Mini-Me Lamp

Not during our last move, but while packing for our move before that, one of the frosted glass shades of my blue lamps broke.

It was one of these two blue lamps below, from a different post about lamps (yes, I do love my indoor lighting!):

We bumped the two tall lamps together and one of the shades broke. I actually kept using the lamp with the broken shade though. I figured that while it was in our bedroom, in a corner, the broken side could just be turned into the corner and nobody would be the wiser. And so it was, for the four years we lived at our last house.

However, once we moved to our current house, and I decided to move these lamps to the living room, my husband decided to inform me that my sneaky solution of hiding the broken part of the shade in the corner wasn't fooling tall people. I could never see it because I'm short, but apparently he's been able to see the broken shade the whole time, since he's tall enough to see over the top of the front of the shade!

Gee, thanks for finally telling me dude!

But luckily, we have a matching bedside table lamp that matches the two tall blue shaded lamps, and it just happens to have the exact same size of shade. So I switched out the broken shade, so we could have two tall lamps for our living room that wouldn't look all lame and broken to tall people.

(Yes, I still have the broken glass shade, currently living in a cabinet in our dining room. I'm hoping someday I magically come up with a way to fix it, although I'm doubtful. And yes, I also know this makes me a pack rat. No denial here!)

But then I still had the question of what to do with the shade-less bedside table lamp.

And during this last move, we also had another lamp casualty. One of our cheap-o IKEA lamps got the wires partially snapped near the top, where the light bulb screws in. You know the ones, these basic, college apartment staple, $7.99 lamps. We own like 5 or 6:

 

(Not the lamp's actual location, I just needed an empty wall for the pictures in this post!) 

Well, I'm sure you've already guessed, but I took the white plastic shade from the snapped wire lamp, and put it on the shade-less bedside table lamp, for a little baby version of the tall IKEA lamp!

I just think it's so cute, it's like a little mini-me lamp!

Ok, I know they aren't perfectly identical; the metal finish and shape is a little different. But I'm sticking to my opinion that it's adorable!

Now, if we could just stop breaking lamps every time we move, that would be great. But at least this little guy's new shade is a lot harder to break, and it can go on to live a happy life next to our bed again!

Does anyone else have a problem with breaking things while moving? And who else finds this little mini-me lamp adorable? IKEA should totally start selling these. For like $2.99! :)

I Love Lamp

Remember when I mentioned a while back that we have an ugly entry way light above our foyer, but we have to use it because we need more light in our living room?

No? Well, to refresh your memory, this is the ugly entry way light that we've been keeping on, because it shines into the living room, where we've got some lighting issues.

I won't bore you again with all the details of how difficult it was to come up with a furniture configuration in our living room, but basically, the cheap-o Ikea floor lamps (you know the ones, white plastic scoop top with silver base) were too big to place next to our former-entertainment-center-turned-corner-shelf-units, which was the only good place to put lights at that end of the room. So I stole our nicer and smaller blue ceramic shade Ikea lights from our bedroom.

I actually rather like the lights here, it's a little more interesting than just sticking lamps in the corners of the room (not that that was an option here), and they fit the blue and green color scheme. But man, how badly do I want to paint our walls a bright sage green, so there would be more contrast between our furniture and the walls!

Actually, while we're looking at this above picture, I'll call out a few things. Obvs the newspaper squares are just placeholders for future pictures. And I'm planning to paint the trim and top of my gecko aquarium white, so it will be a little less in-your-face, even though it's kinda in-your-face already, being in the living room. What can I say, I love my pets! Oh, also, I'm still trying to decide if I want to put the glass doors on the corner shelving units. I feel like when they were part of the entertainment center it gave off a really polished look (and with the frosted edges on the glass doors, it matches our glass top coffee table). But now that they're in the corners, I don't want the shelves to start looking like china cabinets, which I fear adding the glass doors might do. But without the glass doors, I think I need bigger decorative pieces on the shelves than I've got now. Yes, big problems I've got, haha!

So anyways, back to lamps. Lamps at the other side of the room , that is, now that we've covered this side of the room.

As I mentioned, everything was super dim on the other side of the living room, unless we had the ugly foyer light on. So on our trip to IKEA a few weeks back, I picked up a $20 lamp shade and a $3.99 lamp cord kit, and finally got around to putting it up!

And I'm a bad little blogger because I didn't take "before lamp" photos. But I'll simulate them with the lamp turned off, so you can see just how dim it was on the other side of our living room, with no new lamp, and with the ugly foyer light turned off.

(Gotta love the messy coffee table with glasses, chapstick, catnip, computer and other randomness. Sorry, cleaning for you guys would be way too much work!)

(See why I said I wanted to make new slipcovers? Store bought ones just always look sloppy since they're one size fits all)

And now, with the lamp on, it's so much brighter!

Hooray lamp! I really love the look of the lamp shade too (and the $20 price tag!). It's a subtle, neutral color, so doesn't draw too much unneeded attention to that corner (since really, a floor lamp would have been better, but there's no room for one behind the chairs, and I didn't have a 3rd matching blue lamp anyway).

Here's a closer look at the lamp:

Now, it can be a little awkward to have a wire coming down the wall when doing a hanging lamp, since we can't exactly drill into the ceiling in a rental. But I found a good way to at least attach the cord as close and straight as possible in the corner, with Command non-permanent hooks from the hardware store. I used the ones meant for Christmas lights, although apparently they make ones for bigger cords too, although I haven't found those in stores yet.

I just stuck the little hooks to the wall as far in the corner as possible, all the way down to the ground, let it sit for the recommended hour, then attached my lamp's cord to the hooks with small pieces of white twist ties.

This also worked great to transition the cord from the ceiling, over our crown moulding, to the wall.

Being in our living room with actually enough light at that end of the room makes me so happy! I really DO love lamp (I hope y'all get that movie reference)! And good riddence to the need for the ugly foyer light. Except when we're waiting for the pizza delivery guy, that is!

Is anyone else obsessed with brightly lit rooms? And how cool are those non-permanent wall hooks, have you tried those out yet? I'm planning on getting a bunch more for hanging pictures!