DIY Yarn-Wrapped Sconce Cords

I bought these sconces for cheap at Urban Outfitters a few years ago. They're super cute and look much more expensive than they really are. I had painted the cords to match the walls of our guest room back then, but I wanted to reuse the sconces in Evie's room and the dark forest green color needed to be painted out or changed.

I've always loved Schoolhouse Electric's cloth cord styles and thought I could do something similar here with just a dab of glue and a bit of colorful yarn.

You only need glue when you're starting and ending, and the tighter you wrap the yarn, the better! I found it was helpful to wrap the yarn around a glue stick or a popsicle stick before wrapping the cord. It helps keep everything tight and untangled. Also, just to be safe, I didn't wrap the cords all the way down to the plug (I left a good two feet unwrapped).

I love when simple projects make inexpensive finds look extra special! The project cost me nothing and I was happy to give new life to these sconces we've been storing for years! :)

My Favorite Brass Lighting

When it came time to choose a light for our music room, I turned right to Pinterest for some inspiration. I wanted something brass, but brighter and bigger than a sputnik. This image from Domaine had the *perfect* fixture.

I had used a local lighting company, Lucent Lightshop, to make new brass sconces for our fireplace (so the Gossip Girl sconces could move to the guest bath).

They did such a great job on the sconces, I reached out to them about recreating the inspiration light in dimensions that would work for our music room. Lucent totally, totally nailed it.

There's something so exciting about having something made just for you displayed in your home! It's perfect in the space and I love the brass against the new wall color!

Have you seen any lighting lately that takes your breath away? I'm obsessed with this floor lamp!

The Entry - Almost Done!

I'm a little under the weather this week, but I wanted to share some photos today of how the wallpaper in the entry turned out. The pattern is Lotus by Farrow & Ball and I love how it is both so traditional and so modern. It's hard to imagine ever getting sick of this one.  :)

I think the paper works so well with the new chandelier we recently hung in the entry. It's the Tilda chandelier from Arteriors and it was a total splurge, even with my designer's discount, but the Lotus paper was just begging for something special I think. :)

I wanted a really unique chandelier in here, and this one definitely fit the bill! It has that same trad-meets-mod quality. There are five or six bulbs in the fixture, so it's not crazy bright, but it puts out a really pretty glow in the evenings when we have it on. I love it.

I'm still loving the black stairs, but I think it's about time to get going on the stair runner project, especially now that the paper is installed. I'll probably do something pretty neutral, like a sisal, to not fight the pattern of the paper and the Persian runner in front of the door.

We're getting there! Remember when the entry looked like this?

The Most Incredibly Affordable Outdoor Barn Lights!

I really wanted some chalky black outdoor barn lights for the back porch and around the rest of the house. I was going to have to order about ten lights, so paying $200 each or whatever was not going to happen!

It looks like the price moves around a bit (I think shipping is free now), but I found these American Fluor Barn Lights on Amazon last month for only $35 each!! I was a little nervous they would look and feel cheap, but they are the real deal barn lights! Nothing fancy and built to last! Apparently you can get them at feed and tack stores for something like $25! I've heard Menard's has them for a similar price too.

The parts are incredibly well-made and beautiful. The inside of the shade is white porcelain and the outside is galvanized metal, so you'll probably want to paint the outside like I did, but it's super easy. I just put the shades face down on a drop cloth and sprayed the outsides with Rustoleum's flat black enamel. No tape necessary! I actually like that I wasn't paying for an exterior finish that I would have wanted to change anyway. The perfect base for a DIYer!

Do you have any favorite barn light sources? These were far and away the best deal I found, especially with such a large shade (14"!!).

On LED Bulbs (and a Home Depot Give Away!)

Thank you to the locals that stopped by the lighting DIY Workshop that I partnered with the Home Deport on last weekend! I LOVED meeting you and it was great to get tips from the on-site lighting expert about how to increase lighting energy efficiency. It's a topic I've been sadly pretty ignorant about until recently. We have a lot of CFLs in our house, but the Home Depot guy encouraged me to look at their LED offerings while I was at the store on Saturday.

I think it sort of stinks to have to drop $8-16 on just a single bulb, but how crazy is it that LED bulbs last for literally 20 years and they use a fraction of the wattage that an incandescent bulb uses?!

I picked up a pretty expensive (almost $16!) Cree bulb that has a new technology that's supposed to help colors read more correctly, which has been my main complaint about LED in the past. I also bought this Ecosmart two-pack as a cheaper comparison that brought the price-per-bulb down to about $8. And I threw in to the test group an incandescent I already owned for good measure, just because I was curious. All of the bulbs were Soft White in tone and 60 watts or equivalent.

I'm sure there are some in-between option too. I just picked up what jumped out to me. (What have you tried and liked?)

Well, here are the results of my extremely technical and super scientific light test results! ;)

I actually really liked the tone of the most expensive LED bulb (surprise, surprise), but really the Ecosmart brand wasn't bad at all. I'd probably use it in bedrooms or for fixtures we use a little less. And actually I've read that it's a good idea to switch over to the more expensive bulbs over time to help spread out the initial expense, but that you should put the new bulbs in your most frequently used fixtures so you can start the energy savings right away.

