Hardware Swap

Sometimes I get this wild hair to do something and I have to do it rightthisminute.  Those wild hairs have really been rare since having kids but last week told a different story.  After seeing John and Sherry’s amazing kitchen renovation, we needed new hardware on our kitchen cabinets….okay, wanted…wanted knew hardware.  I loved how they placed knobs on their upper cabinets and coordinating handles on their lower and our kitchen was begging for it.

So, last week I plucked that wild hair and replaced all of our hardware with new, more modern handles on the bottom cabinets and coordinating knobs on the top.

Our old pulls weren’t bad and truth be told, they were actually pretty nice as seen in these old pictures:


But, they were definitely a little more traditional than the new bar pulls I bought and I thought adding modern pulls would make our refurbished kitchen look a little more modern; not like the old kitchen it is that we set new appliances in and painted cabinets to make it look new.

Old on the left; new on the right:

Replacing the lower cabinet hardware was easy peasy.  All I had to do was remove the old and install the new in the same holes.  The uppers were a different story.  I had to remove the old pulls, fill in the holes they left behind, drill new knob holes, and then screw in the new knobs.  On top of all that though, I figured it was high time I touched up the paint on our cabinets.  After almost five years, there were a few places where the paint was chipped just from normal, everyday use.  It was a simple fix though.  I just washed down all of the cabinets (something that also needed to be done) and used a small artists’ paint brush and leftover paint to paint right over those small chips. 

Once everything was painted, I got to work filling and drilling for the knobs.  To fill the holes in, I used Bondo (purchased on Amazon because it was cheaper there than at Lowe’s) after seeing Chelsea use it to repair her dining chairs.  The stuff is great and perfect if you’re like me and want immediate results.  It dries super quick!  I filled the holes, sanded them down, and had them covered in paint in under a half hour.  The one thing I didn’t do though was pay attention to detail.  I replaced all of the hardware in sections over four days time and everytime I had a chance to get to work, it was a small chunk of time while the kids were playing or Gianna was taking a cat nap.  So, I rushed and I shouldn’t have because there are places where I didn’t spend enough time sanding the Bondo so that it was completely flush with the door and other places where I should’ve went back and added more, like on this door:
Can you see those two small indentations right where the old pulls were installed?  *sigh*  Lesson learned:  Don’t rush through a project.  I’ll probably go back over and sand or re-fill the next time our cabinets need a touch-up and thanfully, the imperfections aren’t all that noticeable but the fact remains, they are there and I shouldn’t have rushed.  My OCD self will suffer everytime she sees them…

Anyway, lets get to the best part of this little project.  It will end up costing me a few bucks or even be FREE!  How?  Well, because we’re going to sell the old hardware for what we paid for the new – just under $25 for 23 pieces.  The old hardware is still sold at our local Lowe’s for $3 a pop and we bought the new at a fantastic price from the same place I bought the hardware for the kids’ play kitchen – eBay!  The knobs cost us 99 cents a piece and the pulls were $1.39 a piece – a fraction of what you’ll find them at in your local hardware store.  And, we can attest to their quality.  They’re heavy, brushed metal pieces of hardware that I’m sure will last just as long as the ones in-store. 
    


If you have a hankering to replace hardware (or if you didn’t before, maybe you do now!), we highly recommend these! 


Maybe it’s just me enjoying the change, but it kind of amazing how much of a difference hardware can make in a space.  We have original-to-the-house, ugly pulls on our master bath cabinets and I can’t wait to swap those out for these too.  Of course there’s a whole laundry list of updates we want to do in there eventually so you’ll have to stay tuned for those.  ;)

On another note relating to bathroom hardware, do you think it should match what’s in your kitchen?  I’ve seen lots of HGTV remodels where they install the same throughout the house.  Or is it better that it just coordinates?  Or maybe it doesn’t really matter at all and they can all be different and as long as they go with the rest of the decor in that particular room.  What say you fine readers?  I’m kind of asking because we were thinking of grabbing matching pulls for our bathroom, but in brass since a lot of the fixtures might be heading down the brass route.  Should we stick with the same or go different?  Of course this will all be happening months from now but it’s never too early to get a head start with plans, right?  :)

TGIF!

