Give Away: $200 in adorne Light Switches and Plates (and a Marbling DIY!)

This weekend's give away is a great one. Legrand is expanding its North American presence and has a wonderful line called adorne, featuring truly beautiful and well-designed light switches and wall plates. It amazing how doing something as simple as swapping out a light switch and plate for something special can really elevate a room. Design is in the details!

For our mudroom, I chose to replace our old school double toggle switch with a double sofTap switch. You can choose other switches that operate with motion sensors (walking by or waving your hand in front of the switch), whisper switches, dimmers, remotely-controlled smart switches - they've thought of everything. I liked the extra clean look of the sofTap and I love that there's a tiny little light that very softly illuminates the switches when they're off, which is shockingly helpful for supporting my midnight snack habit.

They've also covered the gamut of wall plate possibilities (above). You can go glossy modern (like the white I have in this post), mirrored, metallic, leather, all sorts of colors, or the customizable option I used here in the mudroom. That option comes with a paper mat template that you can use for wallpaper or any art project you want to create. (The tutorial for the marbled paper is after the jump.)

To enter to win a $200 shopping spree with adorne, visit the site and choose your favorite switch and wall plate combos. (PS This video really helps the switched come to life - worth a watch!) Leave a comment on this post with your choices and where you'll use your new switches. Contest ends Friday August 16 at midnight. Winner will be emailed. Good luck!!

And don't forget to click through for the marbling tutorial...
I've been dying to try a marbled paper DIY for a really long time. I LOVE marbleized anything so this felt like a natural choice for my customized wall plate.

You'll need: a variety of nail polish colors (try the dollar store or CVS is having a 2 for $3 sale right now on some brands), water, a disposable container that's bigger than the paper or item that you're marbling, a toothpick or anything long and pointy (I used a long screw because our toothpicks are still packed away :)), paper or whatever you want to marble and a place to dry the items (I used a drop cloth). Also, you might want gloves, as my messy hands below will demonstrate.

By the way, I think most anything can be marbled with nail polish - the possibilities are pretty endless. Flower pots and vases, finger nails (obvs), picture frames,  jewelry boxes, chair legs. There are lots of tutorials floating around the web that show all sort of cool ideas. I loved this one on Design Mom.

So, to start, fill your container with a bit of water. If you're marbling paper, you'll only need about an inch of water.

Take off all the lids to your nail polish to make the process go faster. You'll need to work pretty fast so that the polish doesn't start drying.

Pour your colors in rings, one on top of the other. There's no right or wrong way to do this. Just pick colors and pour. If you pour slowly, the nail polish shouldn't sink.

After pouring your rings, use a toothpick (or a screw) to pull the color. You're not mixing it - you're just going to move the colors around gingerly. Don't over-swirl and don't take too much time to do it.

Then drop your paper onto the pattern, press softly to make sure the surfaces fully connect, and then pull off the paper and flip it around quickly but carefully to make sure the paint doesn't run. And then put it down to dry on your drop cloth.

It will be a little wet at first, but it dries quickly.

Now, don't swirl again - the new pattern will be soft and completely lovely, so just get your next paper ready and dip it. I got at least three dips from each round of pouring. And I usually ended up liking the second or third papers the very best. The paint will be thinner and more dreamy-looking.

I ended up doing three or four rounds of paint pouring (I'm swimming in marbled paper if anyone wants any:) ), but these were the ones I like the best for the switch/wall plate application. I had to pick ones that had more interesting perimeters since the middle was going to get cut out for the switches.

I ended up going with a darker pattern because I liked how it looked with the wall color.

The customizable wall plate comes with a paper template that I used to trace out the hole for the switch.

You just remove the sticker on the plate to expose the adhesive and then place your art paper.

And then I used a razor blade to make the edges fit perfectly. 

I really love how the wall plate turned out. It looks so pretty with the orange chairs. :)

The finish on the papered plate is actually pretty solid because nail polish is an enamel (and this was a first-dip paper - so there's lots of polish on there), but I might paint on a clear coat later if I feel like it needs it.

Now, go enter the give away and make your own marbled wall plates! :)

Updating Light Fixtures with Paint

This weekend was pretty amazing in my book. Not only did we get some much-needed R&R and family time, but we also added an air compressor to our collection of DIY tools (big deal!). We bought it to use with our new spray paint gun and I've been spraying basically everything in sight for the last 24 hours. Well, mostly just the doors in the house, but the baseboards are whispering my name. As are all the ceiling fans.

We spray painted the old, outdated fan in the laundry room a bright white in semi-gloss and I love how it turned out.

I think my new spray gun would do an even better job than the aerosol spray paint though. Good thing we have about 15 other ceiling fans in the house to paint! :)

I think ditching the old glass globe shades and upgrading to big, round sputnik-esque bulbs really helped too. (More after the jump...)

I found these bulbs at the hardware store and thought they could be cool.

I confirmed they fit in the sockets before taking down the fan, taping off the electrical parts and giving the whole thing two good coats of white spray paint.

Ah! So fresh and so clean.

I'm trying hard to rework and salvage as many things in this house as we can now that most of the demo is done. It feels good to save the cash and to be less wasteful. Plus, have you shopped for ceiling fans lately? Not pretty. All-white at least sort of disappears into the ceilings.

