New Life for 1920s Handles

Another piece of the kitchen puzzle. Last night, I ordered a vintage glass door knob set on Etsy, from the 1920s. With some adaptations, I plan to use a knob and back plate as the pull for the lower pantry door and just the knob on the top part.

I think the larger scale will fit well with this massive cabinet (22" x 15" and 30" deep), while still tying into the small glass knobs I'm using on most of the doors. It's so exciting waiting for the mail these days!

Ceiling Bling

Maybe it was the heady rush of realizing how much I'd saved on my yard sale cabinet pulls, or maybe it was the need for something SPARKLY to look at  on this dreary fall day. Oh wait--I blame my friend Liz for letting me know that Pottery Barn had 20% off their lights this week. And thus, I found myself pushing our lighting budget up by about $40 (or about $120 if you go by the price of the lights we purchased but are returning) so that we could own three of these: 

We'd gotten a great deal on some copper-look lights with Edison bulbs, at just $40 each including the bulb. And they look nice--if you don't look at them. With the exposed bulb at eye level for adults seated at the bar, the effect was a bit blinding. So the lighting search re-started.


We looked at Ikea, back to Lowe's, Amazon, Etsy, round and round. I think the extra money we are spending on the Harlowe Wire & Glass lights is a small trade off for the time I will save by ending my internet search!

Also alleviating any budget busting guilt was finding these EXACT lights on Ebay, new in the box, for the sale price, but with no shipping or taxes. That saved over $30. Which is just enough to make me feel like I got a good deal and enjoying checking another item off the list.

Knobs! Mismatched Matching

Because I planned to change blogging platforms, I've put off blogging about our Ikea kitchen remodel. Unless you count posts composed in my head. There are like 30 of those.

Anyway, as a result, I still plan to chronicle our DIY remodeling adventures, but it will now be out of order and a bit willy nilly. So, let's start near the end with cabinet hardware. I'd set a low budget ($70) for this considering that we need 12 pulls, 16 knobs and 6 appliance pulls. It meant scouring for deals and some creativity.

I'd picked up this pull and knob set for $4 at a yard sale over the summer, originally for another project, but ended up not using them. While the knobs were a little flowerly, I decided that, for my budget, I could learn to love the cup pulls. The catch was trying to find knobs that would match. Until I thought of a much better idea. NOT matching.

Especially since I was shopping on Amazon and Ebay looking for deals, it was impossible to determine if I'd end up ordering something that would prove useless. Glass became the work around. Last night I ordered 18 of the oval glass knobs pictured at right. For...drum roll...$2.35 each, on Ebay. This is a savings of several dollars per knob, compared to retail prices. With shipping + yard sale pulls, that brings me to about $53 total on cabinet hardware. And I have faith that I'll find those last few appliance pulls at a yard sale this weekend. Stranger things have happened.

At least some parts of this project are coming in under budget. Finally!