.

Of course gallery walls throw all that out the window. :) On our basement wall I went all the way to the ceiling and filled the whole wall:

Again – it’s your house. Do what you want. :)

Finally, the rugs. OH, the RUGS. They are hard, right? I think so. At a dining table the advice is to make sure the chairs can be pulled out and stay on the rug. So the rug should be big enough that the chairs don’t fall off when someone is sitting at it.

For other rooms, there should be a good foot, preferably more, around the room where you can see the floor. Otherwise it looks like wall-to-wall carpeting, you know? Unless that’s what you’re going for!

But at least in our family room, I’ve learned over the years that a bigger rug is better:

I thought it would make the space feel cramped and it did the exact opposite. I don’t know what it is about a smaller rug, but at least in here it made the room feel much smaller than it was.

The general “rule” is that at least the front parts of the furniture should sit on the rug, but I’ve heard many say all of the furniture should comfortably sit on it. I tend to go for the former. As long as some of the furniture is on it I’m good.

Ugh, so many rules. This is why I say take this all with a grain of salt. Most of the professional advice has not worked for me in this house. It’s been ten years of trial and error to figure out what works and I’m always tweaking as you know.

Do you ever wonder about these? Any I didn’t cover?

P.S. I’m making progress on the mud room – and patiently waiting on one big part of the room to come together. I hope to show you this week!

Making an outlet or switch flush

Hello and how are ya? Today I’m sharing a quick solution to a problem I run into quite a bit – only because I’m constantly putting planks/board/trim on my walls. :)

I had to do it on our beadboard backsplash:

And on the board and batten/beadboard island:

And in the planked walls powder room as well:

Any time you put anything on the wall that adds to the thickness you’ll have an issue with the outlets and switches – the outlet itself won’t be flush with the wall anymore, like this:

Of course to avoid this you can just cut the wood around the switch plate so it stays against the wall, but I like the cleaner look of having it go behind the switch or outlet plate. I had the same issue in the mud room near the bench I am building:

I had to just tape the covers back on for the time being since the screw wasn’t long enough to even hold them on. The beadboard isn’t that thick but you need to make adjustments to make it work.

It’s actually very easy to do and very cheap. You’ll need these plastic spacers from the electrical aisle:

First thing you need to do is make SURE the power is off to the outlets or switches your working with. Turn them off at the breaker, then double check with a voltage tester like this:

No light or a short light and/or beep means the power is off.

But you’re not done -- plug something into it to triple check that it doesn’t work. And THEN check it one more time by using the detector on the screws next to the outlet:

The light went on and it beeped continuously, which meant there was still power coming from somewhere. This one must be wired to the light in the room -- I turned off the breaker to that light and then all was good.

I know electrical work can be scary but once you are sure it is OFF, you are good to go!

You’ll want to take the two screws out of the outlet so it comes loose a little bit:

And then you just need to figure out how much space you need to make it flush. So for this one I tried a few different numbers and ended up with five spacers – you just fold them accordion style and they snap together:

Each spacer is 1/8th of an inch, so you can measure to see how far out you’ll need – so 5/8’s of an inch would be five spacers. I just do the trial and error method because the measuring doesn’t always work perfectly for me.

Then you just put the screw back in and slide the spacers on it behind the outlet:

Do this for both the top and bottom screw and then tighten them like usual. You may need a longer screw if you need to add this much behind the outlet or switch – I had to get longer screws because the ones that were there were too short with the spacers added.

When you’re done put the plate back on and you're good to go!:

Of course this works when installing tile too. If you tile your backsplash you’ll want to use these to make the outlets flush against the tile instead of inset.

Here’s the before and after to show you the difference again:

By the way you’ll need these if you use the pretty switch covers I told you about here:

They are pretty thick and will need a spacer or two to make the switches flush again. (On that outlet we have dimmers installed, that’s why the switches are different.)

Hopefully this will help if you ever run into this problem! It’s really a very easy, fast fix and the package of spacers are pretty cheap. (And they last forever.) Have you ever used these little plastic doodads?