Monthly Archives: February 2015

It takes a Village to Make a Bottle Lamp

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This Sunday should’ve been the last post on our Midcentury Built-in series. Instead it turned into this…

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Our electrician was stuck at a job last week and is now coming today. Hopefully we’ll have working speakers by the end of the week. In the meantime I thought I’d fill the blog-post void with a “quick and easy” lamp project. (Notice the quotations…this is to denote heavy sarcasm)

First I’ve been admiring glass bottle lamps for quite a while. Except their price tags…

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Even at Home Goods, Ross and Target these lamps were pushing $65-$85 a piece! Also the lamps were puny, I wanted something BIG, to light up our very dark guest house.

Luckily I already had an antique water bottle, picked up at the Sacramento antique fair for $5. Also a huge lamp shade sitting idle around the house (I think the shade was a Ross clearance for $6 since it has a small tear)
Lastly I bought a lamp kit with extra gold cord (together for $16) at Home Depot. Total cost out the door for this project $27 buckaroos if you’re starting from scratch. Since I already had some items on hand I’m calling it my BIG, “designer” glass lamp for $16.

As for making the lamp, I watched a couple YouTube videos on drilling into glass wine bottles, vases etc. Looked pretty easy, and quick right….WRONG!

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That’s my awesome Uncle Joe on our third battery pack for the cordless drill!(and an hour into the project) I had underestimated the thickness of the antique glass. 😝

Luckily I had the foresight to bring the project up to my parents place for guidance, the correct tools and just safety sake. Also considering my penchant for diy injuries and knowing there would be 4 EMTs and a Nurse on the premise, in case I took out a finger or an eye.

Only to find out this project needed a dremel, (which my dad didn’t have one) and a family of DIYers who enjoyed “cocktail” hour” in my parents garage watching our progress.

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Everyone got into the blogging action. Notice I’m holding the bottle, my fabulous uncle is drilling the hole, my cousin Craig is holding up a work light, and my sweet cousin Danielle is taking all the pictures on my phone.

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(it’s not a true family gathering without power tools and home project conversation)

I’m going to spare you the “how to” on how we drilled the hole since I don’t know if we even did it correctly. However per pinterest and videos we used painters tape on the bottle, a tile/glass drill bit, and lots of patience to drill the hole.

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Once I got the project back home, the light kit was super easy (15 minutes to complete the project)

I found a relish lid that snapped onto the bottle opening perfectly, and punched a hole in the middle of it.

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Then I assembled the kit following the instructions:

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Finally I added the bulb, lamp shade, and plugged her in…

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Not too shabby right?😉 When the guest house is finished and staged I will take new pictures of our lamp in the proper setting. For now I’m just grateful for awesome family and that I didn’t accidentally shock myself or take out an eye. Happy Sunday everyone!

Why I Spent Valentines in My Attic…So Romantic!

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Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day. As my friends posted pictures of roses, chocolates, romantic dinners and jewelry, I started to wonder if something was wrong with me? I had an amazingly romantic day; trips to my favorite stores, Costco and Home Depot, followed by crawling around in the attic with my husband. How more romantic can you get?!

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This is in complete seriousness. My husband knew one of the best Valentine’s Day gifts he could give me was finish two house projects that are near and dear to my heart.

The first project on the list was organize and set up the basement to be the perfect storage space. Complete with cold storage since I love to freezer cook. (prepping meals ahead of time then freezing) We’re super busy career folks, so more healthy home cooked meals, with less cooking the better.
Therefore we spent yesterday morning picking up my equivalent of a “dozen roses”…

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Next came Project número dos…

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Ugly right?…This is a picture of one vintage speaker in the attic…

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As we said last week, it was a semi reveal of our Midcentury built-in. We still need to restore the speaker system. Hence yesterday afternoon was spent together crawling around the attic assessing the project. (Because nothing says “I love you” more than picking cobwebs and roof debris out of each other’s hair)

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We also need a better solution for organizing and hiding all the cords of our vintage audio equipment.

