Mixing up my light fixtures.

Musical light fixtures.....

 

 

We lived with the builders light fixtures for a long time.  We picked them all out so we did like them.  We chose a brown metal color. (of course brown!!)   And of course one day I decided I wanted some new light fixtures in my kitchen.  I felt the ones we had were too kitcheny!  So I went out and realized that light fixtures are expensive!!  I decided then to use what I have and switch some things around. 

 

This is the original light that was over our table.

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the light fixture in the kitchen over the island.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

I had one extra light fixture from my project in my dining room. 

 

Read about my $5.00 drum shade pendant here.

 

 

 

http://myeverchanginghome.blogspot.com/2012/03/my-5.html

 

 

 

Now that I look at that dining room light fixture it looks like way too many crooked little shades to me!!

TJ took down both kitchen light fixtures and I got to work.   The first thing I did was decide on a paint color. 

I decided on Rust-Oleums Oil Rubbed Bronze.


I hung the light fixtures on a ladder outside and painted them both. Very simple!  I had pictures of this step but they were lost with the computer crash.

I decided to use the light from the eat in area for over the kitchen island.  I always thought it looked way too small here anyways.  I also knew I was going to lose those frosted shades!

I found these seeded glass shades at Home Depot.  I knew they were perfect!!

 

So after a few coats of rubbed oil bronze spray paint, some fun round little light bulbs, and some new glass shades it went from this:

 

 

To this....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before

 

 

after

 

 

 

Here is the light fixture in the dining room

 

 

 

 

 

After it was sprayed with the rubbed oil bronze paint.

 

 

 

 

I decided to not use the shades.  (I actually ended up selling them on ebay for $50.00!)  I went with the little round bulbs instead.  I love those!

before

after




So here is the run down.  I re used both light fixtures.  Spent $5.00 on the drum fixture in the dining room.  The spray paint was $5.00.  The seeded glass shades were about $35.00.  I sold the chandelier shades for $50.00 on ebay so I ended up making $5.00 on this project! :)

The best part is I love my new lights.  They are all original and I love that about them!






 

 

Hello and welcome to our kitchen.....

Although our kitchen gets a lot of natural light it still seemed dark to me. It faces west so can actually get very bright. But there was a great deal of "dark" in this room with the countertops, cabinets and floors etc.  I think it is interesting how your taste can change so much over the years.  We built this house so we picked out all the dark stuff. We had a green laminate counter too.  It did not look green on the 2x2 sample piece, we thought it was gray! We have since replaced the counters. We did not mind the green, it just was not what we had in mind and it looked pretty bad with the cabinets.

Some of my favorite projects in the kitchen are:

*The two repurposed light fixtures * My blue island!

* My SUPER good deal on new appliances!

*New cabinet hardware. 

I still want to make some changes to the dining area.  Maybe lightened up the table with some Annie Sloan?? The table that is we use now is very dark and shows every little scratch, water mark, and spec of dust!  I am not a big fan!

As you can see we do not have much wall space in here. I have tried several different paint colors in here from red to light green to a terra cotta color and then went back to the original color which is Sherwin Williams Camelback. Sometimes I need to leave well enough alone! I love this paint color, it is in many rooms in our home. It is a great neutral!

 

 

This island is my favorite part of the kitchen! My husband was a little concerned when I started but I think has grown to like it??  I will post some before and afters soon!  Easy and inexpensive! 

As I look at the pictures in my post the color ORANGE is popping in my head!  Hmmmm wonder where I can add some orange!  Stay tuned...... :)