Grandma Called and She Wants Her Gold Back

Does this remind you of peaceful days at Grandma’s house?  Good food, good company and lots of great stories?  Along with a lot of really bad decor?  Maybe not for you, but I often see things at the thrift shops that remind me of my grandma or things my grandma had in her home.

http://www.ia-bednbreakfast-inns.com/strawberryfarm.htm

I often find myself saying “Oh my, my grandma used to have this.”  It was hideously obnoxious in her house, but it brings back really good memories. So there is some part of you, deep down really kind of likes it.  Even though you would be completely embarrassed if any one of your friends spotted it in your home. I’ll show you how to hide it!

Goodwill is about are only option here in Indianapolis or at least around the area I live in.  We do have a few others, but not near my house.  I have 4 Goodwill Stores within 4 miles of my house, so that seems to be the one I frequent the most.  I come across these Flashy Gold Plastic Relics quite frequently (and you guessed it, my grandma used to have them hanging in her house). I snag them up in a heart beat!  The people around me must think I have really bad decorating taste, kind of a Liberace inspired design. I assure you that is NOT the case!  But I do think they have great detail, a ton of potential and let face it…we are drawn to things that give us that warm, all over fuzzy feeling.  Some of my re-purposing is the obvious and some I have really tried to think outside the box.

Work with me on this.  Gold scrolly taper candle wall decor?  Looks like Grandpa’s pipe sticking out of some fancy holder, but if you look at what the candle holders are coming out of, it has great detail and is actually quite pretty.

Well I removed the candle holder portion (they were screwed in from the back side and very easily removed) and filled the holes with wooden screw caps.  You see these a lot on chairs. You can pick up a bag at Michaels, Hobby Lobby or even Lowes for next to nothing.  A little glue and some paint! Voila!

Before

After.  Painted Black and highlighted with Pewter

Same thing, only painted cream and then antiqued

First I sprayed the sconce with Rust-oleum plastic spray paint in shell white so I would be sure that the paint would stick.  You could stop here and just antique it and it would look great.  I wanted it to be a more blue-gray color, so I painted it in some miss tinted gray paint from Lowes that I picked up for $2.00 a quart.  Love the miss tints!!!  More on paint a little later.  

My husband cut the boards to the length I wanted and then secured (wood glue and a couple of small nails or brads and let dry over night) a scrap block of wood (you won’t see this when it’s finished) with one edge of the sanded board leaving about a 1/4 of an inch gap between the block of wood and the edge of the board.  This is how you will mount the board to the sconce.