.           .           .

P.S.  I’m sorry this isn’t more of a tutorial!  We’ve been slowly tackling a lot of boring things around here like hemming Anthony’s pants, fixing broken toys and books, and doing an entire house purge so I didn’t have a lot of time to document this whole process while it was happening.  Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be sure to answer them!

*affiliate links included in post*

Socket To ‘Em

Remember our new kitchen chandelier? 

Well, you might remember then, that I was having a hard time figuring out how to update the yellowed sockets.

I couldn’t find any socket covers that were wide enough to fit my sockets and custom covers were outrageously priced.  After all, all they are is a round piece of heat resistant plastic.  You’d think they’d be cheap. 

Well, I finally found a solution - paint!  I had toyed with painting them in the beginning but I knew that spray paint was out of the question as was latex and acrylic since, technically, they’re not heat safe.  But then I found this FolkArt enamel paint, meant for glass that you paint and then bake to ensure its permanence.
I found it at Walmart but you can grab it from Amazon, through my affiliate link, here.

I grabbed a small paint brush and gave each socket one coat during nap time one day last week and things are looking much less yellow.

And, after using the light multiple times since painting, they still look good.  The sockets get fairly hot so I was interested to see how the paint stood up after it was heated up a few times and it’s looking just like the day I painted.  Of course more time will tell and I’ll keep you updated, but I’m calling it a success for now.  I also like the paint route because I don’t have to deal with plastic covers adding bulkiness or yellowing again over time.  If the covers start to yellow again with the paint, I’ll just paint right over them again for a few pennies.

Any sockets at your place that need a paint job?  Grab the enamel!  They make lots of colors too so you can always add that pop of color in an unexpected place…and then you can use the rest of the paint to customize your favorite mug! 

.           .           .

Here’s hoping your Monday is as easy-breezy as this little project was!  :)

DIY Shade Chandelier

(The fine print:  Some of the links to products below are affiliate links.  If you click on and/or buy from these links, I’ll get a small commission.  Your price doesn’t change a single bit but by buying through me, you help me/us to keep doing and doing and doing.)  :)

Let’s talk florescent lights…say, the one that once was in our kitchen.

It’s a pretty room to look at (although I’m biased) based on this semi-recent picture…until your eyes gravitate upward and notice the long, really outdated, really plain, and really ugly lighting (and you can’t see the end in the pic but the ends were a bisque color).  We HAD to do something about it.  Working with the existing light box, I gave us two options – some cool track lighting like this…

[image via Amazon]

…or a shade chandelier like this one that rings in at a wallet-biting $545:[image via Shades of Light] 

The problem was though, that I had very little cash to work with…but that’s always my problem, isn’t it? 

But you probably know, if you’ve been reading zee blog for any number of weeks, that that problem usually isn’t too tough for me to solve as long as I have a cup (or five) of coffee and a willing husband.  Since both of those things have a pretty good chance of being around…

We ended up with a new light fixture for $40.

You can read about how I made the shade here.  As for the chandelier underneath, I used this: An old wood and metal chandelier that someone donated to our church’s yard sale benefitting the Ecuador mission trip team.   I paid $8 for it.  I know you might see an old light fixture rehab and automatically click away because it sounds like a very intimating task involving lots of wires, possible welding, and lots of electrical mumbo jumbo.  But, I’m here to tell you it’s so easy!  If you can twist the lid off a Coke bottle and spray paint, you can refurbish a light fixture…pinky promise…or swear…or whatever.

Here is how I did it my friends.

First, I turned the chandelier upside down so that I could get at the bottom.  Then I unscrewed that little bronze filial right off.  It was screwed onto the end of a long threaded rod that went up into the middle of the fixture and so once the filial was off, the two pieces of wood you can see in the picture just slipped right off.

