Thin Brick, Faux Brick, Half Brick, whatever they call it in your neck of the woods, brick veneer installed on a interior wall it can look like a million bucks. This post is a step by step guide on how to install a faux brick wall inside your home.

Everyone Loves a Brick Wall

Our house is a builder basic beige box in Utah, very far from the urban loft vibe that I want in my heart. Once I decided to capture my inner New Yorker it was time for a makeover. The very obvious first step in turning the living room into a loft was a brick wall.

(Just a reminder, this is what we started with)

Where To Buy Brick Veneer

I bought my brick veneer from a local mason (the same amazing guys that we used at the restaurant). I paid $5.00+ per sq/ft. because I took all of their remnants. (The original plan was to paint it but I sort of loved it how it was!) You can also buy it at Home Depot but I would definitely check out local shops first! There are also companies that sell whole wall systems that include metal tracks and brackets. We’re on a budget over here so we’re doing it the full DIY route!

Supplies You’ll Need:

• Brick Veneer
• OmniGrip Mastic (you can find this at Home Depot)
• Trowel
• Laser Level (see other suggestions below!)
• Marker

How To Install A Faux Brick Wall

I found a lot of conflicting info online about how to actually install brick veneer over dry wall. Some online sources recommend installing concrete backer board, or metal lath to your drywall before you put the brick on. Others said that it was totally fine to install it directly to the drywall if you are using the right kind of thinset. So I decided to ask the experts actually in my life (that do this day in and day out) what they thought. They said that installing directly to the drywall is the way that they do it, and have done it for the last 25+ years. So that is what I did.

Continue reading to see the debate resolution!

Step 1: Clean Your Drywall

Because we decided to install the brick directly over drywall, the first thing that we did was clean the wall really well. Make sure that all of the dust is off the wall and wipe everything down with a slightly damp rag. If you are dealing with grease and/or grime you’ll want to use something more heavy duty like TSP to get all of the oils off.

Step 2: Draw Level Lines on Your Wall

You can use a chalk line, a laser level, or (if you are lucky like me!) you might already have lines on it! You can see the tutorial for our faux wallpaper here!  The look that we were going for was a little imperfect, having such a large space between the level lines worked out so well  (That way I’d have something to recheck everything on every 4 rows or so, but it isn’t row by row perfection.)

Step 3: Spread A Thin Layer of Mastic on the Wall

Like I mentioned earlier, using the right product for the job is CRITICAL. We used OmniGrip (you can order it on Prime or pick it up in person at The Home Depot)  Its is a spreadable mastic and it worked so so well.

When you are ready with your lines, the first step is to spread a thin layer of OmniGrip all over your wall and let it dry. This will give the adhesive that you are putting on the brick something to grab to so your bricks aren’t sliding all over the place. Don’t skip this step!

Step 4: Spread Mastic On The Backside of Your Brick and Place

When you are spreading adhesive to the back of your brick veneer, you want a good thick layer. Like a perfectly frosted sugar cookie for those of us that love frosting.

Then, once you have the entire brick covered, use your trowel to scrape out a line in the center. This creates a suction cup when you are sticking the brick to the wall.

Press it down firmly. You’ll get the hang of the entire process really quickly.

How To Space The Bricks

The best way to work is to start at the bottom and work up in a medium sized section. I didn’t want the brick to be perfectly spaced, so I just used my finger to check the spacing. In the picture below you can see a piece of wood that is the new baseboard. We used this to figure out the spacing from the floor. If you want your bricks to be perfectly spaced you can use tile spacers.

It took about a day and 1/2 to get to this point (with 2 people buttering the bricks and 1 placing them).

Brick Patterns Above Windows and Doorways

When we started working on the second wall I decided that I wanted the brick Soldier style above the windows. Soldier style is when the brick stands in a uniform vertical line.

Which meant that we needed to change the brick above the doorway that had already been installed. Lets go back to the installation debate. The conflicting info on the internets say installing veneer to drywall is a bad idea because you are essentially only adhering the heavy wall to paper.

That sounds absolutely HORRIFYING right?

But. There is not a doubt in my mind that installing it directly over drywall is a great option. Check out the brick that we pulled to change the style above the doorway.

That is the paper from the OTHER SIDE of the sheetrock.

Crazy right?

Cutting Faux Brick Veneer

To finish off the rows along the windows and doorway we tried a few different techniques.

Using a Brick Hammer

The first (pictured on the left) was using a brick hammer. Which is basically a hammer with a chisel on one side. On a scale of 1-10 I would rate this technique around a 5. If you are going for rough imperfect edges it is great, but if the edges along the doorway are the only places that the brick is broken it looks a little weird. And it is hard to break the piece in an exact size.

Using a Tile Saw

The next technique (on the right) that we used was a wet tile saw and it worked SO well. It was easy to control the cuts and worked especially well for the long cuts along the ceiling. This is what we ended up using and I HIGHLY recommend it.