This little light, however, was not salvaged (but chances are he's probably still available at our local ReStore if you'd like to use him in your house?). :)

We sort of ran out of time when we were trying to figure out a new over-the-desk light fixture. We went to Home Depot hoping they'd come through for me again in the lighting department. I wanted something vintage feeling though, so I was pretty sure I'd be leaving empty-handed.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, I spotted this three-bulb light that had globes that reminded me of one of those school-house pendants.

The globes felt a little bare though so I picked up some green nail polish that looked a little like the color of jadeite glass.

Then I taped off a 1/4" band and got painting.

The lines aren't perfectly painted or even super-accurately taped, but I still really like the look. It's character, right? 

I like that the globes look unique now and the fixture doesn't scream "hardware store find!"

Back to my new-found love (the spray gun). All weekend long I've been wondering why on earth I took so long to buy one of these things!! Hopefully I'll have some photos to share of the painting process tomorrow.

Give Away: $250 to Lamps.com!

Lamps.com has such an impressive inventory! I mean, hello! I took just about everything in me to edit this round up to only 32 picks! :) I want it all! Lucky for you, Lamps.com is offering up a $250 gift certificate for this week's give away. Here are (a little more than a few of) my favorites from their site:

1  //  2  //  3  //  4  //  5  //  6  //  7

8  //  9  //  10  //  11  //  12  //  13  //  14  //  15  //  16

17  //  18  //  19  //  20  //  21  //  22  //  23  //  24

25  //  26  //  27  //  28  //  29  //  30  //  31  //  32

To enter to win the $250 gift certificate, please visit the site and leave a comment on this post with a link to the lamp or fixture you'd most like to have for yourself. Warning: narrowing down the choices will prove to be harder than you might think! :)

Contest open to US readers only and ends Sunday May 19 at midnight. Good luck!!

DIY Modern Brass Chandelier

SO many of you guys were excited about the DIY brass chandelier that the OKL team shared in this kitchen. Well, lucky for us, they've put together a full tutorial here to share with LGN readers (there's also a post here on the OKL blog, which is full of great content!). Let's jump right in to Megan Pflug's tutorial:

List of materials:

• 1 brass loop 1/8F IPS

• 5 5-inch brass pipes 1/8F IPS

• 5 10-inch brass pipes 1/8F IPS

• 1 18-inch brass pipe 1/8F IPS

• 5 Edison Porcelain Keyless sockets 660W-250V 1/8-27 CAP

• 5 1/8F x 1/8F IPS adjustable brass swivel

• 1 5-hole 1/8 sides x 1/8 bottom x 1/8 top large cluster body

• 5 feet of 2 wire twisted cord (more depending on sealing height)

• 5 Satco Globe Lights 40 W G40 clear (not pictured)

• 15 feet of single strand conductor wire in white (UL 1007/1569, 26 AWG, 300 VAC)

• 15 feet of single strand conductor wire in black (UL 1007/1569, 26 AWG, 300 VAC)

• One package of twist-on wire connectors 3(22 AWG) Min, 3(16 AWG) Max,  300V

• A pair of wire strippers

• 1 roll of electrical tape

• A screwdriver

TIP: Although it is not listed on their site, you can email SL Lighting NYC (info@sllightingnyc.com) with the above part list, and they will ship it all to you.

From MC Master-Carr:

Wire The Sockets:
1. Unscrew the back of the socket form the ceramic body using the screws located in inside the socket opening.
2. Cut a 2-foot length of both black and white wire. Use your wire stripper to remove about 1/4 inch of the plastic sheath from the ends of each wire.
3. Twist the exposed wire ends to keep from fraying and bend them to form a hook.
4.  Be sure to always attach the black wire to the gold screw and the white wire to the silver screw. Hook each wire in place around the base of each screw and tighten. Reattach the socket backing, threading the wires through the hole in the top.
5. Repeat this process for all five sockets.
Tip: Always hook the wire around the screws so that it wraps clockwise. This will help keep it in place as your screw.

Construct The Arms:
1. Construct the brass arm by screwing it together, as shown using the 10-inch pipe, the 5-inch pipe, and the brass swivel.  Screw the socket in place threading the wires all the way through to the end of the 10-inch pipe.
2. Repeat this process for all five arms.

Prep The Cloth Wire:
1. To prep the cloth wire, push back the cloth covering from the end and secure it with electrical tape.
2. Strip both wires about 1/2 inch from the ends.

Join The Wires:
1. Join all the small white wires in the cluster body with the larger white cloth wire by twisting them together. Secure with a twist on wire connector. Repeat process with the black wires.
2. Gently push the wires inside the cluster body and reattach the cap. Thread the cloth wire through the hole in the top.
3. Thread the cloth wire through the remaining 17-inch brass pipe and screw it to the top of the cluster body.

Finish Up:
1. Screw the brass loop to the top of your 17-inch pipe.
Tip: At this point, I recommend using an electrician to install your new chandelier. You should let her or him know that you will need a brass dome canopy kit to complete the install. 

Stuck on a step? The OKL team is happy to help! Email Megan at editors@onekingslane.com ask a question about this how-to.

Thanks again to the OKL team for sharing this amazing tutorial with us! I can't wait to make my own. :)

(How-To Photography: Jason Hamilton)