Lindsay Ballard, Author at Makely

As soon as the Nester announced her Lampapalooza Party, I knew I was game. For starters, I needed to update a few of my lamps and this was a good way for me to move them to the top of my growing To Do list. Also, I’m a sucker for anything ending in -palooza or -a-rama, so she totally knew how to draw me in.

For the -Palooza, I thought it would be fun to give you a little tour of my home by way of some of my lamps and lighting. I’m not very creative when it comes to lamps and refuse to spend much money on them at all. I’ve always really thought of lighting them more as a necessity than as a piece of decor, but I’ve recently started to rethink that attitude. You’ll see what I mean.

When you walk in my front door, you will see my dining room on the left.

This chandelier was installed by the builder, but they left it with bare light bulbs. After the ugliness of it blinded me for about 6 months, my mother suggested that I buy the little lamp shades that just clip onto the bulbs. Always listen to your mothers, people. They know what they are talking about. Those little shades made a world of difference.

If you continue walking down my entry way, you will pass the kitchen on your left (where DH has finally agreed to let me replace some of the can lighting with a chandelier! SQUEAL!!) and walk into my living room. This room has an extraordinary amount of natural light, given the SIX windows (again, SQUEAL!!), so we only have two lamps. One of them used to be HIDEOUS, but I replaced the shade that made me want to gouge my eyes out with this drum shade a while back and it was a nice change.

I added a chunky gold tassel to it and called it a day.

Then, the gal-who-can’t-leave-things-alone got the better of me and added some ribbon that coordinates with my window treatment.

Love it? Hate it? I can’t decide. What do you think? I really does coordinate much better than it looks like it does in the photo. The ribbon is just hot glued on (duh, of course it is!), so I can remove it if the Internet decides that is is ugly. I won’t be offended if you hate it, because I might think it’s ugly myself.

Anyway, to the left of my living room is the breakfast room, where we have another Bald Bulb Builder’s Beauty enhanced by some $2 shades.

Side bar: I’m going to pause the tour real quick to show you the bargains I bought yesterday at Wal-Mart.

The ugly green lamps were $3 each (with shades!), marked down from $10. It was cheaper for me to buy the two lamps for their shades than it would have been to buy new shades for my bedroom lamps (that you will see next). Crazy, huh? The buffet lamp was only $5. I think it was originally part of a pair that had been separated (broken? stolen?), and the pair was supposed to be $25. I did pay $10 for the large shade, but you’ll see in a bit how I made it beautiful.

Okay, back to the tour. In the bedroom, we have a pair of lamps on our nightstands that have been through a series of transformations. They began as $7 brass thrift store lamps.

They were spray painted white and held shades that were much too large and didn’t quite fit the base, so they never sat straight.

I tried to make them more interesting by covering them with the same toile fabric used on my headboard, but they were so awful that I couldn’t even finish adding the trim.

And now, they hold the white shades from the cheap Walmart lamps and sport little tassels I made from leftover window treatment trim and cabinet knobs. I think they finally found their look.

We even have a lamp in our master bath. I mean, wasn’t this odd little ledge between our vanities just screaming for a buffet lamp?

Now, it’s time to head upstairs. At the top of the stairs is my son’s playroom that I’ve talked about ~~a million times~~ here, here, and here. I added some trim to the cheap Wal-Mart buffet lamp and lamp shade, and I’m happy with the results. It totally reminds me of a grass skirt.

Our last stop in my little home tour is my sewing/crafting/everything room. It’s a bit messy, but I simply can’t be artistic in a perfectly clean space. Yeah, that’s it. That’s why it’s messy.

One of the first things we did when we closed on this house was to go to Ikea and get this chandelier to install in this room. Tom hung it up for me that night. 🙂 I love how the crystals catch the light.

And on my large crafting table, you will find my Pièce de résistance, my most favorite lamp of all – my vintage white hobnail milk glass lamp. I found at Goodwill for $5. L.O.V.E. I.T. You may think it’s ugly, but that would just mean that you are wrong.

Step back! Don’t touch! ::smacks your hand:: No, you can’t have it. I will guard it with my life!

Thanks for joining me on my little lamp tour. Do you have tons of lamps? What do you look for when adding new lighting to your home? And don’t forget to let me know what you think about the ribbon on the shade in my living room. Something tells me I’ll be removing some ribbon tonight.

P.S. Love lamps and need a new beauty in your life? Visit Imparting Grace and enter her Lamp Giveaway! It’s a cutie!

