Dangerous Creativity

(We briefly interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this announcement because I'm an idiot and forgot to mention it below: Bookviewcafe.com will be launching MERELY MAGIC and my arrival tomorrow by giving away chapters. Stop by and say hi!)

Creativity can be a marvelous thing, but sometimes, it’s danged dangerous.

I’m a house person. I love adapting houses to my needs and tastes, and over the years I’ve become extremely creative in what I can do.  Right now, since house prices are so stagnant, I’m frustrated that I can’t make the major improvements I want. I often take these frustrations out on my poor characters, but the obstinate ones I’m creating for DEVILISH MONTAGUE  refuse to do their own decorating. They’re into shabby chic, apparently. (I think this next series may be exhibiting symptoms of my frustration—both books so far have the characters stuck with derelict houses!)

Anyway, this weekend I grew sick and tired of snow and taxes, and even the lovely reading list I’ve developed wasn’t keeping me entertained. So I decided—roll of drums, please—to finally get rid of the annoying shiny brass on the light fixture in my office. (I forgot to get a "before" pic but here's one I just ran across and here's what this person did with hers: scroll way down http://tinyurl.com/ye7rpql)

I know there are people who love shiny brass. But I hate shiny anything. I hated it in the 70’s when the only lamps I could buy when I had my first nest to feather were all brass.  At the time, I hunted and found antique brass, which I can tolerate. But this isn’t the 70’s any longer, even though my house dates to that period, and it’s time for a change.

I’ve been slowly replacing faucets and shower doors and whatnot with nickel. We’ve added new light fixtures in several places with glass instead of metal of any sort.  But the bedroom ceilings all have the same light fixture with a big bold glaring brass rim.

So I bought nickel metallic spray paint. I know. I told you, I’m dangerous. One does not spray paint indoors with the window closed. One definitely does not spray it at the ceiling. But I had some odd notion that I could simply remove the rim, take it to the garage, and have at it. Nope. That sucker is wired into the ceiling, rim and all. Annoying monster. Have paint can, will paint. (But have dh's camera doesn't equate with good photos. I can't find the zoom.)

So I carefully taped newspaper all over the ceiling around the—round—fixture. I don’t advise that either. Impossible to tape square sheets of paper to make them round. But even my sensible husband can’t stop a steamroller once I get rolling. He simply removed the bulbs and taped off the outlets and turned off the electricity so I didn’t kill myself in obvious ways. Given that I had to stand on my desk to reach the fixture, there were lots of less obvious ways to do it—like tripping over paperweights and speakers.

So I spray painted the brass. That metallic paint is pretty cool stuff. But when it dried and I tried to put the glass bowl back on, I realized I hadn’t painted the stupid brass knob that holds it on. And some of the rim near the ceiling didn’t get painted, so there was a lovely brass stripe around the outside. I kind of liked the brass ridge, so I scraped the whole edge and now I have a brass and nickel fixture. And I’m still alive to tell of it, but only because my husband and the gods who look after idiots took care of me.

Anyone else have exciting creative endeavors? Or know how to turn antique brass door handles to nickel?

Comments

[Maggie Robinson/Margaret Rowe]

LOL, Pat.As much as I like to watch home improvement shows, I am totally ham-handed when it comes to DIY. I used to hang wallpaper--things wopuld go great until I got to a corner. Let us just say I've hired my fair share of experts to undo what I have done. I restrict myself now pure decorating, not renovating.The only thing creative I've done lately is arrange my anniversary flowers---which are still going strong after 3 weeks!

[Patricia Rice]

Anniversary flowers, lovely! Mine is coming up this weekend. I suppose arranging flowers is a less dangerous outlet for creativity, unless they're thorny roses. "G"

[gretchen fucio]

I own the two major prerequisites for DYI projects: 1. An old house 2. No money. I've generally restricted myself to painting walls and moving things around. Flooring, wiring, and plumbing are too intimidating, so I hire those done, but I've painted and shuffled things. My house was so ugly when I moved in 25 years ago that nothing I did could make it worse, so I've changed almost every room. Lots of my decorating seems to be undoing what previous owners had done- they covered the original metal cabinets from 1957 with dark walnut-grained contact paper. I had to take my hairdryer and melt the glue.... but now I have a perfect mid-century "I Love Lucy" sort of kitchen that makes me very happy!

[Anne Gracie]

Pat, I think it's human nature to fiddle with your surroundings -- cave men painted on walls. I'm no different . My house is old and getting ready for a major overhaul, so my DIY projects have slowed -- why paint walls or cupboards that that are going to be ripped out?
But I still do small projects. One I was very pleased with was when I was offered two old metal filing cabinets -- good working order but scratched and mismatched, one beige, one grey. I had some green metal paint leftover from painting some garden furniture, so I used it on the filing cabinets, ragging the paint on rather than using a brush or roller. The final effect was lovely and textured, a bit like malachite but without the black streaks. I did it a while ago now, but every now and then I notice my filing cabinets and smile.