Under each light socket was the same type of filial that I just unscrewed to get those pieces of wood off.

I did the same thing for the other end, the top of the chandelier, except I unscrewed that ring that was connected to the hanging chain.

I made sure to take lots of pictures after every step so that I could remember how to put the chandelier back together.

With this particular chandelier, I didn’t mess with the metal bars holding the light sockets at all so I really didn’t have to mess with any wiring besides unwinding the existing wiring from the hanging chains before I pulled them off.

Initially, my plan was to paint all of the pieces – metal and wood – and put the chandelier back together the same way with the addition of a shade.  But then my friend Jesse and I were talking and she mentioned not even putting the wood back on, making for a much simpler chandelier.  I really liked that idea only I decided against it in the end because it would’ve required some shortening of the threaded rods and I didn’t know if that was possible without messing up the rods so instead I replaced the bulky wood pieces under each socket and the one under the middle of the chandelier with these wood ball knobs instead.

I had the greatest idea before this step though, to replace those bulky pieces with round acrylic balls instead but those balls alone would’ve cost me over $60 not to mention that I would’ve had to drill larger holes in them and I don’t know how feasible that would’ve been.  BUT, it would’ve been amazing, no?

Anyway, back to the wood knobs.  They were the exact height as the old bulky wood pieces so there was no cutting of threaded rods or wood cutting to do.  However, the pre-drilled holes in them only went in so far and they were too small to fit over the chandelier’s threaded rods.  To get them to fit, I first had to continue the pre-drilled hole through the whole ball.  To do that, I grabbed a drill bit the size of the hold and drilled through.

But the hole had to be even larger than that pre-drilled hole so then I grabbed a drill bit the size of the threaded rods on my chandelier and drilled an even bigger hole.

This part was a little tougher than I thought it would be.  Turns out, it’s a little difficult to drill into a small wood ball and hold the ball straight and steady all the while.  At first I held the ball with my bare hand and paid for that dumb mistake with a cut on the inside of my thumb when the drill slipped once.  After that I held the ball with my garden-gloved hand and it worked much, much better.

The bottom knob shows the size of the existing hole and the top shows the size I needed the holes to be. 
So once I had all those ball knobs drilled, I put them onto the chandelier.

Next, I had to figure out how I’d work the top of the chandelier so that I could fit my shade onto it.  I won’t go into much detail with this step because I know that every chandelier is different but in the end, I scrapped all the wood pieces that originally fit to the top.  Instead, I drilled another ball knob, threaded it on, placed the top lampshade ring over that, and cut a plastic tube (leftover from this lamp project) down to size and placed it on top of the lampshade ring.

[The plastic tube isn’t shown in the above picture but you’ll be able to see it below.]

It took me a day of brainstorming and messing with different placements to finally figure that out.  You see, I didn’t want the lamp shade to be super long and I wanted it to fall just past the bottom of the chandelier.  So, figuring out where exactly it had to sit on the top threaded rod so that it fell where I wanted it to at the bottom of the chandelier took a little trial and error; putting it together a hundred ways to see which way worked.  I took this picture after it was painted but you can see a part of that process.  With the chandelier on the ground, I would place the ring somewhere between the wood pieces on the top threaded rod and measure where it sat from the bottom of the chandelier with a tape measure.  Eventually, like shown in the above picture, I got it right.

Next up was the fun part – paint!  Except it took me awhile to figure out that too.  Which color?!
I loved the idea of a charcoal gray but then I thought it might look bad in the same room as stainless steel appliances.  Like the stainless steel might make it look really cheap.  I also thought maybe a gray-blue like the background of our valances or citron to add a punch of color.  In the end though, I went with white to keep things simple and neutral and added some colored elastic to punch up the volume.