Now that your faux brick is installed, its time to grout and finish it off! Check out Part 2 of this tutorial here!

The post Faux Brick Veneer Wall appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Shelves. They are one of those critical design elements in every space. I mean, there are just so many things to put on them! Right!? When I was working out the design for my living room and entryway, I knew pretty quickly that I wanted shelves in the entryway full of plants.

The original idea was to put the shelves on the wall that you see right when you walk in the door. But when we got a few installed it just made the walk space too tight. I knew it was going to be tight, I just needed to see it for myself. Being stubborn is one of my best qualities. Sometimes.

The obvious move was to bump them to the other wall in the entryway. Because plants. And also no one would hit their head. So its a win win!

Lets chat about the shelves themselves. Have you seen these ones that Anthro used to sell? Gorgeous. Amazing. Unavailable (and expensive). Just a few ingredients in the recipe for a perfect DIY project.

The hardest part for this project was tracking down the copper sheeting. Hello. If you give me a measurement thickness that means like nothing. Do you know what 3/342 of an inch is??! Cause I sure don’t.

After a fair bit of research I came across Basic Copper. They are flipping geniuses. On their site, they have a thickness guide with videos so that you can actually see what the copper looks like, how it bends, and how it cuts. I ended up buying a roll that was 24” wide x 20’ feet long and the copper was 5 Mil thick. I overestimated on how much I would need and was originally planning on making 5 shelves (it would have been the perfect amount for 5) and I am super glad that I did. #learningcurve

The first thing that you are going to do is construct the actual floating shelf. I used 1×2” sandwiched between 1/2” MDF that was cut 10”x36”  Use wood glue (I love Titebond III) and screws to hold everything together. I laid the 1×2’s so that the long side was against the MDF.

The next step is to build the inner support. It has to be able to fit in the hole that you created in the back of your shelf, so you will use 1×2” for that too.

Measure the length of your opening (it will be about 4” shorter than the length of your board) then attach 3 boards that will run the width of your shelf. This helps support and stabilize it.

When your shelves are built its time to wrap them in copper!

Just a word of advice, you will 10000% want to use gloves while you are handling this because it will cut you faster than you can say your favorite cuss.

Measure the distance from the back of your shelf, all the way around the front and onto the back of the other side, and trim your copper. Leave just a small overhang on the sides, they don’t need to completely cover the space because we are putting a trim piece on the front. Try really hard to shape around the corners as you go.

Then you are going to use a staple gun to attach it. You might need to lower the pressure if you are using a pneumatic gun so that the staple doesn’t go all the way through the sheeting.

If the length of your shelf is longer than the width of the copper roll you can do what I did. Put one piece on, and then on the second piece fold the edge over before you attach it. That will give you a finished edge for your seam.

Now for the trim piece. Measure the height of your shelf and add 1/4”. Use a straight edge, a fabric cutting guide is PERFECT for this project and measure so you have 1/8” poking out. Carefully fold along the edge.

Then place your straight edge on top of the fold and tap it down flat with a hammer.

You can find teeny copper nails at Home Depot. I used 1 package for each shelf. Space them about 3/4” apart.

When its time to mount your shelf, use a stud finder and secure your brace piece onto the wall.

Then slide your shelf on.

Attach the shelves with finishing nails or screws.

Shop my favorite planters below and check out the other tutorials in this series here!

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You guys!! The cactus sketch art is in the shop! I am massively excited (if you couldn’t tell by the fact that I have used 5 exclamation points already.)

I wanted all of the art in the living room to be big and bright, so simple sketches were just what the DIY Dr. ordered. Luckily for all of us, Jamie is a brilliant artist and totally gets the vibe I was looking for.

These adorable prints come black and white, but if you want to liven them up a bit (like I did) all you need is a little bit of watercolor.

We had the art printed at Alphagraphics blue print style (I love the St. George store!!). Which means that its on normal printer paper and SUPER inexpensive, like around $1. The only reason that we did this is because we had an extremely fast turnaround. Getting it printed on heavy weight cardstock is always a good idea, just a heads up that they will need at least 24 hours to get it done.

The watercolor is the easiest/most stressful part of this entire situation, because you don’t want to royally screw it up. My advice is to practice a few times before you commit. We mounted our prints before we watercolored and it left some bubbling on one (I must have used more water) so I would say to watercolor first and let it dry completely before you mount it.

The next step is to take everything out of the Ikea frame, and cut a piece of foam core posterboard to fit. Then mount the prints by spraying spray adhesive on the back of them and positioning it on the foam core (this is a 2 person job!)

Can you even imagine all of the cute ways that these little guys can be used? I am dying to see what you come up with!!

So, for this weekend only they are on sale in the Vintage Revivals Shop for $4.00. Four dollars people! The price is going up on Monday so you might want to head over before then (unless you are good with paying more, which wont hurt my feelings). You can grab 1, 2, or the entire collection of 8! The files are huge, so you can print them as large (or small) as you want, basically the world is your cactus oyster right now.