[Patricia Rice]

Gretchen, I hear ya about old houses and no money. That's how I learned to projects myself.I'm guilty of putting up Contac paper in an earlier house. I'm betting the next owner hated me. And we still do most of our painting because I like changing colors. I'm sitting in a sunny yellow room right now to fight the winter blahs.

I do love metal paint, Anne! I've painted faucets and lampposts but hadn't though to do my file cabinet. Cool. Next in line...
But I don't think paint on my door handles would be wise.

[Janice]

I change out the posters on the walls from time to time as my taste in movies & actors changes. If it's any more complex than changing a light bulb (which I did last night, teetering on a stepstool which was a bit too short for the task), I call a professional, or let it go. People don't notice shabby surroundings nearly so much when they see a bunch of movie posters anyway.

[Patricia Barraclough]

The best way to turn antique brass door handles to nickel is to buy new ones and replace them.

[Ann Stephens]

Oh dear, I giggled all the way through this post. My mom is a genius at decorative projects and your venture with the light fixture sounds like some of her more...um, unusual attempts. I'm mostly thumbs myself at domestic creativity, unless it involves spray paint or needlepoint.

[Sherrie Holmes]

Sherrie, here. Pat, I am always involved in DIY projects, from building closets and deck furniture to painting psychedelic designs on my front door or shoving the head of my bed into a closet and draping yards of artistic lace around the opening. I hung cabinets above my desk last month, and a few years ago I built a large rockery thing to border my driveway on one side. And we won't talk about the hours of backbreaking landscaping I've done around here.

And Anne, put a can of spray paint in my hand and I'm a hampy capper. *g* I sprayed my stapler, tape dispenser, and pencil cup a lovely teal, then spreckled them with a lighter teal paint. They look like teal colored granite.

Oh, and there was the time I ran out of faux marble wallpaper and only had a small patch left to do. I wasn't going to buy an entire roll for such a small but conspicuous spot, so I mixed some paints together out of leftover cans of paint, and then painted a freehand marble pattern on that 2' x 2' spot. You can't tell where the wallpaper ends and the paint begins. *g*

Pat, I have never known anyone who disliked brass or shiny things! You crack me up. But somehow I understand the fierce determination to spray paint the shiny rim around the light fixture, no matter what. I am so like that. When I get an idea, I'm like a bulldog and just plow ahead, despite limitations.

[Patricia Rice]

LOL, Patricia, on buying new door handles. But this is St Louis and just finding nickel bathtub fixtures caused gritting molars. I ended up spraypainting them too. Not to mention that there are probably two million handles in this house.

Posters, Janice, excellent! Used to put them on the shabby ceiling. "G"

Glad I made someone smile on this miserable winter day. And Sherrie, you're worse than I am by a million times. It's good thing we live half a country apart!

[Andrea Penrose]

Oh, you almost made ME fall off my chair laughing. Have been there and done that about being determined to change a pesky house detail, no matter what. It can definitely be dangerous to your health.

I dislike brass too, and have a lot of very fancy, ornate brass bathroom fixtures installed by the previous owner. Am itching to get rid of them, but in rather like opening Pandora's Box—it's probably not wise to put lovely new fixtures on old sinks, etc, so really need to think of a total bathroom renovation. But not right now!

[Linda Banche]

I'm one of those who can't be bothered with what the place looks like as long as it's clean and in repair.

My husband, on the other hand, is the one who goes in for fancy stuff, like custom made cut crystal chandeliers. We have two--count them-- two in our house. They're small, but they're chandeliers. Along with all the other crystal stuff in the house.

[Patricia Rice]

oooooo, I love crystal, Linda! Could he please come replace the ugly brass fake lantern hanging from my two story foyer? I can't get at it. "G"

Andrea, we debated the bathroom thing, but we just had cheap garish shiny brass fixtures. Didn't cost much to rip them out and install nickel. It's the bathroom upgrade we're stalling out on, so it's nice not being met by shiny brass in the morning!

[Sherrie Holmes]

Bathroom fixtures! Hee! Get a load of mine: they are these elegant, over the top, antiqued brass jobs. The faucets are shaped like swans, and water comes out of their mouths. The sinks are shaped like a flower (think of a cosmo with the petals forming a bowl). And the bathtub's extra deep, so you can steep in it up to your neck.

Luckily, I now live in poverty, so I can't indulge my artistic whims as much as I'd like. *g*

[Anne]

I think my husband would say you sound very much like me. He would be happy to put furniture in one spot and never move it again. Me? I get a hankering for a new arrangement every few months and he comes home to a "new" living room. :) I can totally see myself spray-painting ceiling fixtures - I can only live with ugly for so long before I have to try and do something about it! Your descriptions of your adventure were very funny.