To prep for paint, I had to cover those sockets and the wiring.  I cut strips of computer paper to place over the sockets; rolled them up, slipped them over, and taped off the tops.

To cover the wiring that came out of the top of the chandelier, I slipped it through a long piece of plastic tubing I had (the same I cut down to use on the top of the chandelier), not worrying if I got paint on it.

I hung the chandelier on the kids swing set to paint it, swings removed.  It was the perfect place.

First, I gave it a coat of Rust-Oleum Clean Metal primer.

And then I sprayed three thin coats of Rust-Oleum satin white, waiting a good half hour between each coat to do the next.

Once the paint was dry (I painted it in the morning and let it hang all day to dry), it was time to put the finished lamp shade on and get it ready to be hung.

The chandelier didn’t have a ceiling canopy with it (that top bowl-like thing) so I bought this white one.  It came with gold screws that are visible when hung so I’ll probably paint those white when I get a quick chance.

Anthony removed the old florescent light while I was putting the kids down for naps.

I don’t have a tutorial for you on how to do that (but Young House Love does!) but I was happy to see that it was easy to turn off the breaker in our refurbished laundry room cabinet.

Going…

going…
gone.


The only unfortunate thing about having to use the existing light box for us is that it’s not centered in the room.  It was placed down the middle as you’re looking down into our galley kitchen, but it’s farther towards the laundry room than it is towards the dining room.  I wish it were in line with the stove and microwave or the kitchen sink but it’s not and I’ll get over it.  Maybe someday we’ll move it but today isn’t that day.  Maybe someday we’ll also rid ourselves of the popcorn ceiling too because talk about dating a house.  Someday.

Installing the new light was quick for my handy man albeit with a little bit of bodily maneuvering around and under that big shade.  :)  (Need a tutorial on how to install a light fixture?  Check out this video!)

I still have to touch up the paint around the light box but I do love the view from below.     

Then there are the light bulbs.  I have a love/hate relationship with light bulbs.
My favorite light is a neutral, bright white light but the only light bulbs you can find that coming from are florescent bulbs and expensive LEDs (not plain incandescents which would’ve been great).  I didn’t want ugly fluorescents since they’d be visible and LEDs would’ve cost more than we spent to make the new light so those were out too.  I also didn’t want the orange light that ‘soft white’ brings or the blue light that daylight bulbs emit.  I have, however, read good things about the white light GE Reveal bulbs cast so I thought we’d give those a try.  Anthony grabbed a few packs while he was out and…
 
…the bulbs are blue.  Hmph.  But the light isn’t the usual orange of incandescents so we’re living with them for now.

Another thing I’m still trying to work with are the sockets.
 
You can see in the picture above that they’re yellowing.  The old socket covers were brittle and one was missing.  I can’t seem to find new socket covers short or wide enough so I’m still working on a fix.  At first I was just going to wrap those things up with some paper strips but then paper + hot sockets = a fire hazard???  Not sure but I don’t really want to burn the house down in the name of aesthetics.  Stay tuned for that and let me know if you have any ideas.

I know, this post is gettin’ real long.  Let me just save the best for last with a jump back into kitchen time.  Here’s what our cooking nook looked like when we were its house viewers.


Then we became the house owners and we painted the cabinets for free with leftover paint.

And then nesting/sense/darkness got the best of us and we went all light and bright painting the cabinets again, making a fun geometric runner, replacing the old laminate countertops, installing a subway tile backsplash, installing the microwave and shelf combo, and now the new chandelier.
 
Much, much better than day one, right?  What’s even better is that we’ve only spent about $3520 getting from what was to what is and that’s including all of the new appliances we put in a few years ago.

I’m not going to say our kitchen is ‘finished’ because just last week we were talking about blowing out the wall separating it from the living room but for now, we’re focusing on other rooms…like the living room.  More on that later.  I promise I won’t keep it all to my shelf.  ;)

Have a good rest of this (rainy here) Monday!  I’ll leave the lights on for ya. 

.           .           .