I thought I would share with you all one of my latest bedroom DIY’s. Our bedroom isn’t the largest and has ONE built in cupboard so storage is a little issue. I am always looking for ways to maximize space and make the room look as minimal as possible without comprising the need for storage.
I picked up these bed side tables for R150 from a second hand furniture seller on facebook. The legs were completely different – they were straight and a bit meh but I saw potentital because I absolutely love the draws. I enlisted the help of a local carpenter to chop off the legs and use the wood to create slanted legs instead, I then painted the outer parts cream and decided to leave the draw in its natural wood form, I absolutely love how they came out.
The one thing I struggled with for a long time was lighting, out room has a single pendant light in the centre of the room which happens to be above the bed and of course more to my side so I hate it – its ugly and shines directly into my eyeballs. agh. We have been through about 3 sets of bedside lighting options; those white wooden shabby chic ones and the metal desk vibe lights both from Mr Price. I still ended up hating them, after trolling on pinterest I found the idea of pendant lights, I saw lots of really cool ways it hang them but unfortunately for me – we’re renting so that means minimal to no holes in the wall. I was determined to get them to work, regardless.
Off I went to Hoi Ploy in Salt River, what a magical place everything is customisable and really not that expensive, I’m talking R39 per metre of fabric cable. What can get expensive is the fittings and bulbs you choose and let me tell you there are SO many beauties to choose from, I really had to reign myself in. I knew I wanted something with a switch so I went for the holder with a switch on, that saved cutting the cable half way and adding a switch. Picked up two plugs from there as well, R30 each and off I went.
Now let me tell you something about myself that may shock you, I am a nerd when it comes to this kind of stuff – I thought myself how to change a plug, love reworking adapters into a room to best see how they can fit. So for me this project was a dream, the only part I’m no good at is the accuracy and what I mean by that is, the cutting straight – I can hardly draw a straight line with a ruler! Lucky for me Mandla is wayyyy more accurate so together this project was a breeze, he cut the cable I pulled the wires out and rewired the plugs and he helped hold the cables while I put them in place for the light fitting. It took us about an hour to complete both and I could not be happier with the result.
Now I had to thing of how to hang them, I went off to Laughtons Hardware and asked for an offcut of a wooden dowel they found me some and cut it for me easy peasy! I also picked up the bulbs from there as they were way cheaper than anywhere else. I then thought long and hard at how I would attach this to the wall, it’s fairly light and the pendants themselves aren’t heavy so I opted for 60kg double sided tape pahaaa what a joke those stayed up for about 20 minutes!!
Feeling a little stumped off I went back to Laughtons, this time on the hunt for really long nails that I could get drilled into the wooden dowel and then nail into the wall making just a tiny hole that polyfiller can fill. Lucky for me at the time there was some builders next door so I knocked and asked them to drill into the wood for me, which they did. I then had a wooden dowel with a centre hole in it, nailed the nail into the wall with a hammer and placed the nail into the dowel and that is exactly what we have here.
What was the last thing you DIY’d in your home?
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