Let there be light!

Well the title says it all really. Last weekend, with the help of Steve, we built a lamp! I'd been wanting to DIY a lamp since seeing a post on Pinterest where a lady had constructed her own lamp from a water jug. I have been scouring ebay and antique stores for something similar and it was at Paddington's Antique warehouse where I spotted this amazing vintage soda stream. 

For a tidy $30 I purchased the heavy soda vessel. I really liked the industrial feel of the steel criss-cross effect on the outside but my favourite part was the attachment at the top. 

I'd done a little research to find a DIY lamp kit and found Bunnings sold pendant light kits but I not the simple lamp kits. By a happy coincidence I stumbled across a Beacon Lighting store and it was a case of ask and yee shall find! For about $30 a got a clear lamp cord, bulb kit, bulb and lamp shade. 

I needed Steve's help with the assembly of the lamp as we decided to cut into the top to affix the lamp shade.

Cue the power tools....

Now Steve will find just about any excuse to use power tools. If you were making a lamp out of a water jug or vessel with an easier opening there would be no need for power tools at all. 

Once he grinded away the top disk, it was just a matter of cleaning out the inside mechanisms with a drill to make room for the lamp cord. 

The next fun part- drilling into the glass bottle to make a hole to pull the cord back out to plug into the wall. This is not an essential step if you have a vessel with a wide opening. You can simply fold the cord back out the top and hide it behind the jug, especially if you have purchased a clear cord kit.

Of course this step was reason enough for Steve to go out and purchase a glass drill bit. Determined not smash the glass he practiced on a wine bottle. 

Drilling into glass is best done at a low speed, and by low I mean really low! Patience is definitely needed at this point. 

We may have been a little over-paranoid but this step still took a good 25 minutes as the bottle was deceivingly thick- about 15mm thick!

Once the hole was complete it was very simple. Thread the lamp cord through the bottom hole and up towards the top. With a little help from a coat hanger the cord was through. With our lamp base it was a matter of loosening two screws to place the copper electrical ends into the base and then tightening them. Then place the lamp shade over the base, plug in the light bulb and voila! 

LIGHT!

I'm not ashamed to say I did a happy dance when it all came together! It looked so great! 

We'll admit it was slightly over-engineered with drilling into the top soda stream fastening but I'm so glad we did. The industrial look gives it a really masculine, chic feel. Which is perfect, as Steve has laid claim on the lamp as his bedside light!

Without the power tools steps this project would actually take no longer than 10 minutes. If you have a water jug, demijohn, or a great vessel that you want to up cycle - DIY a lamp! You won't regret it!

Progress for the sake of progress

Weekend two of the deck build has come along brilliantly. We set ourselves the goal of finishing all the structural work by the end of Sunday and .... success! It was a team effort with Mum, David, Steve and myself. But as with all renovation work- I am quickly learning - there are many speed bumps along the way.

Steve managed to finish all the steel bearers, and I had them painted and ready to go. What we hadn't planned on was the freak storm that ruined the fresh paint job, and left lovely rain drop marks for me.  I was so disappointed! But Steve assured me that we could still install them and re-paint after the fact.

And speaking of water- when drilling in the holes into the steel poles to install the steel,  we were quickly reminded that Mum's home was inundated with water during the 2011 floods. When we pierced through them spouts of water came flooding out, lovely stagnant 2 year old flood water - mmhmmm!

And due to the floods we came across more problems with uneven ground. The rush of water had pushed so much soil and rocks which had settled in the strangest place. It caused endless problems when trying to place the hardwood bearers level. We ended up having to dig out massive trenches - complete with rocks, concrete and solidified clay.

So with all of that we were pretty pleased to see the hardwood bearers finally installed by Saturday afternoon. Steve and I stole away to meet some friends on Saturday night to watch the Bledisloe Cup. A great game for Steve who barracks for the All Blacks, not such a great night for me as the lone Wallabies supporter!

With a couple of sore heads on Sunday morning we pushed on to complete the installation of the trimmers which went between the bearers. I was lucky enough to use tools to drill, screw and tightened the bolts into place. It was my first real time at using tools on my own- a very proud moment.

