It isn't so bad for whomever manages to win the corner of the couch closest to the light (lately it has been me) but now that we are getting more involved in fun activities as a family it has really become a bother. It finally bothered my husband on Friday night as he and my son were trying to work on a puzzle and were having an impossible time seeing the colors. A glorious moment occurred when he turned to me and said, "so what was your idea for the living room". "Plug-in wall sconces," I responded with glee as I immediately hopped on the computer to start price shopping for the best option.
Lucky for us, we had a Home Depot gift card left from Christmas and Home Depot just so happened to have the best priced wall sconces by Hampton Bay. My husband went and picked 2 up on Saturday morning and by Saturday night they were up in our living room.
I was beaming with pride when he walked in the room on Saturday night and said, "Wow, this is like a whole new room!". Success, I thought to myself. But Sunday morning I just didn't have that same enthusiasm as I zeroed in on the only thing I disliked about the lights . . .
Don't get me wrong, they aren't terrible but they also are totally not me. They had a paper type material pleated look that made it look like the lampshades were a total after thought of the company. I mean, I didn't expect much better for the great price but I knew I could do better without having to go spend anymore money. So the lampshades and I got comfortable on the living room floor and I began dissecting them.
Thank goodness they came apart beautifully. And I had been lucky enough to score a bunch of material at the thrift store this weekend (the brown tagged bag was actually only 69 cents)!
Inside one of the bags was some white linen material and some white lace that just inspired me to continue on. I covered the lamp shade with the white linen and trimmed it off with some thrifted double fold bias binding that I had on hand.
It looked a million times better but still wasn't exactly my style. So I began to play with some ribbon that matches our living room ceiling, some burlap to keep my shabby chic style, and of course, some of the beautiful lace that was in those bags of thrifted goodness. A few fabric flowers for a pop of femininity and I finally had some lamps that I could be very proud of.
They are far from perfect (I had no idea what I was doing) but they are much more my style and didn't cost me anything other than a little bit of fabric from my "collection"!
And now I will be able to see what I am doing when I sew in the living room! And I do hope to be back to sewing this week. Until next time . . . happy quilting (oh how I hope to get back to quilting)!
Much cuter. I just don't understand building homes that don't have overhead lighting.
ReplyDelete