Hope you have an amazing Easter weekend with those you love! See you next week!

The post Cactus Sketch Art (On SALE!!) appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Growing up my best friends dad had an upholstery shop in their garage. MAN what I wouldn’t give to be able to go back in time and actually pay attention to what he was doing! On one particular occasion I remember asking why someone would one have an old couch reupholstered (because at that point in my life I couldn’t fathom that someone wouldn’t want something new from RC Willey). His response was “Because they like it so much they would pay for it again.”

For months I hunted for the perfect slouchy retro couch and came up short. I even enlisted the help of a professional furniture hunter (@domfasano he is in Phoenix and always finds the most amazing things!) but pickins were scarce and the reality is that it wasn’t going to be cheap. I was 87% convinced that I was going to have to make a couch. That was a daunting situation given the time frame that I had to turn the living room around in.

That is when I stumbled upon the black couch. I found it on KSL (a online classified in Utah) for $150. It was about 4 hours away but I was headed up north anyway so it wasn’t a big deal to take the truck instead of my car.

I was holding out the best kind of hope that it would be perfection, that not a thing would need to be done to it.

I was wrong.

The black naugahyde was bad. Real bad.

But the shape was so great. It was exactly what I wanted.

I hemmed and hawed over what to do and decided that I was not going to find a couch style that I liked more than this one. Buying vintage is awesome, but the fact of the matter is that you are buying something 40+ years old and sometimes it needs a little work done to be able to last another 40.

I called my friend Mark Luke that did the cushions for The Nugget to see if this was a project he wanted to tackle. (Luke’s Custom Upholstery for those in St. George. I cant recommend him enough!!)  He said it would be no problem, and told me how much fabric I would need. A project this size, with as much detail as this couch has (the entire thing is one cushion, the seat cushions are not removable) I knew that it was not something that I would be able to tackle. Simple reupholstery? All day. This? It would have been a freaking disaster.

I kind of went back and forth about using real leather, and vinyl for a little bit. I ultimately decided on real because I am planning on having this thing forever and I want it to get better with age.

The leather that I ended up with is from Leather Hide Store. It’s a new line that they have called Restorations and the color is Wicker. This leather seems like it is supposed to distress over time. There is a slightly shiny coating on it and when you wrinkle it, it lightens where the folds are.

This little situation works great in my case because I want it to distress in places that it naturally would. (If you are looking for something that doesn’t distress, they have a really pretty camel that I was also looking at.) We haven’t had to clean it yet, and it’s only lived with us for about a week, but I will keep you guys updated on how it wears!

To celebrate the reuphlstery option, Leather Hide Store is running an exclusive promo for VR readers. If you use the code Restoration10, you will get an additional 10% off their already fantastic prices on the Restoration line. The coupon code is good for 30 days from today (and just a side note, the Restorations line is pretty popular, so shipping may be delayed for a few weeks if it goes into backorder)

The last bit of changes we made were the awful legs that were on the poor thing. Back in the early days of Vintage Revivals I would have spray painted, and glazed them :). A few months ago I bought a pair of chairs off of CL. They weren’t anything amazing or specials, but they had really good MCM legs and were so cheap. Fast forward to last week, the legs were the exact height that I needed and because I bought 2 chairs, I had enough for all 5 legs. Love it when that happens!!

When I came to grips with the reality that I probably wasn’t going to find my dream couch at the thrift store this time (sad!!) I figured out what I had in the budget for a couch. Court was all over spending more to get something that was comfortable, and that I loved (because he hated the orange couch so much.)

Looking on 1st dibs, and Ebay the reality of the situation was that, even if I could find a couch to buy, it was going to be at least $3k. The Hamilton from West Elm was going to be over $2k. I figured out the total cost for reupholstery, and it came in at just under $1500.00 (including the couch). That still sounds INSANE. $1500 is not nothing, but a dream couch, in real leather was totally worth it! Especially when I was still coming in lower than I was planning on.

I feel like with this couch saga my eyes were opened to what “They like it so much they would buy it again” really meant. If I found this couch online exactly the way that it is now, would I buy it? Not only that, but would I be over the moon excited about it?! That answer is a yes in the most serious Morgan Freeman voice I can muster. (Things always seem to hold so much more weight when he says them, right?!)

Would I do it again? Morgan Freeman Yes. I will totally keep you guys updated on how the leather is wearing once we start breaking it in!

The post When to Reupholster a Couch + Coupon Code appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Oh my goodness, where to begin!?

How about by saying thanks for all of the love on the living room reveal post?  You guys just make my entire life.

