Reader Haley just wrote to let me know that she used my tips on covering your old lampshades with graphic wallpaper. Check out those gorgeous results!
You can view my video on lamp refurbishing in its entirety here.
Reader Haley just wrote to let me know that she used my tips on covering your old lampshades with graphic wallpaper. Check out those gorgeous results!
You can view my video on lamp refurbishing in its entirety here.
Remember back in 2009, when I decided that I was the kind of person who should write a website about cooking, DIY, and home decor, and that it should be called “Domestic Bliss”?
Yeah, I have no idea what I was thinking either – other than, perhaps, “fake it ’til you make it” – because for the first few years, “faking it” is exactly what I did. At the time, my idea of a homemade meal was store-bought pasta with jarred tomato sauce (to which I’d added onions and mushrooms – you know, to make it fancy), and was wildly impressed with myself for completing “DIYs” such as…swapping out drawer pulls. Putting up a sticker decal was a feat worthy of a full video tutorial (OMG WE WERE BABIES), and I thought that my idea of using teacups to serve soup during parties was the height of inspired entertaining.
I still think that serving soup in teacups is pretty neat, but a lot has changed since the halcyon days of wallpaper-wrapped lampshades and green chalkboard refrigerators. I’m still no Ty Pennington, but after renovating two homes and working on a home construction and design show, I now know about 20,000 times more than I ever thought I’d know about all things DIY. Below are ten of my all-time favorite projects, all of which I promise you are more than capable of taking on yourself.
My friend Stephen (whom you might remember as the guy who taught me this awesome lampshade refurbish trick using graphic wallpaper fragments) just gave me the heads-up that craftsman-with-a-cult-following John Derian is launching an exclusive sale of framed prints inspired by 18th-century French wallpaper patterns on One Kings Lane today. Gorgeous stuff starting at just $99.
The sale launches at 11AM EST, and goes for 72 hours. Check it out here.
Friday evening’s table setting, with lavender roses courtesy of Kendrick in a Vera Wang vase that Parisa and Tim gave us when we got married, Z Gallerie bamboo placemats that I bought years ago in California, and our wedding-registry Kate Spade china. I kept the settings simple - no chargers, no side plates, not even any knives or spoons, because they weren’t needed for this meal - and used paper napkins. For a casual dinner at home, less is more.
I know the air conditioner isn’t pretty, but I tried to cover it - yeah, I know it didn’t really work - with my refurbished lamp. Also, in this picture you can see that I deliberately matched the lamp’s base to my candlesticks - a detail that I am excessively proud of.