By the title of this entry, I clearly got a kick out of Leslie telling us that special parts of her first home screams, “I was designed in the 80s!”  However, I cannot believe the 80s are actually coming back into style.  Damn you Justin Bieber, damn you!

Anyways, today’s guest poster is Leslie from Frugal Nashville.  When I was very little, we vacationed in Tennessee and I believe we spent some time in Memphis as well as Nashville.  I remember LOVING, and OBSESSING OVER, Tennessee. Sadly, that’s all I remember about our trip — besides doing the Elvis thing and getting a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery.  Why I remember the JD part, I have no idea.  Perhaps it explains why I’m always shot-happy when we have people over.

Many thanks to Rebecca for the opportunity to guest post!  I’m a big fan of this blog and am super excited to be sharing with you.

My hubs and I closed on our first home nearly three months ago.  Now that we’re homeowners, it seems like most of my free time is devoted to working on, thinking about, and planning for house projects. Our home was built in 1990, so there are some special touches that really scream “I was designed in the 80s!” still hanging around.  Like these:

Brass blobby builder lights!

Wow, are they ugly.  (And so was that original paint color).  Thanks to the vaulted ceiling in the foyer, we even have one of these lights installed at a bizarre angle over the staircase.  Changing this light bulb is a challenge involving monkey-like climbing skills.

Ugly and impractical, for the win!  While eventually I’d love to have recessed lighting in these spots, for now I just wanted a simple, budget-friendly improvement.  So I went for my trusty old pal, spray paint.

A couple of weeks ago, I used Rustoleum paint in Satin Nickel to paint a gold mirror frame and was pretty impressed with the results. After that success, I decided to go the same route with these cheapo light fixtures.  The hubs disassembled and disconnected the lights, and after covering and taping off the sockets, I applied three thin coats of the silver paint.

A couple of hours later, here’s what we had:

 
How awesome is that entryway? So grand looking! Spray paint is a great inexpensive way to fix those brassy fixtures we’ve all be cursed with at one time or another. Special thanks to Leslie for sharing her space with us and helping us out this week!