As much as I love the thrill of hunting for a great bargain at a thrift store, sometimes it’s just easier to buy something ready-made at a discount or department store. It’s very easy to embellish simple store bought designs to bring a custom-made feel to your home.

Take, for example, this window treatment I put together for my son’s playroom:

Although it looks lavish, it was very inexpensive and simple to put together. The combination of several layers of draperies, combined with added coordinating trims, kicks what would have been a very boring window treatment up to the next level.

To recreate this treatment, you will need three curtain rods: a spring-loaded tension rod, a single conventional rod, and a decorative rod. The decorative rod will need to have a longer return (i.e. the length the brackets hold the rod away from the wall) than the conventional rod. My decorative rod had a return of about 1/2 inch longer than my conventional rod.

Another view of the three rods:

My tension and conventional rods cost just a few dollars each at Big Lots. The decorative rod I had leftover from a window treatment in our old house, but they can be purchased anywhere from Wal-Mart and Target to JCPenney and Goodwill.

Using the tension rod, I hung three white sheers inside the window. The sheers were $5 a panel at Big Lots (Notice a theme here? Big Lots is a GREAT place to buy basics like this.). I used the chart on the back of the curtain package to figure out how many sheers I needed to hang according to the width of my window. I thought I could get by with two since the measurements were close, but ended up having to go back to the store to pick up another one. I swear, this type of thing happens to me with every project.

Next, I hung the conventional rod about 3 or 4 inches higher than my window and about 6 inches wider than my window on each side. I purchased a set of solid black tab top curtain panels at Target, although you can choose rod pocket panels if you would like. I measured from the top of my conventional rod down to the floor (plus about 4 inches, since I like my panels to ‘pool’ on the floor), and divided the length into thirds. I added some striped fabric to the bottom of the black panels and cut off the excess black fabric (and saved it to use for another project). I hemmed the edges and the bottom of the striped fabric and sewed a strip of jumbo ric rac across the seam where I joined the two pieces. I sewed the seams on my machine, but you could definitely just glue gun this all together if you were so inclined.

I also added a layer of lining to the black panels because I really hate the way it looks when the sun shines through dark fabric. Yes, I know I’m a bit crazy.

To fully cover the window with the black panels, I would have needed more than two of them. However, I only wanted to layer them over the sheers as static panels, not sue them as actual window coverings. If I ever wanted to, I could close the black panels, but they wouldn’t be as full as they should be.

Next, I sewed the tab top valence to hang on the decorative rod out of some fun dinosaur fabric my son picked out. Your valence should be as long as 1 1/2 times the width of your window. You can create your own with a glue gun using a fabric you love with these directions, or you can purchase ready-made valences and join them together with pins, a glue gun, or a sewing machine. If you make your own valences, remember that the tabs are usually spaced about 8 inches apart with a two inch drop. The window treatment police aren’t going to arrest you if you don’t do it that way, but at least keep them all spaced the same distance apart as it will make it easier to work with.

After sewing (or glue gunning) some cute trim to the bottom of your valence, hang it on your decorative rod as high as you can. I also hung mine a little wider than the conventional rod I used to hang my black panels. Center your valence on the rod, letting the “extra” fabric hang off the ends.

You can “fluff” the hanging fabric using these instructions, but it should pretty much hang naturally.

For my curtains, I didn’t want to leave the valence just hanging straight across the window, because I thought it made it look too boxy. I pinned and fluffed the valence for a few days before I settled on this solution. I pinned a piece of trim to the top back of the valence, ran the length of trim over the top, down the front, under the bottom of the valence, and pinned that piece back up to the top. I pulled the trim up enough to make a nice little gather on the center of my valence. Think of your trim as a little pulley system and this may make a tiny bit of sense.

From the front of the valence, I folded the bottom half in little accordion folds until it laid nicely on the trim. I wanted it to look like the trim was actually pulling the valence up in the center, so I pinned it from the back a few times to make sure the it all hung right. It takes some time to get it looking just right, but it’s definitely worth the time spent “fluffing.”

Now, you’ll have a completely custom-looking window treatment made from mostly store-bought panels. Don’t you love that? A little fluffing, some added trim, and hanging several cheap rods helps to upgrade a boring window treatment to something much more exciting.

Please let me know if you have any questions on how to put any piece of this together. This is certainly one you can do in your own home! This style is perfect for both casual and formal rooms – just choose a nicer fabric for the formal window treatments.

Oh, and the random shoe behind my sheers that you totally think I hid there to get it off my floor when I was taking pictures? That’s Wall-E’s Growing Shoe, of course.

Let There Be Light

Upgrade Your Store-Bought Window Treatments