BYE BYE ugly Track Lights, well kind of...

In our Fontana Home we had this ugly track lighting for 10 years! Yes, 10 years! I had wanted to do something with it for a really long time but my hubby kept saying it was fine and this house would eventually be a rental and I didn't need to put time or money into it. Well, he then decided that he didn't want it as a rental and that it would be better to sell it. Now, we needed to make the lighting look nice and attract buyers. 

So with $25 I was able to transform this...

to this!

Doesn't it look so much better? I can't believe I didn't just do it before. It was so easy and took about 3 hours total (minus drying time for the stain on the wood and paint on the track lighting). 

1. I bought the really cheap fencing boards from Home Depot in 2 different widths

2. I cut them all to length. 

3. I stained the boards with some stain I already had.

4. I nailed the boards to the ceiling alternating the board widths

5. After I spray painted the tracks I reattached them back to the old wiring.

 **I pulled the wiring through a 1" hole I had marked and drilled out of the wood piece that went right above the track lighting wire box** 

So simple yet makes a huge difference. 

Here are some more images that were taken when we were selling the house. 

I just wish I could have lived with it like this for more than just a month :(

Another Challenge...the Trinket box

I'm writing this post on my phone so I'll keep the explanation short.

Basically, the challenge was to change this trinket box into whatever we wanted to. The host of this project is Beth at realitydaydream.com

I started by taking the two hinges off and cutting the top off one side and the bottom off the other.

You can see them more clearly in the pic below. I then taped off all the parts I wanted to remain wood.

 I had left over concrete from my table that I redid and so I mixed up a little bit and applied 2 coats. 

 (I did connect the two sides with one longer piece of wood cut to length and placed the scraps I cut off the ends in the middle so the wood would look the same.)

So, here's what it looked like after the concrete coats and sanding. 

 Then, I taped off a pattern on each planter section to paint.

 I painted 3 sections white and 1 gold. Then used my concrete sealer that I used on my table for the planters so they'd be water proof. Last, I used wood sealer for the surrounding wood.

And here is the finished planter...I'm pretty excited how it turned out. Such a fun challenge.

#oneboardchallenge

Here is the initial board that I started with...

and these were my plans for all my cuts (It was too hard to draw out but the Outer "Cage" Slats were really double the amount shown. In reality each foot section I got 18 slats out of).

Here are half of the Outer "Cage" slats. I cut 72 total, 36 for both lights. Then, each slat had to have 3 holes each so I drilled a total of  216 holes. It was tedious but not horrible. 

Here they are laid out with the cubes. I had to leave one side of the cube off until all the wiring was done.  

Now to spray paint a coat before putting them together. I thought it would be easier doing this than trying to spray all of them after putting it together.

Here are the Ceiling Canopies and the Center mounts. I started to spray paint them gold before the pic but remembered just in time so that you can really see that they are wood.  

Don't you just love my table stand...

Here are the cages all put together. I used screw posts (the little silver hardware pieces) to put them together...108 in fact, all done by hand. 

Again, using what you got to get it done. My front tree helped hold up the cages while i spray painted. 

Some of my husbands elk heads held up the light fixtures.  

Just so you know, I found the light sockets and round metal pieces that went around them on 2 of these old bathroom light fixtures. They were at Goodwill for $2 a piece after the Daily Color Discount!! Woohoo! 

Here are some close up pics of each of the pieces... 

...and finally it all came together.

I loved doing this project and couldn't be happier with the end result. I made these lights for $45 a piece. It probably could've been cheaper but I used a really nice piece of wood, with no knots. I had to order extra screw posts because they came in a box of 100 and I needed 108. All in all, I think $45 is a smoking deal for a chandelier like this one. 

Oh and look how easy they are to store. They shrink down like an accordion. 

I can't believe I actually took so many pics of the progress, I never do. Also, sorry that the pics aren't the best quality. I used my phone to take all of them. 

A year and one day later...

So, it's been a year and one day since my last post. I'm horrible at blogging!!! Anyways, here is a chandelier that I welded for my niece. It's my first ever welding project. I loved learning something new and will definitely be doing more in the future...

Silvy 1964

It's really funny to me that I see all these people buying vintage trailers to fix up these days. I like to say that Chance and I started this fad about 5 years ago...

Back when Chance and I were younger and had no children we decided to get a trailer. We started off with a 1984 pop-up camping trailer like the one you see below (this is not ours, I couldn’t find a pic but ours was very similar to this one).  We liked it, but didn't love it and you can't really do any improvements to it because its tiny and all the parts have to be movable. So....

we traded the pop-up for a 1964 Safari Airstream trailer.

We always had intentions of polishing it but it's a lot of work and money...so I docked up a photo one time and called it good. We were focusing on the inside anyways.

Here's one side of the trailer when we first purchased it. It was all gutted which was what we liked about it. It was a blank canvas.

and here is the other side. I know, look at those lights... They are so cute and in style now, but you have to think of when we redid this trailer. It was in 2009, over 5 years ago when decor was totally different. Also, we kind of wanted to go with the year of the trailer. So we got to work...

We named her Silvy, like the silver bullet she was. She turned out so cute and fun. Take a look.

Here's the one side with the mini kitchen. We did everything from scratch. We had even ripped up all the floors and relayed insulation to make sure it was warm. We also had to figure out all the electrical. It took a whole day, but we used the existing wires in the walls and re did all the lighting and switches.

I upholstered all the cushions and sewed all the curtains. It was a huge project, but well worth it.

All the smaller, decorative pillows were bought. I did not sew them.

and here is the other side with the table that dropped into a huge bed.

I do miss her sometimes. About a year after she was done, Chance traded her for a 5th wheel trailer that was bigger and had a bathroom. Then, this past year we sold that and bought a 5th wheel toy hauler. Chance hunts a lot and he needed a nice place to stay that could also hold our Ranger inside of it. We are happy with what we have, but I do think I want to get a small vintage trailer again to redo and take for short little getaways.

Dresser

I have tons of past projects that I have pics of so I thought I would randomly post them when I'm working on other projects. Here is a dresser that I redid a few years back.

 

I bought it on Craigslist for $20. I put maybe another $10 into it with paint and the trim on the bottom. I had the black pulls from our kitchen remodel that I ordered bulk off amazon.

 

 

...and here it is. I've sold the dresser since, but we got a few good years out of it.