Showing posts with label lighting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lighting. Show all posts

Ikea Kitchen Update

Here is where the new kitchen stands. The tile is now up to the middle of the window-the walls were too scarred to leave them bare, but I think it has a nice charm. I'm still working on painting the cabinets and we could use a replacement stove but there's no rush.



















The oak countertops are my favorite new thing- I never thought wood was something appropriate to my messy, sometimes grungy kitchen. I used 6 coats of Waterlox, a tung-oil and resin-based finish. Spills wipe right up, even a day later, and there are no white rings or dark rings. Nothing soaks in. The finish dulls a little when water is left standing for a day, but you wouldn't even notice unless you peered closely. We treat our countertops roughly- though no direct cutting on them- and they haven't chipped yet. If they did, it's easy to recoat or touch-up.

So far we've probably spent 2800-3000 on this kitchen, for a complete re-do. I kind-of regret the new steel-look appliances- they seem cold and not very vintage! How do they look so great in period kitchen magazine photos?

Jason paints!









The pot rack.






New stuff to write about!

So I had a lengthy hiatus but did lots of things, and now there are projects, slightly unfinished, to write about.

Bathroom: painted, new light and new mirror cabinet ($8 from thrift shop). The new color IS peanut butter and I don't know how long I'll live with it, cause it's unflattering to me. And I keep craving grape jelly. The next coat will be lighter, and maybe not such an orangey tan. The trim painting is awaiting the wall choice so it could be awhile before the painting is completely finished. The window paint was incredibly thick; to strip it we used the ceramic heater and then after we both became dizzy, used a rotary sander to make lots of lead dust. So, not a project good for our health. It only stripped down to the smooth bottom layer of paint, a milk paint? which is very close to the peanut butter color the walls are now.

Color aside, the most important new thing is the shower rod; it's one continuous bar instead of the expandable kind with the joint that catches curtain rings. What a luxury! For only $6!

The new light fixture is 30's-esque, and wouldn't you know it, I chipped the sink somehow while painting. The curtain is a print of baseballs from last summer, my contribution to my husband's object-related superstitions about the Red Sox and their winning many games and having great luck. Its hanging in the bathroom must be the reason they won the World Series, of course.

Even if I think the color is too intense for such a small room, this is miles from the 70's dark wood strip vanity lighting and cracked plastic door hook, anyway.



The next picture is part two of the deck. It was precursed by debate over levels. We agreed that this section could be sunk down a step for a more private eating area. However, if we ever remove this pair of windows (where you can see the reflection of my hand) and replace them with doors out to the third section of the deck (see trash can), the third section would have to match the floor level of the house or be down a step. Mathematically it seemed best to keep part three at the height of the already-built first section, which matches to the back door threshold. But, if you wanted to walk from the first deck section to the third, you'd go across the corner of the second with a step down-half step ahead-step up. This seemed tedious to me so the deck will now be all one level.

Now he can see the racoon stealing his food

Finally, light in the backyard with a new (old) porch light from Oklahoma. It looked a little Gorton's Fisherman on the living room floor but looks great outside.














Also, I discovered our laundry room (mud porch, utility room, etc.) is entirely bead-board on the walls and ceiling, all running lengthwise. It looks like a super pain to strip so we covered it back up with the fiberboard paneling for now. The jagged hole also goes through the kitchen wall. Hm.

Shiny, gold!

This is the new light in the dining room. Labor was about 5 hours, doing touch-up paint on scratches, re-wiring (although I skipped re-wiring the little twist knob at the bottom), finding a plate to hang it from, and then hanging. And some more touch-up.

The gold paint was mixed from craft store liquid acrylic leftover from a medieval icon project in college. It has a metallic sheen. The light has 4-5 different shades of gold and amber, so I mixed in raw sienna and raw umber canvas paint to make the colors. It took an hour of patient mixing and painting in thin layers to match chipped and scratched areas to the lovely original brass, green and coppery color. Even though the original finish held up to a soft toothbrush and water, when I tried to gently flake off acrylic errors the first finish came with it in specks, exposing tiny bits of clean aluminum underneath. There was no going back. Then it was covered with two coats of Zinsser spray shellac with a yellowish tinge. The tinge was helpful because the acrylic paint touch-ups didn't have the same translucence of the original "brass" paint. I think there is no finish as beautiful as the aged original; it makes me angry to see the "Professionally Refinished" fixtures on Ebay covered in swaths of solid, bright colors that, at least on fixtures like mine, are nothing like the original, subtle polychroming.

