Schoolhouse Inspired Hallway Lights

The other day Seth and I were walking around the lighting department at Home Depot when I spotted these schoolhouse inspired lights for only $30!  (Just so you know, we've had these up for 3-4 weeks and have not had either globe fall off - not sure what happened to the other reviewers.)

I knew they would be the perfect replacement for the tiny, dingy, brass lights currently on the ceiling.

It took no time for Seth to swap them out.

Now, I just need to touch up around the bases.  And I have no idea what color the ceiling paint is.  Hmmm….

I'm loving the vintage feel that they bring to the hallway.  

Another project checked off the list!

Going Digital

A few weeks ago, Seth and I purchased a digital, programmable thermostat.  I was very excited because we bought one that will switch over between heat and air conditioning as needed.  No having to think and flip a switch.  I love not thinking.  I do too much thinking and if I can eliminate some, that is always helpful.  We had one like this in our house in Illinois and it was amazing.  It's the simple things in life that make me happy.

It was pretty simple to install.  First, Seth removed the old one which looked something like this...

It was sometimes a struggle to get the exact temperature I wanted with that little dial.  I like how you can set the digital thermostat to exactly what temperature you want.  I also like that it is programmable.  I work nights and Seth works days so we haven't come up with our programs yet, but we'll figure it out soon.  I'm interested to see if we start noticing a change in our power bills.  

Installation was pretty straightforward.  We got lucky in that whoever wired our house actually used colored wires.  Our neighbors were not so lucky and had to guess at which wire was which when installing their new thermostat. 

The back of the new thermostat has initials corresponding to the colors of the wires.  In the photo below the initials are partially covered by the wires but there is a "G" for green, a "Y" for yellow, and so on (approximately where the blue circles are).  So it's as easy peasy as inserting the appropriate colored wire into the corresponding spot and using a small screwdriver to tighten the screws down onto the wire to make a connection.  

Then you just use a couple of screws placed through the holes in the backplate to secure it to the wall.  

The cover just snaps on over the backplate and you're done!  And then your brand spankin' new thermostat informs you that your house is not wired so that it can switch automatically between heat and air conditioning even though you spent the extra money for the thermostat that could do this.  Shucks!

Now I have big plans to disguise this thing after all of Seth's hard work (sorry, honey).  I'm thinking of either a canvas with hinges to completely cover it or a frame hung around it to help it blend in with the other frames in the gallery wall I'm planning.  I was leaning toward the hinged canvas until I read that it might affect the temperature readings on the thermostat.  So...the solution is still to be determined.  I'll keep you posted of course.  I took pictures of every room in the house today to update you guys on our progress and I plan to start working on that post on Monday.  It's going to be a long one though so it may take me a few days.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Choosing Paint Colors part II

And the painting continues.  Will it ever end?  Trying to look on the bright side, I just calculated the number of calories that I'm burning at everydayhealth.com.  If I paint for three hours (which is about how long it takes me to do two coats in a medium sized room by myself) I am burning around 725 calories.  Not too bad I guess.  Maybe I can have another one of those Knock You Naked Brownies I made from Pinterest tonight after all.

We have managed to nail down three more colors and get some paint up on the walls in the hallway, the first guest bedroom, and our office.  The hallway and first guest bedroom were probably the easiest paint color decisions yet.  We liked the look of our light gray hallway in our last home because it brightened up the entryway and was a nice neutral backdrop that allowed us to incorporate colors from other rooms with art and accessories.  I think it's nice when your entryway kind of ties the whole home together (at least the main living areas).  

So, we were deciding between Valspar's lunar eclipse (1) and Valspar's polar star (2).  

1

2

They look pretty similar but the lunar eclipse is slightly more brown so we settled on the polar star (4005-1A).  While I was visiting my parents and attending a bridal shower for my brother's fiancé (yay!!!) this past weekend, Seth primed and painted the entire hallway.  What a great husband!  The color is pretty much what we expected but I think the cream molding with its yellow undertones is throwing the whole thing off.  Ahhhh...the molding.  The entire house is full of this yellowy cream molding color.  What ever happened to a nice, crisp, refreshing, modern white???  It's on the to do list.  We may end up hiring that awful job out.  Any takers?  :)

Here is the hallway after Seth's hard work.

You may remember that I nailed down the color scheme for our first guest bedroom when I scored an amazing deal on some nightstands here.  With the master bedroom and hallway colors chosen, I focused on a goal of mine for our new place - reducing the total number of paint colors in the house.  In our first house, we had seven different colors in basically nine rooms (four of those were shades of blue).  I never thought it looked bad, but I definitely wanted to make our color palette for the second house a bit more cohesive to allow for better flow from room to room.  I have to keep reminding myself that I can always use accessories to add different accent colors in each room to prevent them from all looking the same.  One thing I wanted to do was choose paint colors from the same paint card, just in different shades, in order to provide continuity while avoiding a boring, monochromatic palette.  So with this goal in mind, and the fact that we decided on gray walls in the first guest bedroom to complement our yellow nightstands, we just moved one shade darker on the polar star paint card and found our guest bedroom color: Valspar's gravity (4005-1B).

I tackled that project yesterday (my parents are coming for Labor Day weekend and I wanted it painted and mostly put together for their visit).  So 725 calories later, here she is.  It's reading a bit blue in the picture, but in person it's definitely more gray.

The other room that we've painted is the office (the former dining room).  The color we settled on is Benjamin Moore's Sesame 381 (color matched to Valspar paint).  

It actually turned out a bit lighter and more yellow-looking than I had hoped but it should still work.  I blame the dark green color that we painted over (although we did have the paint and primer in one).  Amos even got in on the action.  

Here is the color on the wall (next to a section of trim that we slapped a bit of white paint on just to get the effect).  

Ahhhh...the green on yellow-green combo.  Lovely.  Has anyone decided to donate their time and help paint our trim yet?  

We choose this color for the following reasons:

• we liked it
• it goes nicely with blues and grays (our other main wall colors in the house)
• it works well with our current furniture for the room (white and dark brown)
• it complements the rug we have chosen for the office (it was our living room rug in our last house - more on that in another post)

I love how bright and fun it is.  It is amazing how much larger the space feels now.  We are also considering it for the living room, but haven't decided yet.  In the meantime, I'm wondering if you can get carpel tunnel from excessive paint rolling?  (Or maybe it's the blogging.)