And then Husband casually said "If you were going to replace it, what would you replace it with?" In my world that's basically permission to rip something down. But we were kind of in the middle of a pandemic and my favorite lighting shop, you guessed it, Bart's Barn, was very closed. I went to Home Depot and took pictures of every lighting fixture I liked. I did the same at Lowes. I made a pinterest board. I obsessed about what lighting fixture I would get. But I didn't buy anything because lighting fixtures are anywhere between $80 and $300 new and they're like $15 at Bart's. I displayed patience in epic proportions.
Yesterday, Bart's reopened.
That price tag says $25, but it was also half off. So, $13 later, here we are. I hung it from a cup hook in my garage shelves to paint it. Cause there is no way I'm keeping that early 90's brass in my house.
I kept the bulbs in while I painted because these are incandescents and I was going to replace them with LEDs and it saved me having to tape the insides of the fixtures. There is a central bulb at the bottom that got stuffed with old grocery store plastic bags and taped up. And so, we paint!
This color is called flat soft iron and it's the same color I used when I spray painted the doorknobs in most of the house and drawer pulls in the bathrooms. It gives the house a bit of consistency. Another thing I've learned to do as I've matured.
Voila! It was actually very simple to install. We got it up on the first try with no expletives.
Another way I fight dark corners in my house is with mirrors. I love mirrors. And while we were at Barts, I found two cute little mirrors to add to my mirror collection. I was actually looking for a desk. I didn't find a desk. So when we left Bart's we ran over to Goodwill to see if they had any furniture. I still did not find a desk. But I did find a gigantic beveled glass mirror. For $12. Which is the same as I paid for one of my cute little tiny mirrors at Bart's.
I do not understand Goodwill. They price things ridiculously low. I'm not complaining. But it's like they don't want furniture in their store and they price it stupid low to get rid of it ASAP. I think that's why they rarely have any decent furniture. They've got tons of stuff right now, because they continued to take collections while everyone was stuck in their houses in the pandemic. Lots of people went Marie Kondo on their spaces when they were forced to stay in them.
Anyway. Mirror.
I started by getting the picture wire off the back of the mirror. This thing is like, 25 pounds. We're not in picture wire territory here. There's even a note on the back saying not to use it.
And yet, that is want was holding this bad boy up. So I first got some painter's tape and spaced out the D rings on the back of the mirror.
Then I marked a level line on the wall and moved the tape to the wall. Using the marks on the tape, I drilled a couple of holes in the wall for my heavy duty molly bolts. These things will each hold 75 pounds. This mirror isn't coming out of the wall.
Husband helped me hang the huge mirror and then went back to his spaceship game on the computer. For the smaller mirrors in my collection I used these curved drywall hook thingies.
I like them a lot. You just push them into the wall where you want them to be. Due to their curved shape they press against the backside of the wall and are perfectly good for hanging lightweight items like diplomas or family photos or small mirrors. They take all of 6 seconds to learn how to use. When they're in this is all you see.
I just eyed the placement because all the mirrors are different sizes, and in about four minutes, I had them all up in a neat little collage worthy of HGTV.
Now I just need to find the windex.
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