Ikea Chandelier Gets Retired

I’ve been able to get a lot of little things done around the house the last couple of months and one really big project. Just wait for the next post- ya’ll will be just as impressed as I was that they were finished. But first- the smaller things. Ugh- I know. The anticipation. Believe me, it'll be worth it.

Way back in 2011, I took a trip to Ikea with my girls and picked up quite a few things for the house, including this chandelier that I installed my laundry room.

You might remember that I had to alter it to fit the short ceiling in there. I needed to take it apart, remove half of it and put it back together again, which meant the top cap that goes to the ceiling was no longer functional with the light. So I had to improvise. In came the faux plaster medallions to cover up my problem. Horribly ugly but did the trick.

Well what I neglected to disclose was that the light was still a little too low even after all the hacking away I did with it. So much so that every time I walked in and out of the laundry room, I hit my head on it. Every time I pulled laundry out of the dryer and stood up, I hit my head on it.

See? I do not lie. And this is me barefoot.

While that might not have been that big of a deal to my noggin (even if it was only SLIGHTLY annoying)- it did start to pull the medallions slightly off the ceiling every time I did that because the light couldn’t be installed normally. It was no longer looking cute and more tragic as the days went on.

Finally after more than 5 years of smacking my head on the light, I did something about it. Rather unintentionally I might add. I most definitely was not out looking for a new light fixture when I happened to find these at Lowe’s.

I mean, how pretty right? Go in for a floor threshold, come out with two new lights. Story of my DIY life. And yes- there are two for a reason. Just keep reading.

I couldn’t wait to get that Ikea light down. I swear within 3 minutes of me getting home, unloading the car and turning off the power, the light was no longer there.

After quickly scouring the directions...

...up went the light. It was actually very easy to put together and hang. No joke, I had it up in about 10 minutes.

Check this out- no more head hitting!

And if you are wondering where the other one went….. cheers to having one of the last original two lights in the house gone. Here is the old pantry light

Ummmm ew. Here is the new one. So much better.

And for an extra small project that was completed. File this under pure convenience. It’s not pretty. It’s functional.

During the same trip to Lowe’s, one thing I actually did stop there to get was something to put my garage trash bags on. I was sick of pulling them out of a dark box- who knew what kind of wildlife was living in there and I am not caught up on my rabies shot. Every time I needed a new bag, I cringed knowing I’d need to stick my hand inside. Plus now that a certain someone has been taking bins of bricks out of my garage, where I used to store the boxes will be going away soon. It’s time to clean up this hot mess of a garage people.

Well I had an idea in my head, it was actually executing it that would be the problem. I went in search of a dowel and brackets to hang the rolls of bags from the wall. Finding the dowel was easy, the brackets- not so much.

No luck searching the hardware section. Not a single bracket looked like what I wanted. Ugh. Finally, the lightbulb went off- “Curtain rods!!” So off I went where I found these puppies. EXACTLY what I was looking for.

Since the trash can sits almost right in front of my circuit breaker, I had to install them a little to the left, while also making sure they were screwed directly into a stud.