It is absolutely insane to me how these quick turnaround room makeovers always seem to work out.  Living in Southern Utah there are not a lot of resources for buying treasures.  I mean, the options are Target, Homegoods, and a few thrift/consignment stores. I don’t typically buy a lot of stuff online (something about seeing it in person and having a hard time remembering to ship things back if I don’t want them come to mind.)  But for this space I did a little more online shopping and I’m pretty happy about it!

The couch was found on Craigslist for $150 and reupholstered (a whole post about this process is coming this week).  In Utah there is a store called Downeast, they sell returns from really great brands like West Elm, PB, and Restoration Hardware. I don’t usually find a lot of stuff there, but a last minute trip landed me the coffee table and pendant light.  The coffee table (from WE) was a super great price (around $100) same goes for the light, it was just over $100.

The tutorial for the giant white dowel art can be found here!

The black leather side chairs are from a local consignment store called Urban Renewal.  It is the one place in town that really carefully curates the stuff that they sell, it is a great place for prints and loads of inspiration.  Normally their furniture is out of my price range but these super comfy guys were a huge score at $55 each. The off white rope pillow on the black chair is from Homegoods, they had a ton of different styles when I was last there.

The white and gray fringe pillow is made by Loloi.  I went to Vegas on the hunt for some fabric for a chair that I am reupholstering and found a couple of great pillows at Home Fabrics (this being one of them!) I have no idea where to send you guys to actually purchase it, some are sold on Urban Outfitters, but this one in particular is sold out on their site. 

The gray and red striped pillow is from CB2 (sold out).

The pink and red kilim pillow is from Urban Outfitters.  The giant cactus is a Peruvian Apple Cactus that I found at a local nursery for around $60.  The simple white planter is from Lowes.  Also, I just need to point out (because you can see it in this picture) when we bricked the wall we swapped out the regular outlet for one that has USB ports and it is AWESOME.

You can get all the dirty details on the Craigslist card catalog in this post.  The woven wall hanging was a consignment store find for around $30.  Lets just talk about the terra cotta vase for a second.  It is SO good.  And the best part is that its not actually terra cotta, it’s metal, so you don’t ever have to worry about that cute skinny arm breaking off.  The skeleton print was a happy accident that you can read about in this post.  Everything else was thrifted.

You can read all about the hanging light here, and how we rewired it here.  The family pictures.  Man I love those things so much.  We had them printed at Alphagraphics (if you are in St. George I HIGHLY recommend them, they are amazing to work with) I really wanted them printed on a canvas but with the room turnaround time we just couldn’t make it happen. 

The desk was a Homegoods find that you can read all about here (oh my gosh that post is so old!  Wahhhh! Dylan!  Be a little baby again!!!) I took out the colored drawer and moved the other one to the middle.  The rug was made with a paperclip.  You can find the tutorial for that one here.  Both planters are from Target (seafoam & white)

Love the marbled pillow from CB2.  The colors are a little brighter in real life than they seem online.

Tutorial for the copper shelves, and plexiglass calendar will be up on the blog soon!  I’m glad that you guys are as excited about those shelves as I am!  The large sisal rug is actually 2 of these guys from Target stitched together. When I originally ordered the patterned runner (WE clearance 70% off!) I was super excited, then when I got it, it looked so rinky dink in the entryway.  It needed to be twice as wide…oops.  So the sisals saved the day!  The rug is sold out, but they still have pillows with the same pattern on major clearance ($14.99!!!)

The tutorial for the bent arm chandelier is here, as well as the ceiling beams, and HI. art.

The little metal yellow wall pockets add some fun color and are $8.95!!  I feel like I need one on every surface of my life.  Including in my car.

I have to say, I feel like Home Depot is majorly stepping it up in the plant department lately.  They have so many great cacti and large succulents it makes my heart happy!

Most of the planters are from Target.  These little teeny dip bowls are the perfect size to pop a succulent into and they are only $1.99!

The slouchy linen basket is from Nate (I love him.) And just a heads up, there are a bunch of KILLER planters at Target in the garden section right now.

This is the second Loloi pillow that I found at Home Fabrics, but YAY! they sell them at UO and as a rug at West Elm!   Large woven basket is Nate, naturally.

All of the cactus prints will be available in the shop shortly! (until then there are lots of good ones!)

Phew.  Hope you guys made it through that and got the info that you were itching for!!  If I left something out, let me know below and I would be more than happy to pass the info along!

The post Loft Living Room Sources appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

I cant even begin to put into words how much I love this living room makeover. It has been a whirlwind few weeks to get this puppy done, but it was SO worth it!!

I sure hope that you guys have enjoyed this #100reveal series with GE reveal® Lighting and The Home Depot as much as I have! $100 and a little creativity can go a long way!

Lets just have a room refresher shall we?

I love showing these pictures. THIS my friends, is what our house looked like on the MLS listing.

Awesome right?! I love looking at these pictures, it so perfectly attests to what massive transformations can be in store for your house if you just stop worrying at get started!

