Under Cabinet Lighting

While living in our apartment, we put up some inexpensive under-cabinet lighting from Ikea.  When we moved into our house we brought them with us, but only installed two of the lights because of the arrangement of the cabinets.  The ugly black cord hung down and the big plug was an eyesore.  I disguised it the best I could with command hooks and cord covers, but this post from Thrifty Decor Chick made me long for integrated under-cabinet lights.  When I mentioned it to Bradley, he enthusiastically agreed.

This weekend, we worked on putting up three more lights and running the cords up between the cabinets and through the top of the cabinet over the microwave to the plug that is conveniently out of sight.  Then we took it a step further: we used one of the remote-controlled plugs that we have on all of the lamps in our house.  (We use these unattractive but useful plugs because not a single outlet in our house is switched, boo)  All of our downstairs lamps are on the same frequency, so with one simple push of a button we are able to turn on four lights in the dining room, three lamps in the living room, the Christmas tree, and now all five of the under-cabinet lights.

It looks so nice now, especially with the ambient light from the new fixture over the sink.  Bradley loves it because he has an obsessive war against overhead lighting:)

White Christmas

I guess my new snowflake dishes this year were foretelling, because we are covered in snow from a white Christmas!

It ruined our plans of spending Christmas evening with my parents and sister, but it is pretty.  Sis flew back to San Francisco this morning, so we skyped with them last night as they opened their gifts.  (Luckily, I had placed their gifts under my parents’ tree on Christmas Eve as I passed through on my way to my grandmother’s house:)  Bradley and I will have a make-up day next Saturday with my parents, but sis won’t be there:(.  We also have his parents left to do on the 28th.  Both BILs will be in town by then, so I still have a few gifts left under our tree.

My sister gave me a terrific birthday and Christmas gift: tickets to West Side Story at the Fox for my birthday and dinner at Ecco downtown before the show for Christmas.  I am so excited!

We are going to use some of our Christmas money to buy a mount for the TV in the living room.  We will also be installing the Rubbermaid FastTrack system in the garage to get things up off the floor.  The rest of the money is getting put away for a trip to Yosemite that is in the works for next June.  My sister, cousin from L.A. and parents went camping there last year and had so much fun that they are planning another trip this year.  I am so excited about this trip, because my aunt, her son, and maybe my uncle’s family will also be joining in the fun.  It has the potential to be an amazing WHOLE family trip:).  The only thing I am a little uncomfortable about is the bears that roam the campsites from the stories of last years trip, yikes!

Overall, this has been another wonderful Christmas.  We have hit four grandparent’s homes and have both our parents left to do.  We are truly blessed!

Guest Bedroom Headboard

Back in the spring, I was bummed that the full/queen headboard I had fixed up for the guest bedroom was an eyesore because it was truly a queen size after-all.  I was at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago and ran across another full size headboard at Goodwill for only $15.  It is about 4″ less wide than the old headboard, so it will actually line up with and attach to the bed frame.  I thought it would work really well in the guest room.  That is, once it was no longer fire-engine red.  Bradley had to go back with me later, because of course it wouldn’t fit in my car:)

I used the primer I had used on the kitchen cabinets.  Then I painted the headboard Canyon Echo by Glidden.  It is a very pale grey.  I am still working towards this color palette:

I also found a small round side table at Goodwill for $5.  It was a little banged up, but I glued and puttied and painted it right up.  I was able to sell the old headboard and the old side table/ file stand to get them out of the way.  I couldn’t be more pleased with the new furniture.  The scale of both the headboard and side table just work so much better in the room.

New Lighting

I have the MOST wonderful husband ever!  I came home to find that when Bradley ‘left’ for work this morning, he actually just went to Starbucks until I left to throw me off his sneaky plan.  He spent the whole day doing things around the house for me.  He vacuumed and made the bed.  He bought and programmed a GPS for my new car (including working for an hour on and subsequently returning one that was defective).  He also installed a light over the kitchen sink that I had ordered.  My kitchen cabinet reveal shows how it has been for a couple of months now.

Before:

After:

It’s not the perfect light, but I searched high and low to find something that could tuck in behind the curtain or curve up and out above the curtain.  Everything else I found either wouldn’t curve out enough to clear the curtain or was too wide.  It provides a nice, soft ambient light and there are no more hanging wires, so I will claim success.

He also installed my birthday present – wall lamps for our bedroom.  I fell in love with this arched lamp from Pottery Barn, but couldn’t justify spending the money when we had bedside lamps.  They came with Bradley when we got married.  They were not at all our style and I disliked them, but he had sentimental attachment to them and still liked them.  So I left it alone.

Before:

They dominated the bedside tables.  They look like Greek columns.  They have a cream and gold crackle/textured finish.  Nothing even remotely like the rest of our house.  But now it looks like this:

I LOVE them!  And I love that the beside tables can be completely cleared off when the decluttering bug bites me.

How sneaky is he!  Even if he wasn’t able to hide his purchase of my birthday gift from me, he was able to install them by surprise.  He is my favorite and definitely a keeper;)

Christmas Card Display

Years ago, I bought a metal Christmas card holder at Hallmark, but every year we have the fortunate problem of receiving more cards than it can hold.  I have been trying to brainstorm a solution for a few years and recently tried to explain what was in my head to Bradley.  He said ‘Hold on’ and ran upstairs.  He came back with a bag containing heavy wire cable and clips.  I totally didn’t remember us buying these, but vaguely remember an idea we hatched in the apartment to hang art on the wall above our couch.  It was supposed to function similarly to this:

(BTW, these lime green cords from CB2 would work really well at Christmas and I am sure wouldn’t be that awfully expensive to use if you didn’t want to DIY it.)  An industrial look for casually hanging pictures/art/etc. to cover a large expanse of wall.  Perfect!

I used four pieces of the pre-cut cable and secured the loops at the top.  I hung them from picture hooks that I installed directly below the moulding that runs around the top of the dining room.  To make the cables hang straight, I attached a heavy beaded snowflake ornament to the bottom of each one.  Bradley suggested alligator clamps (like the ones used to attach the bib around your neck at the dentist’s office) to hold the cards to the cable.  A quick search landed me at Radio Shack where they sell these type of mini clips in sets of 12.

It works perfectly, and now we will be able to see all our cards throughout the season.  And it fills up a large wall in the dining room, adding a little Christmas cheer since we are no longer putting the tree in there.  Win-win.

I am linking to the Christmas Craft Party at Centsational Girl.

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