Shine Your Light and Bloom

Since my last post my husband did a fun DIY project which resulted in a warm glowing light in our basement family room.  He took down the dingy, old lamp hanging on the wall just outside our laundry room door and replaced it with an antique bronze nickel sconce.  The results were outstanding.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some before and after photos to show you the transformation.

First, there are pictures of the old lamp from when I painted the adjacent wall.

Here is a closeupsof the ugly, old lamp shade.  In fact, there were even paint spots from when I accidentally dripped paint on it when I painted the old wood panelling that was on the wall where the lamp was mounted.

And here is the new, beautiful scone, which has an antique style bulb with filaments that give off such a nice, warm hue to the room.  And this DIY project only cost $44 and Jay's time.  Also, note the light switch below is also newer, since Jay replaced all of the switches and outlets downstairs when I painted.  Just those simple little things make a big difference and I'm sure add value to our 1970's bungalow.

In addition to the DIY project in the basement, I have been busy potting flowers to make our outdoor space more inviting.  Here are the results.

 

Below is a plant given to me by one of my students.  I love it!

Now I'm thinking about my next DIY projects.  I'd like to repaint our garage door.  And I picked up this little table that I would like to paint to use outdoors on my back deck.  And the best news of all is that I got it at the Goodwill when they were having their half off sale.  So, the final cost of this table was $4.50!!!