This is what the living room looked like 2+ years ago (you can see the room reveal here). I love so many things about it still, but when the orange couch kicked the bucket, I knew that it was time to make a change.

This is what the living room looked like when we started this series just a couple of weeks ago:

Cue sad trombone.

My inspiration for the space was an industrial-ish loft (because that is all I want in this world and lofts don’t exist in Southern Utah)

This is what it looks like now:

(So many pictures, click through to see them all!)

My fear with leaving the brick raw was that the space would be extremely dark, so adding big light elements (as well as multiple light sources) was critical. The modern dowel art and the light rug make a massive difference.

This room is pretty long, and the way that it is laid out puts the main area right in the center of the room. There is this left over space that is too small for another seating area but way too big to just do nothing with. I moved the desk from the wall next to the window to right smack dab in the middle of them and I am diggin it!

Beautiful Before:

Real life Before:

After:

Before:

After: ( I feel like with this pulled back shot you can actually tell how giant the bent arm chandelier is)

The copper plant shelves in the entryway are just to die for. Can you believe that I got every single one of those plants from The Home Depot!?

We all love beautiful spaces, but one thing that was absolutely necessary for the entryway was complete functionality. The plexiglass calendar is so critical to our lives and hello about those cute wall pockets.

Obviously these letters are for pics, but I just have to announce that the 2nd one is addressed to a Mr. Tim Riggins because of course.

This is the view from the front door, the shadow art literally greets you as you walk in.

One of my favorite elements in the room are the family pictures . I love that they are so us, and not just giant smiling face portraits.

Tell me this vase is not the greatest thing you have ever seen.

Can we just talk about the couch for a second? I am 1000% sure that it turned out even better than I could have ever imagined. This is the actual couch of my dreams.

Do you remember what it looked like before with that horrible vinyl?

All of the black and white cactus prints will be available in the shop shortly. We added a few quick swipes of water color to liven them up just a bit.

I LOVE this room. It turned out exactly like I was hoping. Doesn’t it feel so loft-like?!

Creating a whole new room is so fun, but before you start tearing stuff apart, first try switching out your light bulbs. Check out the difference between regular bulbs and GE reveal® light bulbs.

I am telling you guys, using reveal light bulbs are like instant Photoshop for your house. Without the reveal® bulbs there is not a chance I would take a picture in the dead of night and post it on the blog. But seriously, look at how good it looks! Reveal® bulbs make things look the way that they are meant to. Whites are white (and not dingy yellow) colors pop and patterns and textures are more pronounced.

I didn’t want this last video to get lost in the pictures, so I am posting it down here too. Court is SUCH a sport. I don’t know why he goes along with these hair-brained schemes but man am I glad he does!!

You can see all of the projects from this series here! There are SO many projects still to post, watch for the sources post next!

We have one more giveaway for (10) $100 Home Depot gift cards and GE reveal LED light bulb kits! All you have to do is comment below! No qualifier, just a comment!

The post Loft Living Room & Entryway Makeover Reveal! appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

The great question surrounding this room makeover is will she or wont she paint the brick. Like I mentioned in my Feel the Fear post, I decided to keep it dark. (It can always be changed up at a later date) and I’ve been diggin it!

The thing is that it took this massively bright room:

And made it seriously darker:

PSA of the day, if you want your room to feel significantly larger, paint it a light color. When all of the furniture was out of the room after it was bricked it felt pretty teeny.

The easiest way to off set the dark wall was to use light colored art. It gave it dimension by adding another layer and it brightened everything up!

Quite a while ago I pinned this picture from a restaurant designed by Bells and Whistles and have been itching to recreate the wall treatment on a smaller scale. It is pure genius!

A big white piece of art was what the decor dr. ordered and this was the cure.

This project started the way every good project starts…with a trip to The Home Depot. I bought a piece of 1/2” plywood and had it cut to 3 1/2’x6’. I also scooped up about 5 1x8x10’s.

The first thing that we did was start ripping the 1×8’s on the table saw so that they were about 1” square. It is ok if they are absolutely perfect, really really close will work well too.

Start by setting your vertical line. Mark it will a pencil and make sure that it is level and perfectly straight, this is going to determine the angles for the rest of your piece.

Once you have your vertical piece set all you do is work off of it.

Spacing is so simple, you just use scraps in between your dowels.

To attach the dowels I used my favorite wood glue Titebond III. I was originally planning on using the glue to hold them in place and then going back over it with a finishing nailer on the back but the glue held everything wonderfully by itself (I love it when that happens!)

It can seem a little overwhelming when you are looking at all of the angles, but the only thing that you need to remember is that when you are working off of a 90 degree angle (like the one you’ve created with your straight piece) everything will always add up to 90. So if you cut a 40 degree angle, then the one working off it will be a 50 degree angle. This is kind of one of those things that I can explain to you, but I cant understand it for you, you just have to start working and you’ll TOTALLY see what I am talking about!

