Archive for 2012

the (lovely) old fixture had 3 bulbs in it.  one by one these bulbs have burnt out, and we have been living with just one bulb the last couple of months.  we refused to replace the light bulbs in the old fixture, knowing that we had a brand new one in the basement, just waiting to be installed.


so much better!  and it's nice to not have any more wallpaper in the house!

 

murphy's fur still hasn't gotten very long, and he's very tall and skinny.  for the most part, he's well behaved (except when we leave food on the kitchen counter).  he is the most curious dog that we've had, he has to know what everything is.  cooper is still his most favorite thing ever, he likes to sit right next to cooper, which is pretty cute. 


sorry for the blog silence lately, we've been enjoying the fall, and enjoying the break in home projects...  sometimes it's nice to be a little lazy! 

i studied more for the structures exam than i have the others, and while i didn't leave the exam feeling confident, i wasn't sure what else i could have done to prepare.  glad that one is over with!


i'm taking a short break from studying but plan to start studying for the last test soon.  meanwhile, i've been loving the fall weather, we've been taking the dogs on long walks and sleeping with the windows open (my favorite!).  the photo above is taken from our deck a few nights ago.

one other random update - check out the crack in this tree that is in front of our house!  we had a pretty bad storm the other night, and at one point heard a very loud snap sound - the tree was struck by lightening.  since it was pouring, we couldn't really see how bad the damage was (although all of the neighbors moved their cars away from the tree just to be safe).  the next morning we discovered that the lightening had caused a split in the entire length of the trunk!  there were giant splinters of tree trunk all over the street and in the yards.  we think the tree might actually survive because it's not very deep, but are waiting on the city to come out to inspect it.  i'm glad that no one was hurt!

sorry for the silence on the blog lately...  no real reason other than we are taking a break from home projects after spending all of our money on the kitchen.  although, i was thinking of doing a source list for the kitchen, let me know if that is something that you'd be interested in.  or if there are any other details that you would like more information on.  in my excitement to post the "after" photos, i know that i missed a few steps.  we've also added the kickplates and a shelf to the kitchen, i should probably take new photos...

sometimes it's hard to be a dog. it's super hot outside which means that the walks have been very limited lately.  so... they (mostly murphy) have had lots of energy and always want to play.   or cuddle on the couch (see note above about it being hot). 

last week, murphy fell down the stairs and was limping so we had to talk him to the vet.  luckily it was nothing major, he just banged up his leg a little.  a few meds and a few days rest and he's back to normal.

cooper must have been feeling neglected with all of the extra attention murphy was getting, so i came home from work on monday and saw that the left side of coopers face was all swollen.  i'm not sure if he got stung by a bee or wasp, or if murphy beat him up, or what.  but he also got ice and medicine, and is back to normal.

the high tomorrow is only a chilly 93*, maybe we'll finally be able to get out for a walk... we're ready for fall.

as promised, i'm back with a quick tutorial on how to make the lindsey adelman chandelier.

i thought that her instructions were easy to follow and mostly clear, so start there if you want step-by-step instructions.  we had a few issues, which i will explain below.  i feel like i should note that prior to this project, mike and i had done some electrical work in our house (both installing new fixtures and running all new wiring), so we were already comfortable with basic wiring skills.  we had also made a light fixture for our dining room, which made me a little more confident going in to this project.

the first thing i did was review the instructions, including the materials list.  we wanted to hardwire the fixture (her instructions are for a plug-in fixture), so we needed to order a few different parts.  i also wanted to use 5 bulbs instead of 6.  we ordered everything from grandbrass, except for the wires which we bought from lowes.  unpacking the box and seeing all of these pieces was a little concerning...  hard to believe that this was going to make a light!


next we did a quick layout of the pieces.  her instructions include a nice diagram, but didn't specify lengths for each individual brass tube, so we came up with something that we thought would work for us.




then, we started wiring!  we found that it was easiest to start at the socket and work our way in towards the center of the fixture.  each arm has its own set of wires.  we cut a good length of wire to make sure we had enough.




