Studio Update: Lighting, Storage and Details

After a couple weeks of wondering if Dave’s camera was lost (it was found stored neatly on the shelf) I’ve now got lots of studio rehab photos to catch up on, so I’m splitting them into two posts. This one is mainly kitchen curtains, lighting, and storage. Next up will be the faux finished window casings, living area paint, and some living room furnishings, yay! I should have some new artwork up in the next week or so also.

The curtain rod is the aforementioned fire fighter’s tool found in my basement, mounted on bronzish iron brackets I had lying around. I bought the large rings for a discount on Ebay, but you can find them at decorating stores, and added little clips to hold the curtain. The curtain itself is a lace table cloth that I picked up who-knows-where ages ago. It’s a bit stained from use, and looks much prettier as a curtain at this point than a table cloth…

Also, I’ve finally started on lighting! The plain jane overhead ceiling fixtures were pretty terrible, and it was too dark in the kitchen to see much, so we replaced the kitchen fixture with a huge paper lantern hung at a lower height, and used three smaller paper lanterns to create a complimentary “chandelier” over the table.

Always daunted by ugly cord mess, I hate installing lighting, but Dave helped me and between the two of us we managed to conceal most of the cords behind walls, and make the remaining ones looks interesting at least. To neaten the three cords forming the “chandelier,” I looped them around a wooden hanger hung from the ceiling, then braided the cords together before swagging over to the wall. All three lights now operate from one cord switch hiding discretely under the table.

Below is my storage area on the wall leading to the bathroom. The gray shelf with multiple compartments was “reclaimed” from my basement. It has lettering on it indicating that it was once used to organize bike tags? The small compartments have been working well to organize towels, linens, and other small household items. The other more open shelf was also “reclaimed,” er, from Dave’s garage. The large box on top, purchased for $8 at an antique mall, has a nice large upper storage area for tall bottles of things like hairspray, which never seem to fit anywhere, and a compartmentalized lower area which I can use for cosmetics. I found the galvanized metal bins in perfect condition at a thrift store.