Tweak of the Week

When we last left our kitchen, it was looking pretty bright, fresh, and very close to my mental image of its full potential.

The original intention of our pendant lights was for them to act as task lighting for our peninsula, but now that we have the can lights, the room is pretty evenly flooded with bright, useful light. That's when it occurred to me that our pendants could stay, but could act more as accents to the room rather than work lights.

I have been pinning kitchens for years that have caught my eye. Something I hadn't noticed till recently was what they had in common: their pendants were mostly clear, globe shades with exposed bulbs. Here is a perfect example from Southern Living.

I looked up a couple of these lights and found that they were completely out of our price range (especially since we already had working lights there). $100 each? Heck no. West Elm can keep 'em.

It was time for a little DIY.

I decided that this was certainly something I could tackle on my own. I researched glass cutting on Pinterest and found many tutorials on how to cut holes in glass. The issue I ran across was that the hole that they would show being cut was kind of small. They were able to use a large bit and do a single cut. I had to make a hole large enough to feed in the part that sandwiches the shade which was much larger.

I looked at large diamond tipped bits (for glass cutting) at Home Depot and Lowes. The smallest one they had was $20...for one bit. After I was able to recover from the shock, I regained my senses...and headed to Harbor Freight.

Anyone who frequently DIYs knows that Harbor Freight is the best.

I wasn't able to find any drill bits there, but I was able to get a multi bit diamond tip set for my Dremel for around $7. Score.

I also grabbed two $6 fishbowls from Michaels and a can of Metallic Silver Rustoleum spray paint from Home Depot. All in all, the project probably cost us $20 in all.

I began by covering my fishbowls in painter's tape. This would help give the bit purchase when I first got started. It also kept it from hitting the glass if the Dremel jumped while I was cutting. I then cut a circle the size of the hole I needed (using the old lampshade as a template) and cut it out. I placed it on the painters tape, lined it up with the center of the flat part (which I had marked on the tape earlier), and drew around the edges with a permanent marker.

When the template was removed, it looked like this.

Next, I took it out to the garage where I had created a little work station on the workbench. This included water (in a spray bottle or cup), my Dremel, my bits, a lights, and an old towel. The towel is nice because it both soaks up the old water and keeps the fishbowl from getting scratched up by any small glass bits or the table itself.

And always remember. Safety! There will be bits of flying glass and glass powder, so I absolutely recommend safety glasses.

University of Kentucky College of Fine Arts hoodie and/or degree is not required.

I also had my hair back to keep it away from the Dremel's Spinning Bit of Hair Pulling. In other words, I don't recommend doing this wearing a three piece suit.

Maybe with a bowtie. Bowtie's are cool.

Anyway.

I began by pouring some water over my tape. The water will keep the bit from overheating against the glass, so be sure to frequently re-wet your working area. Then I began by essentially drawing the circle in with my bit.

After this step is done, the rest is actually pretty easy. I just kept repeating the circle. Over and over.

It takes a little pressure, but by no means do you need to get stabby with this project. Remember to keep the surface wet and just stay with it. The bit does most of the work.

Eventually you'll break through to the other side. The bottom of the bowl is going to be thicker than the glass around the sides, so this project is actually a lot easier than it looks. When you break through, you can use the side of your bit to continue cutting through.

  

Once you get most of the way around, you can either continue till it naturally breaks from the vibration of the Dremel, or you can use LIGHT PRESSURE to press on the circle and let it break on your own terms. Once the circular chunk of glass is gone, you can clean up your edges with the side of your Dremel bit.

I would go back and forth making sure that the fitting in the light would fit in the hole. When I was done, I removed the painters tape and used an old sponge (remember, glass bits everywhere) and some dish soap to clean it up.

Here is a side by side with our old shades.

Mmmmm. So good.

I repeated this process exactly for the other bowl. The entire process for one shade takes about 30 or 40 minutes.

While I had originally gotten white pendant bases, I felt that silver would really help these stand out a little better. I had issues removing the bases from the ceiling, so I just painted them while they were up. I have never done a makeshift spray booth before, but it wasn't as intimidating as I thought it would be. I actually just used some printer paper and taped it around the ceiling portion. The "walls" were made with a 99 cent drop cloth from Home Depot. The bases were primed, then painted in the Metallic Silver.

Once they were sprayed, had dried, and were put back together, I was finally able to do some final assembly. This included replacing the bulbs with a couple Edison bulbs to really add interest. We wouldn't have done this before because they cast a much more yellow light, but as an accent, the Edison's are so fun. They are actually dimmable, too, which is nice because we already had a dimmer switch installed.

When they were all together, they really made the space feel magazine-y. It feels very high end, but obviously not at a high price.

Here's the finished product!

Making these glass globes really made me feel like I can tackle so many more projects that might involve glass in the future. What do you think? Would this little guide help you feel more comfortable cutting glass for your own craft needs? I hope so! 

Lighten Up

To finish out our Tax Return series, we figured we would share our latest endeavour.

And guess what...it's in two parts!

Part one: Making our Kitchen Glow

Ever since the cabinets have been finished in our kitchen, we knew that they wouldn't look bright and clean without new lighting. As it was, the only light that the kitchen came with was in the center of the ceiling, directional (which meant it was horrible for task lighting), and looked like it was about to burn down our new abode.