once you got the process down, it was actually kind of fun to build. 



at some point, we realized that the gauge of wire that we bought was too thick, it wouldn't fit through the tubes and fittings once we had several wires that needed to run together. so we had to take it all apart and start over with new wires.


once it was all together, we tried to install it in the kitchen.  we already had a mounting plate in the ceiling which conveniently had a hole in it that we could thread the top tube in to.  this made things a lot easier.  otherwise we would have had to install a new mounting plate first.  you connect all of the wires from each "arm" in that center piece, so you are only connecting one set of wires up at the ceiling.

the first time we did this we had a short when we flipped the power back on and tried to turn on the switch.  we had to take it down, and after much investigation (including borrowing a special meter from the electrical engineer i work with), we figured out that one of the wires had gotten twisted in the assembly process, so the coating had come off and the copper was touch the brass arm.  once we fixed this problem, the fixture worked!




then we decided that the clear tubular 40 watt bulbs that we bought were not bright enough. and that the clear bulb had a lot of glare, so we tried out a few standard 60 watt to see if that was better.


we ended up buying tubular frosted 60 watt bulbs instead, and this works a lot better in our kitchen. the light level is really nice, which is important in a kitchen!



it even looks cool when it's not on.  and yes, i did switch out the ceiling canopy for something more simple.  i ordered the wrong canopy the first time, so when we ordered the new bulbs i got the more simple canopy (which is actually a lamp base part, which is why i didn't see it the first time).




what do you think? i love how it adds something a little unexpected to our kitchen.




if you have any other questions about the fixture, let me know!

lets not talk about how it's going to be 106* today... again... or how the kitchen is still not done, or how i turned 30 a few weeks ago and am in denial about it, or how far behind i am with blog posts....

instead, here are a few fun pictures from our vacation.

we rented a beach house on lake michigan with some of our bestest friends and spent a week doing, well, basically nothing. and it was glorious. i read several books, sat on the beach, attempted to play golf, ate lots of good food, and just enjoyed spending time with people that i don't get to see enough. we all turned 30 this year and wanted to do something fun to celebrate.



we rented a cottage right on the lake, the beach was our front yard.



the sunsets each night were amazing, i took about 500 photos of just sunsets.







have you ever seen kite surfing? it was really cool to watch, i was impressed with how high some of these guys would jump!

and since we were in michigan... O-H-I-O!



campfire on the beach with s'mores? don't mind if i do. every night.





we had a really nice vacation, mike and i are already trying to figure out how we can get our own lake michigan beach house...  maybe someday.

technically we are not done with the kitchen, but i am too excited to not share the 95% complete photos with you. i was hoping to have more time to post some of the details along the way, but i think now i'll just do those posts later. so if you have any specific questions, make sure to ask and i'll try to answer them!


as i've mentioned, the only big things we have left are finishing the base along the bottom of the cabinets, and eventually replacing or rebuilding the island. i'm still messing around with some of the accessories and details, and we'll probably end up installing some open shelving.  but we've come a long way from where we started...


just for fun, here's the kitchen when we moved in:

dark, dirty cabinets, a fruit light fixture, wallpaper on the walls and ceiling, and green carpet.





when we installed the new hardwood flooring on the first floor a year and a half ago, we also updated the kitchen floor.







i think that living with the old kitchen for so long really helped us figure out what we needed in the new kitchen.  we needed more storage and more counter space.  as we've renovated the rest of the house, i've been mixing vintage ideas with simple modern elements, and i knew that i wanted something similar in the kitchen renovation.  i also have a thing for unique light fixtures.


anyway, here is how the kitchen looks today (i removed the island in a few photos since the space is difficult to photograph):








i will probably add some of the open shelving that we had in the previous kitchen above the microwave area, the kitchen seems out of balance and i think that will help.  or maybe just hang my giant stendig calendar.




we really love it.  it's hard to believe it's the same kitchen, the space feels so much bigger and brighter now!