Design freak: Out with the ugly, in with the re-newed!

I had today off, which naturally meant I had to undertake some sort of home-decor-improvement project.


Since I've shifted our bedroom to a bright, colourful theme, our ceiling fixture's been sort of bothering me. It's fairly new, and had nothing wrong with it per se...it was just very black...and austere...and foreboding...too far? I think not. 


Here's what it looked like this morning... when I woke up to feel its dark, sinister eye upon me. *DUN DUN DUN!*

Isn't it just the light fixture equivalent of Norman Bates? Something had to be done before I found it creeping up on me while I showered.  

A trip to Fabricland was in the offing! 

I normally buy my fabric online because I find much of my local Fabricland's selection is only suitable to bad house-dresses from the 1930's, however, I had been with my mom earlier in the weekend  and a couple of new, bright prints had caught my eye.

Fifteen dollars later, I had a meter of fabric (I still have enough to make throw cushions!) and a lot of velcro tabs. I cut a strip of the fabric approximately four inches wider and one inch longer than the drum shade itself. I then removed the bottom of the fixture and wrapped the fabric (inch by inch) around the perimeter bringing the excess width under and over the shade and affixing with velcro. 

When that was done, I smoothed out any areas that weren't taut and applied a bit of tape, again inside the drum. Once I was happy with the look all around the outside, I replaced the bottom to hide the dirty work, and voila! Fun, happy, non-life threatening drum shade. 

Mmmm! So good!

(Sorry it's so dark. You'll have to come visit in the day to do it justice.)

Our other DIY of the day is one we completed quite awhile ago, but I haven't gotten around to sharing. So here it is- equally, if not more lovely than the light. 

This was our bathroom vanity when we moved in...

Mhmm- nothing inspires like late 80's melamine. Best of all, the counter was painted white over bright pink (I swear the whole house was pink at one point) which was scratching off in a lovely abstract sort of way.

I scoured the internet for a piece of furniture that we could convert into a new vanity. We already had a new sink and tap, but there was no base that seemed to fit the bill. Finally, one day, I swiveled around in my office chair and inspiration struck. We had purchased two teak storage cupboards several years back in Ottawa. They had originally lived in a government building, but had since been retired for something modern (and decidedly less cool I'm guessing). We scored the pair for 50 bucks. And having two in the office was proving a bit crowded... Make it a vanity, you say? Brilliant idea.

Lucky for me, I have a renaissance man to call my own. He plumbed this baby in in a day and then cooked me dinner and played me a piano sonata...or maybe we had pizza and he fell asleep on the couch...regardless, this is how it turned out...

Oooh! Ahhhh! Brushing your teeth has never been so sexy!