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We spray painted the old, outdated fan in the laundry room a bright white in semi-gloss and I love how it turned out.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

Progress in the Mudroom

While the wood planks for our floors are acclimating to the house for a week before they can be installed, I've started a few other projects around the house. The girls start school next Wednesday so I figured the mudroom would be a great place to begin working so they can have a place to hang backpacks and keep their shoes. Also - isn't it crazy they're already starting school?! They definitely got a short changed with summer vacation this year with the move - only about five weeks! They're stoked to start though (too young to know better).  :)

Remember how in the mudroom there were these weird plant shelves everywhere? It looks like the storage closets were added after the fact and for some reason they didn't take the closets all the way up to the ceiling.

Strange, right?

We used one of these little reciprocal saws to take off all the shelves, including this part over the doorway that goes into the pantry hall and on into the kitchen. (psst - I am also working on a little desk area redo. Post is coming up Monday!)

(More after the jump...)

Check out the old wallpaper we uncovered. Looks like the original owners used this space as a little play area?

So, next I need to figure out how I want to fill the openings between the closets and the ceiling. I could pretty easily patch the drywall, but I would have to skim coat all the walls in here to remove the old texture. And I think I want something a little more interesting in here anyway. I had some wood cut at Lowes this week and I think I'm going to try to do a planked wall which will make it easy to both cover the old texture on the walls and also fill the open space above the closets. I don't want it to feel too rustic, but I think it could be the planks would be a cool look for a mudroom.

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Maybe on the diagonal?

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Maybe in a dark color?

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Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a hot date with my miter saw and nail gun. I hope you have fancier weekend plans than I do. :)

MTG 2013 Holiday Gift Box

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

As it is Friday, you should consider attending a Friday Night Magic event at a local gaming store, where friends and fiends meet.  You have a chance of adding a slick alternate art Dimir Charm to your Magic: the Gathering collection.  We'll be at our fav LGS, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario, Canada-Land where we've got a few new MTG singles from MTG Mint Card to tweak that Bant hexproof stack we've been playing.

Anywhoos - some news today from the mothersite - they've just announced that they will be producing another Holiday Gift Box this November, just in time for Christmas.  We were very impressed with last year's Gift Box (look for our article / video review over here), and are certainly going to have one set aside for us this year.

Anywhoos - here's the 4.1.1. from the motersite -

The box itself can hold more than 2,000 Magic cards and is available worldwide in English on November 15, 2013. You do get more than just a beautiful box to store your cards in for the MSRP of $19.99, though! To wit:

• Four Theros booster packs
• Beautiful storage box that can hold more than 2,000 Magic cards
• Twenty Theros basic lands
• Six illustrated plastic dividers
• Sticker sheet for customizing the dividers
• An alternate-art Karametra's Acolyte from the Theros set

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Did you see that too?  Yep - a card name for Theros - Karametra's Acolyte.  Pop your speculation hat on yer noggin!  We're thinking Karametra is either the red-aligned 'god' or perhaps a legendary creature spell from the City of Akris on Theros.  Throw your comment in below!
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Lastly, here's a few pics from last year's Holiday Gift Box -

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MTG Worlds Day One

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

We are continuing, whenever we can to catch up with all the Magic: the Gathering pro-play goodness taking place at the 2013 Magic World Championship.  Here's a quick summary of what's went down yesterday and expected today -

Day 1 (Wednesday, July 31)
• Modern Masters Booster Draft – 3 Swiss rounds.
• Standard constructed – 3 Swiss rounds.

Day 2 (Thursday, August 1)
• Magic 2014 Booster Draft – 3 Swiss rounds.
• Modern constructed – 3 Swiss rounds.

As we here at MTG Realm play mostly standard in a Friday Night Magic environment, we're certainly interested at what some of the top players took along to play at the World Championship to game with.  Here's builds from players sitting in the top three spots at the end of day one (all images from Wizards of the Coast event coverage) - - -

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Reid Duke (Jund)

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Brian Kibler (Gruul Aggro)

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Sharhar Shenhar (UWR Flash)

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These decks look solid but we would not likely want to build and take along to our local store (OMG! Games in Barrie).  Instead, what caught our attention is Craig Wescoe's Boros Aggro build (we've always liked Craig's deck strategies / style) -

Yep - that's the ticket.  We need just a few singles from MTG Mint Card and we have the rest to complete this or something very close to this.
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Here's the standings at the end of day one - to get the latest action, pop onto the Wizards streaming coverage over here.

Name        /      Total Points
Duke, Reid         15    
Kibler, Brian         12    
Shenhar, Shahar     12    
Stark, Ben         9    
Cifka, Stanislav     9    
Wescoe, Craig         9    
Watanabe, Yuuya     9    
Edel, Willy         6    
Froehlich, Eric     6    
Utter-Leyton, Josh     6    
Ochoa, David         6    
Nakamura, Shuhei     6    
Martell, Tom         6    
Shi Tian, Lee         6    
Butakov, Dmitriy     3    
Juza, Martin         0
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If You Want It, Black Rooster #13...and Chairs and Pillows and a Blurb

A day late but hopefully not a dollar short....it's...

...time and for now, I've got this happening...

{via}

Reindeer hide
Linen sofa

Chair

Camel throw

Floor lamp
End table
Urn
Artwork

And in other news...I have to show you the dining chairs for #projectbeverlyhills that we've just had recovered in black faux ostrich...

...glorious.

I literally can't wait to see this room come together.

And on the topic of that same project, I was scouring the interwebs last night and came across this new pillow from Arianna Belle...

I first fell in love with it when I saw it on Erika's Instagram feed and am sooooo wanting it for Ms Beverly Hills- the colours and mood are perfection.

Also, pretty sure I'll have to snap a couple up for #projectdreamhouse - thinking they'd be winners for the other half's office.

And while on the topic of pillows and projects, my fabulous friend and sponsor Hollie/Pillotopia has just re-launched her shop with some amazingly pretty new patterns.

For #projectfemininegrit, I'd looooove this number to happen...

...and for my own abode, these please...

Go HERE to see more pillow loveliness.

And I think that's it for today...other than one quick little 'refelection/thank you' blurb.

I've been blessed these past few years to meet and get to know so many amazing people because of this blog...to all of those people out there who have supported me and my work with amazingly sweet comments and true friendship, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart...I know I've said it before but it means the world to me... I know all to well that not everyone out there is so super duper kind/supportive of others work and/or feelings but you guys are and for that, you deserve a giant high five for being so awesome.

I love you all large styles.

xo