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Unfortunately after truly assessing the project, we’ll need our electrician friend (who also restores vintage audio systems) come out to help tackle it. We’re not going to mess with our hvac system in order to restore a single speaker, so we’ll let him guide us in the best direction. All in all I hope you had a romantic and fabulous Valentine’s Day. I know I did! (yes I know I’m a DIY nerd)
However I think the hubby is grateful to be crawling through an attic versus “ahem” sit through a “shady” movie that opened this weekend. 😉
Happy Sunday everyone!

Give it Light! (A Semi-Reveal of Our Midcentury Built-ins)

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One of downsides I’ve learned from living in a 1948 home, that there is a severe lack of lighting.

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Especially the midcentury built in we’ve been attempting to restore. However I have been hesitant to install permanent light fixtures to highlight the built-in.
What if we move or change our minds? What about cutting or ruining more vintage details just to hang a light? To say the least we were in a bit of a quandary…In the end hubby was the brilliant one and said,”what if we’re living in a rental, how would we install a light fixture or run cable?”
STICKY BACK CORD COVERS!

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We figured we could run the conduit down the sides and paint it to match the built-in. Also there are two working outlets on either end, perfect for light cords. Next we settled on two Ikea Hektar work lights. Then using rustoleums gold spray paint, color matched, to the built ins original brass fixtures, we changed them from ugly brown to a soft gold.

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Next we primed the conduit by painting them with some of the leftover shelf paint. Once dried we cut the conduit to size. We then installed the two Hektar lights; 1) on the wall with wood paneling, light 2) was screwed into the brick fireplace wall. Quick tip, if you have to use screws that do not match your light fixture, (like the blue masonry ones we had to use) keep a gold or silver sharpie around. You can color the screw to match your brass or nickel fixture.

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Once lights and conduit were installed I protected the built-in with painters tape and gave the conduit another coat of paint.

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Last step, I tucked and hid cords away, (painters taped the excess cord, so they’d be out of sight).

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Once conduit paint dried, we pulled off the painters tape, and, “Let there be light!”

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I still need to learn how to style a built-in properly (I’ll admit “styling” is not my strong suit) Nor do I really want to fill it with knick-knacks, I’d rather fill it with vintage records. Someday I’ll figure it out, but for now we’re just happy for the added light and a 1948 home feature restored to its original purpose. Happy Sunday everyone!

How-to Extend a Shelf (and Why it Took us 6 Months!)

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Why does a simple project, that should’ve taken a weekend, instead lasts for 6 months? You know that project, the one requiring multiple trips to Home Depot and phone calls to your dad for advice. All us DIYers have experienced the so-called “easy” project.
Our drama started when I decided let’s keep and restore our midcentury built in…

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According to our home’s blueprints these built-ins housed original audio equipment and mini organ in unfortunately what is now the countertop. The previous owners family had replaced the flip top cabinetry with a laminate countertop that poorly matched the original wood stain. Of course this was probably a practical decision because it increased countertop and work space. However we lost out on a valuable vintage detail that made these cabinets so unique. Like these…(via Pinterest)

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Therefore our next step was to extend the shelves. That wouldn’t be hard right? Wrong!
I literally schlepped to Home Depot 4 times on one Saturday with drawer in hand, trying to match wood stain. It is nearly impossible to achieve that perfectly aged amber color, familiar with midcentury cabinetry.

Finally I gave up and moped about it for a few months. (Admittedly this project was one of the reasons we were defeated by diy, and had such severe bloggers burn-out)

Luckily I got a second wind in 2015 and this project was back on track again. Except where do I find midcentury shelves? Especially ones with odd dimensions?

I hunted in antique fairs, thrift stores, and Craigslist. Every time coming up empty handed. Until I gave up again, and started looking for blue print cabinets. (Another project for another Sunday) I stumbled onto the perfect shelves at Rulands used office furniture in Sacramento!

The only downside was that the edges of the shelves were unfinished particle board. Therefore we had Home Depot mix up a sample of color matched paint and with a mini foam roller got to work.

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To prevent paint from running over the edges, I took a damp paper towel and wiped away the excess with each application.

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Finally once the boards were dried we countersunk screws into the built in shelves (both from the bottom and top)

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Ultimately we did not glue the extension shelves to the builtin because should our tastes change we’d want the flexibility of just removing the screws if we need to. However with 6-8 two inch screws these shelves are not budging!

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On to lighting next week! Happy “Super Bowl” Sunday everyone!