A New Built-In

Do you have a dream home wish list?  I do and it's always included (among other things) a window seat and built-in display shelves with pot lights.

The window seat will have to wait, but I finally have my display shelves in the dining room!

Remember when we had ducts installed in the house for central air?  I blogged about it here and here.  Well, that part of our reno was bittersweet because, as important as central air was to us, we were disappointed to lose the space in our dining room and third bedroom.  At the time, we decided to find the silver lining by turning them both into accent features instead of plain columns.
 

In the dining room, we decided Corey would build shelves to showcase some of the pretty treasures we've collected.  This project was completed this past week after Rudy's bedtime.

Corey began by framing the shelves with wood.

He then added drywall.

He added a pot light to the ceiling of each shelf and a separate switch within the unit

He used plaster to conceal the seams and sanded between coats.

The finished product is beautiful and we can't wait to paint it!

We're going to use the unit to showcase a vase and an art bowl given to us by two of my bridesmaids as shower and wedding gifts.

Allow Me To Shed Some Light...

Friends, how do we feel about pot lights?  I've always been on the fence and (probably a symptom of my job) they always remind me of finished basements with beige furniture.  Is anyone with me?

When it was time to think about lighting for the kitchen, I surprised myself by suggesting them to Corey.  You see, he had already installed all these fabulous cabinet and under cabinet lights and I didn't want some awkwardly retro-modern fixture that I rescued from Craigslist to detract from the clean vibe of our kitchen.  

Corey still has some patching to do (from running new electrical) but so far, I think I like them.

... And just to show you that I don't fully worship the god of neutral décor, guess what's back in our dining room!  I'll give you a hint- It solves a pet peeve I've had about the room since the day we moved in and it looked like this:

Give up?  Here it is:

No, it's not the painting.  I wrote about the painting here.  It's the light, which I wrote about here.

Remember when we had it in the condo?  I had loved it and it was one of the few things I actually cared for enough to move to our new/old house.  I remember our buyers had wanted it but I refused to give it up.

I know it's loud and maybe a little tacky but I just love it so much and now that it's up in the dining room (and the old fixture is sitting in a snowbank at the bottom of our driveway) the new/old house feels a teeny bit more like home.