Chandelier recycled and saved from garbage

I found some other pictures of a DIY that I'm very  proud of. So here it goes: almost 2 years ago, my coworker Melissa, wonderful young girl btw, gave me the old brass chandelier that her mother was about to toss in the garbage. She remembered that I mentioned  how much I would love to have a chandelier for my bedroom so she brought it to me for free, just like that! I love that girl! It was somewhat stained with white paint, several  "candle holders" were partly broken and some of the christals were missing. I wasn't quite ready for a DIY action at that moment but I was very happy to have it. Can you believe that I was finaly so lazy that I bought a little chandelier from the store for my bedroom? I'm so ashamed, but if it can be an excuse - it didn't really cost that much. Talking about karma! It wasn't meant to be my chandelier. Then my daughter moved in another apartment and she needed a ceiling lamp for her bedroom. What was she supposed to do? Poor thing, she had one of this "breast with nipple"-like ceiling mount lamps already fixed in her bedroom. So I took pity on her and offered to restore the chandelier that I was saving for my bedroom. The result is simply breathtaking, for me anyway. See how it looks in front of her charcoal gray wall:

I used some silver spray paint, didn't even bother to prime it, we found some nice fake bling-bling in the dollar store to replace the missing christals - you can barely tell the difference. I was somewhat worried about the solution for the broken "candle holder" parts but my daughter wanted me to let them uncovered and to just spray paint them. So I did it her way and guess what? It looks just lovely, it adds a little surprising industrial touch to it.

BTW, it looks a bit yellowish in the picture but it's really silver painted. We were so busy that day that I completely forgot to take the  before pictures. Here is what it looked like approximately before the upcycling:

Chandelier recycled and saved from garbage

Purple inspiration for my bedroom

Last weekend I found this recycled glass vase on liquidation table for 3$ only without knowing it's going to provoke an avalanche of ideas:

When we moved to our house four years ago we decided to paint the walls in our bedroom green. It was exciting for someone who newer painted walls in color before (me!) but soon I was very limited in decorating possibilities. So I decided to repaint the walls in a more neutral color this time in order to have always the choice of details and to be able to create different atmosphere rapidly following seasons and mood changes (the latter is starting to get rather embarrassing lately ;-)  So when I saw this picture I knew I found a perfect color inspiration for my bedroom for this winter:

The shine of satin gives me the impression of glamour and luxury and the best of all is that you don't have to be rich to obtain this effect. You can go with fabrics, little paint and some details in purple / aubergine / plum / magenta. That way it won't cost you a fortune (remember: recession design?) and you can still change it rapidly when you had enough of it. And I say you should always look at your place before you go buying like crazy and you might be able to find something usable. Here is what i found in my place:

This is a fabric I bought two years ago without knowing what I'll do with it (happens to me more often then necessary). There are approximately 2,5 meter (approx. 8 feet) of it - difficult to say because of the smock effect and stretchiness. I could double it with a nice and cosy fabric and make a throw.

This little vintage dress waits to be used for a pillow cover and this will be it's occasion to rise.

I can also imagine being able to find some nice lamps to repaint and recover also and to paint my two cheaper than cheap commodes in nice rich glossy purple. And I crave a chandelier for my bedroom for quite some time now. I saw one little, modern and cute at Canadian Tire:

It's name is Opulence (how suitable!) and it's 50% of on sale right now, can you imagine? Just 49,99$! Sold to madame in a purple dress!

By the way, there is a nice article over at my beloved Apartment Therapy site about decorating with purple. Take a look.

Purple inspiration for my bedroom