We hit a snag at the end of Sunday afternoon. There are currently stairs in place that we want to keep but we need to shorten in order to put the decking planks in. Needless to say it involved a fair bit of work and welding to get the staircase back together, especially as it wasn't properly installed in the first place. Steve spent a lot of time and effort working them into submission and I think we just might be finished.

We're heading to Sydney next weekend and Mum and Dave are away competing in a half marathon so we won't be progressing much further for a couple of weekends. It's bittersweet as we would love to finally finish the deck and start decorating but it may be good for sore joints to rest up and start a fresh in a couple of weekends. 

From cheap to cheerful

I've had a small collection of magazine pictures and ads in a box beside my bed for some time, and I thought it was about time I did something with them. And a particularly fruitful visit to the local dollar store provided me with the perfect opportunity.
I bought a couple of cheap photo frames that I thought I could unify with a little white spray paint and create a cluster of pictures on an empty wall of our room.

Thankfully I had some leftover spray paint from the last project, so this is going to be turning cheap into cheerful! It only took two coats and about an hour to dry and voila!

I decided to upgrade the frame from my paint chip wall art I created about a month back so that everything was matchy-matchy!

I should have waited until it was morning to take these pics as the light isn't great in our room, but I think you get the picture (pun intended). I highly recommend using cheap frames over buying a match set. In contrast I bought my holiday picture frames from Freedom for $60, and these three frames cost half of that, including the spray paint!

Google is a wonderful thing...

I often wonder what my life would be like if there was no such thing as google. I would never have discovered why the sky is blue, how cameras work (but seriously I still think it's magic), the ever-addictive Facebook, my ultimate time waster Pinterest and the dozens of blogs that I read from authors around the world.

It was during my daily morning blog read that I discovered an interesting article about a design workshop that's coming to Brisbane. The School with Megan Morton  offers tuition from the best-of-the-best craftspeople inside the industry and gives an insight into the coveted worlds of craft, styling and design. Crafternoons and make-it-yourself lessons from specially selected teachers are structered with all levels of experience in mind.

One of the clases I was particularly interested in was a screen printing class by Rachel Castle. A little googling helped me to discover a little more about her and quickly I entered the wonderful world of Castle and Things.

Sadly for me, the class is only being offered in their Hobart Roadshow, but I'm going to keep my eyes peeled in the blogger world for more upcoming dates in the hopes I may learn how to create some of these pieces myself.

 

**I've created a link to my favourite blogs on the right hand side of the page. Check them out and you might find something you like! **

Pintastic!

With barely 10 days until Steve and I reach our first $10K saving milestone, I've been finding myself getting more and more excited about owning our first renovator home. And thanks to the wonderful invention of Pinterest I can spend almost all day dreaming and designing. I've been slowly adding to my Future House pin board with bits and pieces from bathroom inspiration, to home decor accessories even my dream of having a hidden bookshelf entrance into a study. I'm hoping that by the time we have the keys to our new home I'll have honed in on our style and the types of rooms we want to create. And maybe, just maybe, my dreams will become reality.


I love the timber underneath the kithen island



I really like the grey and yellow colour scheme



I love the colour of the walls

Loving the grey, large sqaure tiles in bathrooms

I would love to create this outdoor space. Incredible before and after pic!



I love the use of brick and I think it's a workable design for a small kitchen

Love, love, love

Over the weekend Steve and I attended my highschool girlfriend's wedding and it inspired me to add a little more love into my own life. So as another lazy Sunday came around I headed to the art store to grab some supplies. I wanted to create a piece to fill an empty corner in our living area.

I attached each of the letters with the hot glue gun and with a little white spray paint with self primer I was well underway. I wanted to keep it all white to create an embossed feel.

I'm getting much better at spray painting. My first attempt taught me the importance of keeping a decent distance, while having enough newspaper underneath to avoid painting the garden another shade AGAIN. It took about three coats and a couple of hours drying time and I was done. The spray paint had a gloss finish so it ended up with a really nice shine to it. I think next time, though, I'd like to use some lace or doily to create more of an effect under the lettering, maybe even try it in grey like this.