$100 Room Challenge: New Lights

We are now in Week 2 of the $100 Room Challenge: New Lights and are making a lot of progress on this little outdoor space. 

Hi everyone, welcome to week 2 of the $100 Room Challenge: New Lights. If this is your first time seeing the $100 Room Challenge it is a bi-annual challenge sponsored by my friend Erin, from Lemons, Lavender, & Laundry. So, let me give you a little back ground on what the $100 Room Challenge is all about. This challenge takes place twice a year.  January and September is when Erin invites us to redo a room in our home using only $100. As you can see the premise of this challenge is real simple: one month, one space, and $100. If you want to know more about the $100 Room Challenge, check out Erin’s post to see how the concept was inspired, and it’s colossal growth since she decided to start it! This season I have decided to work on a Covered Patio, located just outside of the basement. 

Weeks at a Glance:    

WEEK  1         WEEK 2        WEEK 3       WEEK 4

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The Scheduled Plan: 

Week 1: Pressure Wash Patio & Painting 

Week 2: DIY Refurbishing Lights & Installing Existing String Lights  

Week 3: Focal Window Box or Bench Seat with Cushions 

Week 4: Accessorizing- Shop You Home & Reveal 

The Before Fixture: 

As you can see our original light fixture is basic, small and now cover in some white paint speckles from our ceiling painting. The plan is to replace this fixture with our older garage light fixture that we upgraded this past spring. Plus if you notice there is also a flaw that I just noticed myself on how the electrical was run for this fixture, see the hole above the light filled in with clear caulk? Yep I can no longer unsee that… 
You can see our supply shelf in the basement where we always keep our older fixtures when we replace them. You never know when they may be needed for a rental property, or if you are selling a home. In fact last week we had a neighbor that needed a few replacement fixtures that we were happy to pay it forward and give back. Sometimes you may just need a fixture for a temporary light in a space until the one you ordered comes in, so we always just keep them, in an organized fashion in our replacement areas of our workshop. You can probably see the exact same fixture we are replacing on the shelf, which is from our deck and the one next to it is from our garage which is the one we will be using today. Since this fixture was on the front of our home it had a bit of sun damage and weathering, but I am going for a rustic look so I’m hoping to add a little brown craft paint to make this fixture look rusty.This will give a kind of antique bronze look which goes nicely with the farmhouse fixture we installed on our adjacent deck above. This was my finished product once I got all the paint on the light fixture. I love the large size of this fixture, it covers that unsightly hole I found on the upper side of the original fixture from where the electrical was run too high and the fixture was installed too low. The base plate covers that flaw in the hardy board so my OCD no longer has to be on high alert.  Now it looks like the newer version of Charlton Home TuckerLight Fixture and I saved us about $70.

String Lights- I already own, but they are just sitting in a box from the Picnic Under the Stars so I might as well use them right? Clean them up test bulbs and buy hooks to attach to ceiling. So I am looking at the cost of tea cup hooks if I do not already have enough on hand, which I will have to check my supplies. The second part of this process was adding some string lights to the freshly painted ceiling. We did find a dozen or so white tea cup hooks in our hardware drawers so we did not even have to purchase those. These lights were bought 3 years ago for an outdoor party. I have literally had them stored in a box ever since, and I thought why not just run those along the bottom of the ceiling like I did up stairs? It  gives off a ton of ambient light, more than the single porch light we had previously, plus we just installed a new one.  It provides light for the entire space instead of just at the door stoop. Plus it creates and nice room vibe for and outdoor area. So we drilled a few pilot holes and screwed in the white tea cup hooks so they would disappear into the ceiling and strung up our new lighting source. 
The Edison bulbs were still all in good shape and we even had a half a dozen to spare. Plus I still have some fun lantern shades I can add to the tops of the these lights for a fun spring time look if I want to mix things up. I’m just not going with a blue and green color palette right now so those will have to wait until later. 

The Budget: ( $100 Available Still) 

Week 1: Pressure Washing has already being done on our driveway and rest of home- Included in Home Maintenance Budget (free)

Week 2:  Paint- Left Over Trim Paint from Painting our Deck & Screened Porches 2 years ago (free)

                 Various Paint Supplies- left over pieces from previous painting projects/sponsored posts/etc  (free)

                 String Lights- Previous Owned- Picnic Under the Stars (free) 

                 Porch Light- Refurbished/ Repainted originally from the garage door light  we replaced (free) Craft paint/brush owned (free) 

BUDGET USED: $0

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