When I started I was cutting everything exactly to the edge of the board but it was taking FOR.EVER. so I started leaving the edges off.

I taped off a small area for staining.

And everything else got a few coats of white paint.

There was a massive internal struggle about cutting the edges off once it was finished. I mean, they look really cool right? Ultimately I decided to trim it but I still love it untrimmed.

To trim it we used a straight board that was clamped on either side as a guide and used a skill saw.

Mounting it on the brick wall got a little tricky. We ended up drilling directly through the face of the art, through the brick and into a stud. Then I filled the holes and painted over them.

I cant wait for you guys to see the entire room tomorrow!!!

The post DIY Square Dowel Art appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Happy Monday!!

Oh. My gads. How is it already Monday!?! We have been working like crazy people round these parts. The living room and entryway are coming together and they are pushing me (more like shoving forcefully) outside my design comfort zone. I know that so many of you have these same feelings so I thought it might help at least one person to talk about it.

I know the things that I like in a room. White walls, raw wood, bursts of color, some sort of geometric. This is my comfort zone. I can totally live here. But lately I’ve just been itching to try something different. Because you never know what can happen unless you try it. So I’m trying it. And it is scary.

Here is what is going on. For now the brick in the living room is staying raw. That alone has made a huge difference. It moods the place up a lot. 2 of the 4 walls in the living room are white, but they aren’t the ones that you focus on when you walk into it so until you are actually IN the room all you see is the brick. The plan for balancing the darkness is to use lots of big bright pieces of art.

My usual bold colors are toned down a little and everything is sort of taking on a more masculine vibe (not totally, but definitely more than the usual).

I don’t consider myself a super neutral person but this room is way more neutral than anything I’ve done before.

Even though it feels a little awkward and I am not 1000% about it, I love the idea of a new vibe. So I’m pressing forward.

Why does it seem like such a big deal in my mind?! Lets be honest, it isn’t life or death, its just decorating! I know this, and yet, I wonder and worry. I am a massive fan of using what you can find. Thrifting and secondhand shopping are my lifeblood and when that happens you get what you get (complete that sentence).

I scored this GIANT brass and glass pendant for $800 off (!!) and it totally goes with the loftiness.

To me being fearless about design doesn’t mean that you don’t actually feel fear, it means that you feel it and move forward anyway.

The entire room reveal is happening on Thursday and there is still SO much to do! You know on Top Chef when there is like 30 seconds left and everyone is FREAKING out and racing against the clock? Yes. That is reality at the Gubler’s right now. Fingers crossed we can pull this thing off!

The post Feel the Fear appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Happy #100reveal Thursday!!

You guys. I have got the COOLEST project for you today. As I was brainstorming ideas for these fun GE reveal® light bulb projects my natural train of thought was obviously to do something cool with light. But we’ve already rewired a light, and made an amazing chandelier for the entryway.

Something different was just what the Dr. ordered.

Something new.

So armed with $100 to The Home Depot, and a GE reveal® light bulb I set out on my quest.

You know when you get an idea that just seems so crazy, and when you tell everyone in your life about it they genuinely don’t understand what you are explaining? No? Just me?

This project describes that perfectly. I have been super obsessed with shadow art lately, but it is always done on such a grand art installation scale.

I wanted a way to be able to simplify it enough to use it in my house. And probably not use it to make human shapes because that would be terrifying to stumble across in the middle of the night.

So after thinking long and hard about it for a minute or 2 I set out to see if it would work. If I could actually do something using light and shadow.

I conducted a little experiment and here is what I learned:

It is entirely possible…IF you have the right kind of light bulb, and the right angle.

The light bulb is critical, it needs to give off enough light to cast a strong shadow and it also needs to be focused. A regular style light bulb disperses the light too much, but a reveal® indoor flood light worked perfectly.

The angle of the light, will lengthen + shorten your shadow, and the distance from the pegs will straighten out the letters (the further away the less skewed they are.)

So with this in mind we started with a little trip to my version of Disneyland…The Home Depot.

I bought a GE reveal® indoor flood light (and a regular one for the before and after) (4) 8’x1”x6”, a 3’x1”x1” wooden dowel and a 2×4’ sheet of underlayment.

After you’ve measured the exact size of the underlayment (this will serve as the backboard for everything) you are going to cut 2 pieces that measure the width of the underlayment horizontally (2’) and 2 pieces that measure the vertical distance between the 2 horizontal boards. This is a backer frame and will give you something to attach the face frame and the underlayment to.

Next you are going to cut 2 boards with 45 degree angles that have an inner measurement that match your underlayment.

PSA:  For the LOVE cut these angles so that they look like this:

Not like this:

Court, I’m talking to you.

If you did not heed the above advice, head back to The Home Depot and buy yourself another couple of boards…#fun.

Once you have your boards cut the right way, use a nail gun to attach them to the back frame.