There are companies online that carry replacement porcelain sockets and cloth-covered wire, like Sundial Wire and Savta, but I decided to try Lowe's first. Surprisingly they had the exact same porcelain sockets, and without the hard-wiring, but with a different bracket. Lowe's also had replacement candelabra sockets, for vintage wall sconcery. They didn't have the fake wax candles made of paper for the candelabra (just a note for my future project) or the cloth wire, but I went ahead and bought zip cord and twisted it into a similar look. One of the bulbs is an appliance bulb for now. The existing fan support -which was only attatched to the ceiling plaster, not to the box!- is now attatched to a new multi-use plate which is sandwiched between the light fixture's support and two metal rectangles included with the plate. I removed most of the chain after realizing that chaining it to a hook above the dining table (off-center in the room) looked silly.



Pretty!

Goodbye, 80's Ceiling Fans!

That is, to electric ceiling fans, not to people who are fans of 80's ceilings.
J and I have had little time together lately, but his last show closed on Saturday so we decided to go out on Sunday afternoon. The idea was to walk around Jacksonville's Five Points neighborhood, where our old apartment was, but smoke from the Georgia fires just north had turned the sky the color of peach yogurt. You couldn't see the opposite banks of the river. So we went to Fans and Stoves, a Points antique store instead. While I was looking for an eggbeater and vintage glass bowls for my sister, I saw 3 shelves of old glass bottles. I thought, I have tons of those under the house! but to the right was this light:


I've been after this light for months but never wanted to pay the bidding price. Of the cast and painted designs that pop up on ebay, this one seems the least ornate. Hopefully a future Ralph's House owner might give this one a chance, as opposed to a fixture thickly covered with scrolling flowers, cut-outs, straps and Spanish shields. I wouldn't want to eat below one of those for fear stuff might be falling into the food. Ew!
So now we've set a type of lighting for the house and can start to acquire more fixtures based on this style. What a relief.

Friday night in the attic

I feel guilty for kicking J out of the bedroom closet (I have a serious pajama collection). I hope I made up for it last night with this temporary light for his closet. Despite him being the primary wage earner, his closet is half the size of the other, and he shares it with holiday decorations and the attic opening. Poor J. Even worse, until we move the opening to the kitchen, everything in his closet needs to be portable for the ladder access.

I was so eager to surprise him with this light by the time he came back from rehearsal last night, I didn't even paint it. The light was $7 on clearance from Lowes, its main benefit being a sturdy wall-mounted arm. I wired it to an in-line switch and plug, which plugs into an extension cord (bad, I know). The extension cord goes into the attic, where the attic light is hard-wired on its own circuit right above the opening. There I screwed in a socket with an outlet for the extension cord. This way, the light and backer plate are completely unpluggable and removable so we can take down boxes and stick a ladder in the ladder-sized closet. This cost the same as those dim battery powered lights from Target. Still, this is a very low-wattage bulb, as lights in tiny spaces make me edgy. We'll get him a permanent, cooler ceiling light when we close this attic opening.

While I was in the attic, I poked around a bit. There are four stacks of puzzle boxes from the 80's and 90's. Lots of Charles Wysocki, and several mystery puzzles, like Murder She Wrote. I also found a Sears receipt from November 1992 for Reebok shoes, purchased by the previous owner, and a punched-brass Christmas ornament of a teddy bear. Then I sat on a joist and just looked around. It was so nice up there on a cool rainy night. Usually I come down the ladder unable to bend my knees because the pants are so thoroughly wet with sweat. But last night it was nice enough to make me want to finish the space! Hot times are coming soon, though, and even nights up there will be 100 degrees. Who needs ventilation? We do! Last week I looked at some local eaves and saw that between every other rafter, two 1 1/2" holes had been drilled about 6" apart, and backed with screen. This seems more economical than drilling holes and popping in those plastic cup vents, although those have larger holes=more airflow.

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