Lamp Revamp

Last week I found these beauties at Goodwill:

Yes, you read that right:  Only $4 each!  And they matched!  And the only thing they needed was a little spray paint!  I snatched these babies up quicker than I could say "gimme!"

Before I show you the big reveal, a quick little anecdote.  I was so excited about painting these today that I rushed outside to lay out a plastic tarp to protect my patio, slammed the door shut behind me and immediately regretted it.  I tried the knob thinking maybe my suspicions were wrong, but nope, locked out (I unlocked the deadbolt to get out, but forgot to unlock the actual knob, which lets you get out but not back in).  I had on a pair of flip flops and my PJs with a sloppy sweatshirt over them, and my only option was to run across the street to the neighbor's house that we've never met in almost four years of living here because I saw that her car was in the driveway.  She answered the door probably thinking I was some hoodlum and I told her I lived across the street and I'm an idiot and could I please use her phone to call my husband?  She obliged, I used her phone, and then she promptly showed me to the door and I had to wait for Steven on our deck until he got there.  Luckily he was off work this afternoon and was on his way to meet friends for lunch, and wasn't stuck in some marathon conference call or something.  So next on our list to buy:  Remote keypad for the garage door. 

Okay, back to the lamps.  Here they are all nice and shiny black with cute Target drum shades.

Ignore the kitty paw prints all over the table.  For some reason, it's their favorite place to jump up on and proceed to walk all over.

Here's the before with the mismatched lamps.  The one on the left is too short and the one on the right is too tall.  It has always bugged me.  Well, it's bugged me for the two months we've had a living space down here.

And here's the room with brand-spanking-new, perfect height, matching lamps.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all about mismatched lamps, but this room just screams for symmetry.  (Ignore the computer and heated blanket cords in the following picture.  Laziness again rears its ugly head!)

I'm going to jazz up the shades a little bit with some some ribbon or stenciling or something, but I haven't decided what yet and will probably hold off a while until we decide exactly what we're doing to this room.

These totaled up to $17 per lamp + $5 for the spray paint.  Not too shabby.

Here's another before and after.

Symmetry just makes me happy.  Love!

A Tour of My Basement

I think I've mentioned before how we're planning on renovating our basement when we move back to NC.  I took some pictures this afternoon of the awful state it's in.  Granted, it looked a lot better when we were actually living here (i.e. I kept it clean), but here it is as it looks right this minute.

Looking down the stairs.  Steven's pennants hang along the railing, and a couple of Cubs signs hang above the stairs.

See that place on the wall below the light that seems a different color than the rest?  That's called crappy drywalling.

Nasty carpet.  Blech.

Our Media Room.  This room will probably just get new carpeting and a cabinet and/or shelves along the back wall.  The paint color looks really tomato-y in the picture, but it's actually a nice deep red (Valspar Cut Ruby) and I really like it.  And I'll probably hang some movie posters with accent lighting.

Our HD projection screen.  LOVE!  I wish the speakers were built into the wall, but the system is brand new (and was very expensive) so I'll just find some way to mask them a little.  Any ideas?

Nasty drop ceiling and fluorescent lighting.  This is getting overhauled.  Probably just a different type of drop ceiling with some recessed lights built in.

We call this the Media Archive Room, but it's really just the closet off the Media Room where we keep our DVDs.  I'm picturing wall-to-wall shelving to hold all our DVDs, CDs, board games, etc.

Looking from the stairs down to the little foyer.  The door on the left is the Media Room, the door straight ahead is our storage room (cinder block walls, water heater, Steven's tool bench, lawn mower, etc).  To the right of the door hangs all of Steven's old license plates.

Looking from the Media Room doorway toward the main area of the basement we call the Game Room.  That cardboard "artwork" is a sign Steven and his friend made when they were playing stickball in their backyards many many years ago.

Here's the motherlode.  That's Steven's (very expensive) poker table there under the sheet, with cheap folding chairs all around.  It used to be turned the other way, but we've already been measuring where all of our furniture is going to go, so that's approximately where the poker table will be when we're finished.  Broken Coca-Cola vending machine (it was so cool while it lasted but it doesn't get cold anymore... piece of junk), unplugged mini-fridge, missing ceiling tile (Our master shower was leaking... actually it's still not fixed but we stopped using it so as not to cause more water damage.  For the amount of time we've been here in the last year, we haven't exactly made it a priority.)  That junk there in the corner is where the TV was when we had one down here.

Bathroom and extra bedroom, which we use as a workout room.

We have actually done a little work in here.  When we moved in, the floor was linoleum, the vanity was lovely honey oak and there was a teeny tiny medicine cabinet above the sink.  We put tile down, painted the vanity black and got a black mirror.  The builder of our house really cut some corners down here (if you can't already tell), so there is no faucet in the bathtub, just a showerhead, even though there is a place for a faucet.  I don't understand that.  And the toilet was placed too far away from the wall I think.  Don't you think it looks like the tank is just leaning against the wall?  Plus the toilet bowl is so big I almost fall in whenever I use it.  I've love to get a larger vanity because there's definitely room for it and maybe a new toilet if that falls in the budget.

This is the "Workout Room."  I put that in quotes because we don't do a whole lot of working out in here.  It's basically where our treadmill went to die.  Probably not a whole lot will happen in here, just new carpet.

Steven's Chicago Cubs memorabilia.

Those floating shelves in the corner hold Steven's shot glass collection, as well as a few other odds and ends.  The door leads into a storage area below the stairs.



Yep, we have cardboard taped onto our door with red duct tape so no one can see in since we're not living here.  Our Appalachian memorabilia is straight ahead and on the right wall.  More Cubs stuff on the left wall.



Ugly doorknobs.  I don't know if replacing these will be in the budget, but it sure is nice to think about.

So here's the plan.





Console table in the foyer. Seating area toward the front of the room (the couch is actually a sectional, but the program I created this in has limited options). The TV will go between the two windows. The poker table will be behind the couch and will have nice new chairs!

The walls will get board and batten (Should I paint the b&b black instead of the traditional white?!  I'm definitely considering it...), the ceiling will get new square ceiling tiles with recessed lighting.  The nasty carpet will be torn up and lovely engineered hardwoods will be installed (except in the Media Room and Workout Room, which will both get new carpet).  The carpet on the stairs will also be torn out and wood treads will replace the nastiness.

I'm totally excited about creating a nice family room down there where we can actually spend some time, other than just when Steven's friends come over to play cards.  We'll probably start on it at the beginning of the year, and don't worry, I'll keep you guys updated on all the progress!