Then put your underlayment on top and secure it with a few nails.

To make the light I took apart this cute desk lamp that I’ve had laying around and a few spare parts from the Bent Arm chandelier build.

All I did was deconstruct this light that I bought a while ago:

And put it back together with the long arm in between the base and the socket (I wanted to be able to adjust the light angle as much as I need to.)  I also swapped in my favorite twisted lamp cord that looked better and had a higher wattage rating.

Then I drilled a small hole in the center of the frame and fed the cute new wire through. The last bit of light construction was wiring a plug on the end. Its time for a common sense disclaimer, these bulbs can get warm, this isn’t a light that you will want to leave on for hours and hours. Yes? Yes.

Once the light was hung inside the frame (with a small screw) it was time to place the dowels.

I did this part last so that I had complete control over the way that the shadow cast.

Once I measured and marked where my short dowels (they measure 3.5”) were going to live, I used a small amount of Titebond III wood glue to adhere them to the board.

A roll of painters tape works wonders to hold them in place while the glue dries.

Want to see what it turned into?

When the house lights are on and the spotlight is off you have this curious and delightfully inoffensive bit of wooden art on the wall.

When you shut off the house lights, and turn on the spotlight you get a friendly little message:

Amazing right?! I mean, who doesn’t want your decor to actually greet you!!? And for a grand total of less than $50 no less!

Because of the closeness of the light onto the board I was a little curious if you would even be able to tell a difference with the reveal® light bulb. Oh ye of little faith Mandi. Of course you can. Directly on the light it’s a little hard to tell a difference, but look at how much cleaner white the reveal® side is, and how much sharper the shadow. (Bulbs used were 40 W Soft White Spotlight vs 45 W reveal® Halogen Indoor Flood bulb.)

What do you think? Do you love it?!

Its time for another giveaway!! You know the drill, (10) winners will win a $100 Home Depot gift card, and a GE reveal® lighting package, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment and let me know what level of DIYer do you consider yourself to be and/or tell me about your favorite DIY project that you have completed!

The post DIY Shadow Art + Video appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Building lights is sort of my thing. It is honestly my DIY spirit animal. That being said this light pushed me to the brink. Not because it is hard, but because I was trying to figure out the best way to do it in the most uncomplicated way possible (which complicates things). So after trying out 3 different types of wires and few hardware swaps I am SO excited to share with you the most simplified version of this brass bent arm chandelier!

A few weeks ago I was thumbing through a magazine and came across this gorgeous light from Circa lighting. I loved all of the different angles and the whole feel of it. I also love Lindsay Adelman and her branch lights so hard. I knew that I could use both of them as a jumping off point for an amazing light in the entryway.

After spending a few hours on Grand Brass looking at all of the parts that they had, and a lot of sketching I came up with a plan (and ended up with a lot of parts.)  All of the serial numbers for the parts are listed after their description.

a. (12) 8in. X 1/8 IPS HOLLOW BRASS PIPE STEM (PIBR08-0X8)
b. (12) 6in. X 1/8 IPS HOLLOW BRASS PIPE STEM (PIBR06-0X8)
c. (6) 1/8F sides X 1/8F bottom X 1/8F top SMALL CLUSTER BODY (BOS2X8)
d.(12) 3-1/4in. SPOKED HOLDER CAST BRASS with 1/8F TAPPED HOLE (HO3-1/4S)
e.(12) PORCELAIN SOCKET (SO10045C)
f. (1)1/8F sides X 1/4F bottom X 1/8F top JUMBO CLUSTER BODY (BOJ6)
g. (3)* 12in. X 1/8 IPS HOLLOW BRASS PIPE STEM (PIBR12-0X8)
h. (1) 1/4IPS PIPE PENDANT HANGING CROSS BAR SET (CB208)
i. (6) 1/8F X 1/8F ips. ADJUSTABLE FRICTION SWIVEL (SV140)
j. (2)* 1/8F THRU 5/8H X 5/8W STRAIGHT COUPLING (NE438)
k. (1) 1/4 PLUG WITH SCREW DRIVER SLOT (FI1/4PLUG)
l. (6) 1/8 PLUG WITH SCREW DRIVER SLOT (FI1/8PLUG)
m. (1) 8in. BRASS FLAT BASE W/RETURN (BAFL08NW) (We had to drill our hole larger, so if you dont have a                 tool to do this they have some that are smaller in diameter with a bigger hole.)
n. (12) OPAL 3-3/4″ DIAMETER X 4-1/8″ HEIGHT WITH 3″ FITTER ROUND BOTTOM CYLINDER TUBE (GLC304)
o. (12) 22-10 Crimp Sleeve
p. (2) large wire nuts
q. (2) Medium wire nuts
r. (1) Wire stripper/cutter
s. Lamp wire

*dependant on the height of your ceiling

While this project isn’t horribly hard (now that we know the right way to do it) it’s definitely not on a beginner DIY level.