As a part of the workshop last weekend, Home Depot gave me a $100 gift card to give away today! Maybe you'll want to spend the gift card on a dozen or so new LEDs? :) To enter, leave a comment here on this post. I'd love to hear about what bulbs you're using and loving.

Contest ends next Thursday at midnight. Winner will be emailed. Good luck!

PS Home Depot has lots of great (free!) DIY workshops coming up! To see what your local store has to offer, check out the registration page here!

DIY Branch Light

This afternoon we finished the Domino shoot! I'm so excited to share all the projects we did to get the house ready for this spread. We did a few DIY lighting projects and I love how they turned out. And actually, for Phoenix locals, I've partnered with the Home Depot to make this project and to host a DIY lighting workshop on July 12 from 10-11:30am. You can register for a spot at the TEMPE (Baseline) location here. I hope you can come! I've attended a couple of DIY Workshops before (the one on tile was SO helpful!) and they're always a good time. I'm excited to help lead this one where we'll be talking about lighting trends - it will be super casual and hopefully a lot of fun. :)

So for this lighting DIY, I desperately needed a new fixture for the upstairs landing. The old one was a big bummer, and after splurging on a new Arteriors chandelier for the entry, I didn't want to spend hardly anything on this light. I remembered posting this idea years ago and it felt like the perfect quick solution for our landing light!

I picked up 12 socket splitters at Home Depot. They were about a buck each, in the electrical aisle by all the outlet and switches. In the same aisle, you can find a simple porcelain canopy socket for about two dollars.

After taking all the stickers off, I screwed in the sockets and figured out the overall shape I wanted for the light. What I love about this project is you can shape the light however you want. You can make it more organic and branch-like or you can keep it pretty compact like I did. The ceiling on our landing is not super high, so I needed to keep the fixture short. 

I spray painted the canopy and the assembled fixture (which is easier to spray when it's put together) and I used a little painters tape to protect all the electrical parts. After two good coats and drying time, the light was ready to install.

I also ended up buying a ceiling medallion from Home Depot. I like the way it finishes off the fixture and makes it look a little more fancy. I think it's so pretty to mix really traditional things with more modern ones.

Twelve of the splitters makes a pretty good-sized fixture that produces quite a bit of light. I used I think fourteen 25-watt bulbs. It's so sparkly! :)

And I LOVE how it looks with our new wallpaper! Such a quick and cheap project, but I am so happy with how it turned out!

PS The people at The Home Depot who invited me to host this upcoming DIY workshop sent me a link to a lighting contest they did with Instructables.com. The winning project was this pretty reclaimed wood lamp. That geometric shade is made from straws! Very cool!

Bathroom Reno Progress and A New Sputnik

Sometimes I like to jump right in to three or four big projects all at once. I figure that the house is going to be a mess and all covered in construction dust anyway, so why not knock out a few things at the same time? If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably seen my kitchen cabinet upgrade, our new sink and soon-to-be-stripped faucet, and some of our bathroom demo. And hopefully you took a minute to vote on our exterior house color choices. I need to share photos of the front of the house too, which we hired Jason again to help us rework. All the projects are moving at break-neck speed, so we're all feeling a little tired, but excited by the amazing progress on the house in a very short period of time.

We also hired the same guy who took out our well to help with removing the giant bathtub (his company is called Kyle's Moonlighting and Kyle is pretty much the nicest man in the world - totally recommend him for exterior/interior removal services!).

Once we got the tub and the vanity out, we called in some plumbers to get the pipes ready for the new tub and for a single sink vanity.

Next, we're tackling tiles. I'm going with one of the tumbling block patterns I posted before I think. Of the two I posted, I'm leaning toward the lighter version peeking out up above and here below:

I picked a stone for the sink and I think it will go together beautifully! Can't wait to get going on this install. The floors need to be floated a little though to prep for the tile and to make the bathroom level with the wood floors. (The blue walls are getting a big change this week hopefully too!)

Oh, I also wanted to share that I found an amazing vintage sputnik a few weeks back at Modern on Melrose, which is a really fun vintage consignment shop on 7th Ave. It's becoming one of my favorite stores to pop in to - their selection is always well curated and the prices range from very fair to amazingly inexpensive. One of my favorite lamps in the studio (the one on my desk) was only $20 there. If you stop by, be sure to check out the salvage yard area in the back! 

The brass on the sputnik was not in the best shape, but just a little scrubbing with some soapy water cleaned up the grime and not-so-great-patina.

Aren't those "petals" amazing? 

We're going to take down that pendant and move the electrical box to be centered over the tub and the window for the sputnik. Won't it be so pretty with the wall of subway tile and the pretty clawfoot tub?!

Sometimes fun decorating purchases help me get through the projects phase a little more efficiently! I'm getting anxious to see how it all comes together. :)