10 Minute Ceiling Fan Upgrade

Upward and onward folks!  After we had the kitchen all spruced, both the surrounding living room and dining rooms really made it feel out of place.  It looked fantastic, they…well, not so much.  Things are changing though, starting with the living room.  I painted it a few weeks ago and started tweaking with decor and I’ll share all of the details soon but first, tilt your heads to the sky…ok, not really…just keep reading.

The ceiling fan in the living room of this little house is the saddest one in the whole place.  The metal parts are shiny gold and their days of gleam and glam are gone (lit and fig) as rust and rough spots have nestled right in.  We’re not going to replace the ceiling fan in a house we’re renting though so I made a couple of quick changes to it last week to make it way more appealing and it only took me about 10 minutes and five bucks.

Here’s the sad thing before:

You can’t really see the rust spots in the picture but you will be able to when we get a little closer later.  On top of those, the blades had some really awesome, gold, scrolly designs on them, typical of older fan blades and those glass shades…doozy’s.  The way they flared out at the ends really injected me with a dose of motivation to whip this thing into shape asap.

PRK Surgery: My Experience

Hey there!  Even though we’ve got a much-changed living room over here, I’m going to sideline home progress and DIYs for a hot second to discuss PRK – the eye surgery I had a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve read and heard several bad experiences with PRK in the past few months.  For one, an Instagrammer I follow had it done and wrote about her horrible experience.  Then I read a bunch of the comments on her post and a lot of them were similar experiences.  I also reached out to an aquaintance right after I found out I’d have to have PRK vs. Lasik and was told that “the first few days [after PRK] were excruciating pain”.  Eep.  That all made me a little nervous.  Just a little though.  I really have thee best doctor in the whole world and in him I placed all of my trust.  In the end, I was glad to read and hear how hard of a recovery it can be because I was fully prepped for the worst on the day of my surgery.  However, in saying that, I made sure not to go out seeking stories because I knew my horse might bolt if I did that and I’d be stuck with glasses forever thanks to that pesky little thing we all know as FEAR. 

If you were born with perfect vision like my lucky husband, good for you.  You have literally saved thousands of dollars.  I’m praying hard our kids got his good vision genes.

Then there’s me.  I’ve been in glasses/contacts since fourth grade.  At the time, I was dying and wishing and hoping for a pair of glasses.  I thought they were the COOLEST!  (WHAT WAS I THINKING?!)  My vision wasn’t horrible and I could see the wipe board at school but I remember telling my mom I really needed to get my vision checked because things were “kinda” blurry.  She took me to an optometrist and he told her my eyes weren’t really that bad and that I could probably get away without glasses but if it made me feel like I could see better, he’d give me that super low prescription I needed.  Did I ruin my vision forever by begging for them?  I don’t know.  Either way, fast forward lots and lots of year to when I ran out of contacts last December.  If you are a wearer, you know that they can be expensive.  I was blessed with an astigmatism on top of my poor vision so I have to wear special contacts that cost even more.  Yay!  It costs me about $200-250 a year to wear contacts.  I prefer them whole-heartedly over glasses because I hate feeling like I’m looking through glass at all you people like you’re an animal at the zoo.  I know it sounds dumb but I really just hate the barrier.  And I hate how they slide down my nose all day long and knock my kids in the face when I’m going in for a cuddle.  And on a superficial note, I hate when I get all dressed up for something and then I get to top off my rad outfit with…glasses.  Fantastic.  Anyway, I digress.  I ran out of contacts and luck had it that we had just paid off a bunch of loans.  So my next thought was, well, I could buy another years worth of contacts or I could put that money towards surgery.  That’s the great thing about getting your vision corrected btw, you’re going to spend the money either way whether it’s on doctors’ visits (mine were $150 a pop) or on glasses/contacts so why not just spend the money to fix your eyes, right? 

DIY Spice Rack

Let’s spice things up around here, huh?  Literally.  We’re diving into spice rack details today.  I keep calling our new spice rack a ‘rack’ but really, I should be calling them spice shelves.

My entire, home-owning existence, I’ve always stored our spices in an upper cabinet right next to the stove.  It was habit and because, usually, I was at the stove when I needed them so it just made sense.  In this little rental though, we only have one, quite narrow upper cabinet next to the stove and it’s stocked full of other things that I usually keep near the stove – large salt and pepper refill containers, corn starch, cocoa powder…basically all of our cooking and baking dry ingredients.  There’s zero room for spices.  So into a basket on top of the microwave on the opposite wall they went.  Not ideal.  Therefore, putting up this pair of spice shelves was gloriously satisfying.  For one, I can see all of our spices without having to move any around and two, they’re within arms reach when I need them.   

Another really great thing about these spice shelves is that you only need a handful of easily attainable and easy to use supplies to build them.  I still haven’t mastered using any of our big power tools so Anthony is always holding those reigns during any of our building projects, but this one I did all by myself.  It’s that easy.  Here’s what I used:

DIY Pendant Light from A Vase

Alrighty.  There are only two more things to write about in our “new” kitchen and then I’m done talking about it.  Promise!  I’m ready to move on to the next room too!  Today though?  Lighting.  Specifically, the ceiling fan and the new pendant over the sink.

Here’s a shot of the kitchen sink area with the header still up, hiding the simple, little light fixture behind:
Once we took that header down, even though I didn’t really mind the existing light, it wasn’t substantial enough to fill in that space.

So, we bought this pendant light kit* in antique brass and used a thrifted vase to make a new pendant.

How to “HIDE” A Dishwasher

This is a post all about a white elephant.  Not the Christmas party kind and not the circus kind.  It’s the kind in a room.  A kitchen actually.  And did I mention it wasn’t an elephant at all but a dishwasher?!  No?  Let me tell you all about it.

Our landlord so kindly installed a new dishwasher in this little house for us before we moved because we are first-world, spoiled peeps who can’t not have a machine that does the dirty work for us while we wrangle four kids post-dinner.  *eyeroll*

So awesome, right?  Right.  So, now we’ve got one and we’re SO thankful because, as you probably know, it really does make life just a little easier.  Well, I got a few comments on how great the dishwasher looks painted after the big kitchen reveal and those words were music to my ears because that’s what I wanted everyone to think.  But, listen.  I am not inconsiderate enough to think I should go and paint a dishwasher that isn’t technically mine.  But I really hated how it stuck out of our pretty green cabinets like a rowdy toddler at Mass.
  I sent the above picture to my sister right after I finished “tiling”.