Light Fixtures and Fall Weather

The past couple of days here in Winnipeg have been beautiful. Mr. Bliss and I have been out and about taking in the warmth, completely neglecting yard work. I had planned on getting a start on it today, until I stepped onto the porch. It can wait.

After much procrastination (ahem. playing Borderlands 2 and watching Alias) I came up with a quick project to do while hibernating from the cold.

When we moved in, every room in the house had the dreaded boob fixture. In brassy gold. Seriously. It's like they were on special if bought in bulk. When we finally got the master bedroom painted and the floor installed, it seemed all the more apparent that the fixtures had to go.

While I would rather replace them all with more contemporary, less boob-shaped fixtures like these:

Steven Chris

Kichler

Alas we are poor.

Enter: spray paint.

How to Make that Old Fixture New Again!

You will need:

- Ugly fixture

- Screw drivers

- 400 grit sandpaper

- Rags

- Plastic bag 

- Painter's Tape

- Spray primer (I use Rustoleum)

- Spray paint (Again, Rustoleum)

First, you need to remove the fixture from the ceiling. To do this, you need to shut off the breaker to the fixture. If your house is like mine, then you know that the breakers may not actually be labeled accurately. I turned on the light and flipped breakers until the light went out. Sometimes that's just the way it is.

On my fixture there is a little finial (the nipple) that needs to be unscrewed, then the glass cover comes off. The screws holding the fixture to the electrical box are behind the light bulbs  so I had to remove the bulbs, then the screws.

And then the fixture wouldn't come off of the ceiling.

It had somehow fused itself to the ceiling! A couple of sharp taps with my screwdriver and it dropped off.

Now you have a fixture hanging down from the ceiling by it's guts.

Remove the marettes (the plastic covers) and use an electrometer to check that the circuit is actually dead. Now you can proceed with removing the the fixture.

YAY! Who needs a man!?

Please forgive my crappy photos, my basement is poorly lit and my equipment consists of an iPhone.

So this is what we are working with. Nasty brassiness. 

Now lightly sand that mofo. Not too intensely, you only need to remove the shininess. Less shine = better adherence! I use a sponge sanding block to better get into the curves. 

Now wipe them down with a rag. I just used a dry rag, we would do a better job but you'd have to wait for it to dry. I am impatient. I took the time to wipe down the reflector too, but it is fragile and didn't take it very well.

Cover the guts and reflector plate with a plastic bag and tape it down with some painter's tape. This is important because the paint can prevent a proper circuit from being made and will interfere with the reflector plate which causes the maximum amount of light to be shone down.

Now the fun begins! I am in all honesty THE WORST at spray painting. This seemed to work pretty well for me in spite of that though! I gave everything a couple light coats of primer a few minutes apart.

About 45 minutes later I went at it with the spray paint. I chose the Nickel colour. Kind of regret it, but I'll work with it. This was my first time working with Rustoleum's metallic paint, I must say I like it. Watching the metallic particles shift as it evens itself out is pretty fun.

I chose not to apply a top coat, again, the impatience thing. I figure that it probably doesn't need to be too tough since it is a light fixture and won't be handled often. I'll update with it's hardiness.

Ta da!

Comfort Breakfast

Baby, it's cold outside! Call in the forces, stat! Sweatpants, check. Over-sized hoody, check. Big ol' bowl of  Red River Cereal, check! 

I know it doesn't sound very appealing, I was resistant to it too at first. Mr. Bliss had picked it up for himself but he never seemed to get into it.

One cold morning I was desperately looking for a pouch of oatmeal to cook up for breakfast but turned up empty handed. The container of Red River Cereal stared back at me. Gingerly, I opened it and looked inside at the multitude of gritty grains. Bugger it all, I'll give it a shot.

Red River Cereal a la Prairie Bliss

1/4 cup Red River Cereal

1 cup Water

Pinch of Salt

Combine and pop into the microwave for 7 minutes. Stir. cover and let sit for about 3 minutes.

At this point it looks pretty... blah.. and unappealing. However, the neutrality of the cereal lends itself to a lot of tasty toppings:

Brown sugar and cinnamon

Brown sugar and blueberries

Almond butter and pureed raspberries

I'm not a photographer. I am so sorry.

Or my personal favorite:

Nutmeg

Half and Half

Raspberries

Honey

Toasted Pecans

All measurements are "to taste". 

Now that my soul is prepared to head out the door, it's time to prep my body. *shudder*

Have you explored the world of Red River Cereal? What are your favorite additions? What do you like to munch on during cold, blustery mornings? Let me know!

xox

Char

Great Friends and Blanche Nuit

I hope that you all had a fan-fricken-tastic weekend! We certainly did! A very dear friend of ours was in town for the weekend, so naturally we offered her an air mattress in our "guest room" (re: storage room). After some quick tidying (re: carefully stacking everything in the basement/closets), thermarest air mattresses, an old coleman air mattress and some blankets the room was quite hospitable. She even had a fresh new pillow to use. We had borrowed the mattress from a friend and it did not arrive with a pump. So this happened:

Mr.Bliss "blowing" up the mattress

Terrible innuendos aside (she and I were standing behind him, drink in hand, giggling like little girls), it worked really well!

Prairie Bliss Life Hack #1

In the event that you need to blow up an air mattress and you are lacking a pump you can use a small funnel and a hair blower. The end of the funnel must be small enough to fit into the nozzle (the thing you blow, tee hee) or fit tightly over the nozzle. The hair dryer must have a no-heat function. This one had a "cold shot" button that Mr. Bliss held down. Why cold? Well; the rubber may melt or be otherwise negatively affected, and you may also have bacterial growth within the mattress. You don't want that, trust me.

Nuit Blanche

The weekend with Mel was lovely, only made better by the occurance of Nuit Blanche! Our friend Matt Jenkins of Cloverdale Forge was directing an art display in Old Market Square on Saturday night. That's right, I said "forge", our friend Matt is an artisan Blacksmith. His work is simply amazing, follow him on twitter (@cloverdaleforge) to see his work.

The goal of the evening was to complete three bike racks that Matt had designed. Spectators were invited to enter the pit and swing a hammer, few took up the challenge but those that did enjoyed it a lot. Mel and I brought some sparkle and shine into the pit with matching head scarves that we had bought from Dollarama earlier in the day. We swung massive hammers, played with fire and smoked cigars for nearly nine hours in the beautiful autumn air with festivities all around us. It was an incredible night.
By the time we were done packing up the display it was 3am.
We had to leave at 5am to drive Mel and Matt to the airport.
It was after 6am when we finally went to bed.
We are too old for this shit.

My whole body is still sore from swinging that hammer!
What did you get up to this weekend? If you are from Winnipeg, did you attend any Nuit Blanche events? Did you come to Old Market Square to watch the sparks fly?
Let me know!

xoxo
Char