Time traveling

This weekend we took a trip back in time. First, to go here and see these:

 

  

Look at this detail!

  

  

Beautiful art deco light fixture, and those old newel posts were gorgeous.

This was a bit out of place in a room full of old- really really old- stuff

  

But I'll forgive.

Birdie had endless fun with the clawfoot tubs:

In the end, we came away with this

and this

I'm especially fond of the detailing:

So what is it?

Well, remember this project?

It's the cap for our new newel post!

It will look similar to this when we're done:

(this one is from LumberJocks)

Needless to say, we're SUPER excited to get moving on this.

****

So if you've read About the Nest, you know that our house was the first built on the block in 1908. Through the years (and owners) ALL of the original details that made this house so unique were stripped away. What wasn't stripped away was covered up or replaced when it became a Section 8 rental nearly 8 years ago. We've dreamed of putting in period lighting, but always thought it was unaffordable.

That was before seeing A Penny Saved's amazing $9 schoolhouse light fixture post. We were inspired- to say the least. We decided to give it a whirl for our hallway, builder's grade, brassy light fixture replacement. This is what Mr. Nest came up with:

(I flipped the picture upside down to give it full hanging effect)

This is our $14 schoolhouse-knockoff light ($10 globe from ReStore + $4 white flush ceiling mount + oil rubbed bronze spray paint (free since we already had it) = $14!) . What do you think? Does it look turn-of-the-century enough?

We plan to install it tonight, so I'll have better before/after pictures to come.

We will definitely be going back to ReStore again in the coming weeks. Not only does she negotiate prices, but when we went to pay for our items she took additional money off because they'd been "sitting around awhile." Can't beat that with a stick! We need to take measurements before we go back again. They have the most beautiful original period doors that will work very nicely for the projects we have in store. 

But we have to be ready to buy or they'll be gone before you go back for them. That mirror in the first picture? I loved it. For $50 (plus whatever she would've taken off at checkout), it was solid walnut and beautiful. Perfect for any number of rooms in our Nest. But in the 20 minutes between deciding I wanted it and going back to get it, someone else snagged it and was paying for it. Boo. Oh well- lesson learned!

It was a very busy weekend FULL of projects. I'm going to spread them out over the week. Here's the menu in no certain order:

-  installation of new schoolhouse light fixture

- a new Spring-y fleece vest for Birdie

- 2 dresser refreshers

- a side table refresher

- new paint picked for the Living Room

- redoing that pathetic strap for the diaper bag

- fixing my silly flower pillows in the Living Room

Whew! That's a long list. Guess I'll be busy for a little while.

Linked to