You are going to start by assembling your short arms (these are the arms without the bend) using the 8” brass pipe (a.), the spoked holder (d.), and the metal base for the socket. (Make sure that once everything is assembled you tighten the small screw on the socket base.)  This will keep your entire socket from unscrewing when you are changing the light bulb.

Next you are going to assemble the longer arms using 2 of the 6” pipe (b.),  the spoked holder (d.), the metal base for the socket (e.) and the friction swivel (i.)

Take apart the friction swivel (dont lose the little bits!) and attach each side to the brass pipe.

Wire your socket by checking for the textured edge on your lamp wire. The smooth one is hot and will be connected to the gold screw inside your socket. The textured edge is going to be connected to the silver screw.

Then feed the other end of the wire through your socket base and brass tube.

Attach the socket to the base.

When you get to the friction swivel you will have to split your wire to go around the post in the middle (I just split mine from the bottom, up to this point).

Reassemble the swivel using all the little parts that you didn’t lose (because you are AWESOME!!)

I didn’t tighten the screw down all the way until I was completely done with the light (it made things a little floppy) but it gave me a little more play with the wire.

The next step is connecting your short arm and long arm to the hub and adding a 3rd wire that will connect everything to the main body of the chandelier. This was hands down the most complicated part of the entire light.

So here is what I learned.

Starting with the fact that the wires in this picture are WAY too long. But it is all I had to show you so sorry about that ;).

Make sure that the wires that are coming into the hub are on the same sides (hot, hot, and hot, neutral, neutral, and neutral)  this will give you a little more room because they aren’t crossing over each other and adding more bulk to the situation.

Cut and strip the wires as short as you can while still being able to mange them (I think ours ended up about 1/2”-3/4” long)  Twist the wire together and clamp it with a wire clamp (we had to trim a small amount of the plastic off of the edge of the wire clamp)

Lay it in as flat as possible. Once you have both of your wires clamped and sort of inside, gently pull on the 3rd wire (it is still exposed at this point, it hasn’t been covered up by the brass tube) and suck everything inside the little chamber.

Then add the cap and the screw plug.

Thread your 3rd wire through an 8” piece of pipe (a.) and connect it to the main body of the chandelier (f.) The body of the chandelier is an egg shaped brass piece that screws apart. When it unscrews, the piece with all of the holes is the bottom section. (This is a mini version)

Repeat for all 6 arms. When you are attaching them make sure that they alternate which arm (long or short) is on the top.

Once you have all of your wires in the main center hub take all of the hot and twist them together,  adding one more long length of wire. This will be the main wire that runs up the stem to the ceiling. We found that it worked best to twist one group and then after the wire nut was on to tuck it down inside so that it was out of the way before twisting the second group.

To assemble the stem that comes out of the ceiling you are going to use the 12” pieces of pipe with the straight couplings. The amount that you need is based entirely on how high your ceilings are and how low you want your light to hang. This will attach to the hole in the top of the upper body section. The bottom section has a larger (1/4”) hole that you will cover up with the screw plug.

Add the large screw ring for the canopy (it comes attached to the hang straight coupling), the canopy, then the hang straight coupling and the cross piece in that order. Tighten everything up. I mentioned above that the canopy that we ordered had a hole that was too small. We used a hole saw that we had left over from this project to make it bigger.

Now comes the fun part. MAKE SURE THAT YOU TURN YOUR BREAKER OFF BEFORE YOU WIRE YOUR LIGHT! (yes that was me yelling, it is critical.)  Attach it to the ceiling with the cross bar, wire it to the house wires and bring the canopy to the ceiling and tighten the screw ring. Dont attach the cross bar first, and then try to screw the light into that, it will just twist your wire up. Get the hang straight attached to the cross bar first.

Apparently the ceiling beams are good for more than just looking awesome. How’s that for MacGyver?

When everything is wired, tightened and light bulbs are in, flip your breaker back on and cross your fingers that everything went smoothly!

The last thing is to tighten the screws on your swivel elbows, and finish it off with the glass shades.

If you make it through this entire tutorial, you are a rockstar!

So what did I learn rewiring the same light 15 times?

The first thing that I did was try a different type of wire because lamp wire was super thick. Even though it had a good amount of insulation on it, it was no match for the sharp edges of the pipe. Lamp wire was the only kind (I tried 3 different varieties) that didn’t have the coating stripped off of it. Go with lamp wire.

When something seems too small, that is because it is. The original main body of the chandelier was teeny. Too teeny to fit 6 wires into. Trust me I tried.

The bigger one that the final light ended up with was SO MUCH BETTER.

The last thing that I learned? The projects that push you to your breaking point and you hang in there and dont give up, usually end up being your favorite.

We’re thinking of adding them to the shop, so stay tuned!

Dont miss the Shop My House sale that is happening over at Joss and Main!!

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