OBSERVE:

 Referred to as "Death from Above" more than once.

It was obvious that it needed to go.

I had been thinking about it for a while. I considered possibly putting in a flush mount ceiling fan with a light, but wasn't sure that was going to give us the light we needed for cooking. I also considered just replacing this centered fixture with yet another centered fixture, but our kitchen is pretty wide, and this really suffered when it came to the corners.

One day while flipping through Pinterest, it slapped me in the face. All of the kitchens that I tended to pin either had large windows to the outside (which would be impossible for us), or had canned lights in the ceiling. After playing around with it in my mind for a while, I really became attached to the idea.

We purchased four lights (actually, two packs of four) from Lowes on sale for $29.99. They are 6" can light inserts in a medium warm light.

 I was also instructed by David (of Over on Dover) which in-ceiling mounts to purchase. They looked like this (one for each light).

After roughly marking the spots that we wanted them mounted, we ventured into the attic and started some recon. We knew that we would need to move insulation and boards out of the way to install the lights, so Scott cleared between both of the sets of studs we were near, just to be safe.

Welcome to our attic! It had the Christmas lights when we moved in. It's actually kind of nice up there, except for the horrible heat.

It was a little tricky getting to the lights located above the fridge and microwave because they were closest to the original outside edge of the house. They were practically where the rafters met the ceiling/addition.

After we had prepped from above, we returned down below to begin drilling holes to allow us to find where the lights would go from the attic. This also helped us make sure that we had enough of the insulation out of the way for the installation.

To do this, we bought the longest drill bit I've ever seen. It is almost hilariously long, but we knew it would poke up through the attic floor, allowing us to see it.

Badass.

Here is one of the holes we drilled. I would drill up till Scott said stop, then he would make sure that the area was clear of debris and we would move to the next one. We did this for all four lights.

The hole from the bottom

The hole from the attic

After the lights were marked and drilled, we began actually cutting the holes for the light mounts themselves. We thought that this would be the easiest part of the process. We were slightly incorrect.

David brought over this really cool circle cutter that is actually made for this job. It mounts to your drill and it uses two sharp blades to cut circles till your cut comes free. The first time, it worked, but it began to slow halfway through the ceiling.

The second time, it didn't even make it all the way through. Oh, and it began throwing sparks (for video of the sparks, see our Facebook page! It's pretty awesome!). We ended up using it to mark the circle we needed, then cutting it with a drywall saw.

Turns out, our ceiling wasn't drywall. It was a mix of drywall and plaster, possibly with some cement (not kidding), making a cross section look like a Dagwood sandwich.

Hold the mayo.

This also explains why the hole cutter ended up looking like this.

The points are supposed to still be pointed, not flat.

Oops.

We did finish cutting the holes, though. It was a weird feeling, having a view of the attic from the kitchen.

David then proceeded in installing the ceiling mounts. They are mounted by inserting them from below, then pushing them up through the pre-drilled hole.

This part is then held in by pushing tabs from the inside of the light, out. Tension is used to keep them in place.

Here are a couple of just the mounts installed.

Once all of the holes were cut and the mounts were installed, we could finally take down the center light.

Before: Minus two installed can mounts.

After: With five open holes to the attic.

The hole in the center was patched with a square mesh sticker and some putty. It doesn't quite match, but we knew that painting this ceiling was probably going to be on the docket at some point. At least the hole is closed and less of a spider entry now.

The lights themselves were inserted from below and are held in by tension wires. They took about a minutes to install. Even off, they made everything feel so finished.

When it was all done, it was an amazing change.

Scott had a whole different perspective of this project, but we decided that this post was running a bit long. He'll come back with information on how he and David actually wired everything in from the attic portion of this install in another post. Till then, look forward to Part 2: The Accent Enlightening!

Stumped

This is the story of a stump. This stump has lived in our backyard since we moved in. It has made mowing tricky and I considered it to be an eye sore. Our weather the last week has been beautiful, so I decided to clean up the backyard a bit. While doing so, it occurred to me that it was time for the stump to go.

All pictures from my phone. Sorry for quality.

I grabbed our little electric 14 in. chain saw and just started cutting (with appropriate eye, hand, and foot protection, of course). I cut as close to the ground as I possibly could to allow the mower to run above it without hitting the blade.

Due to the lack of gas power to my weapon of choice, the cutting process did take a while. I cut all the way around, making sure to catch it at angles that would allow the chainsaw to really dig into it. About 20-30 minutes later, I was able to knock it over with my hand.

Once it was down, I remembered that I had seen a natural way to help the rot process take out the remaining small stump and root system. It looked so easy, I decided to try it out.

As you can see above, I started by drilling multiple holes about an inch or so apart randomly over the whole remaining stump. Instructions then told me to follow up by rubbing pure Espom Salt into the holes and watering it just enough to help moisten the wood to allow the salt to do its work. Apparently Epsom Salt is good for gardens because it works as a fertilizer. Good to know!

You can see the white holes on the right that have already been filled with the salt. I just rubbed it in with my hand.

That was it! Hopefully in the next month we will start to see some rot progress. I figured this would be a fun "try it and follow up" post, so about a month from now, I'll let you know how it's going!