Let there be light!

One of the drawbacks to our house is that we don't get much natural light. There's the window in the kitchen that faces west, and then Asher's bedroom window faces east. Those 2 rooms get great light. The rest of the rooms face either north or south, so they are a lot darker than I'd like. Our family room is one of the worst because it only has the light from the ceiling fan. I've been dying to buy lamps for that room ever since we moved in (May 2009!), but it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally found exactly what I wanted at a price that didn't make me cry. I found the lamps at Walmart, of all places, and it came in a box that had 4 lamps for a great price. I used 2 of them in the family room and the other 2 in our bedroom.

I really can't believe the difference that simply adding 2 lamps makes in our family room! It's so much more warm and has a much homier (is that a word?) feel to it. I also found a cute little table on Craigslist for $15, which was the perfect spot for one of the lamps in the family room. And it gave me an excuse to go shopping for a couple more accessories! ;-) I found the little basket and the metal decoration picture/thingy (technical term there) at a local store here for about $11 total!

Like I mentioned, I put 2 of the lamps in our bedroom. I don't have any pictures of that yet because our room is still a work in progress. But I did take one of the lamps we used previously and gave it a little makeover to use in Bri's room! The other one will receive the same treatment and will go in Kyrie's room, but I didn't have the right color spray paint for hers at the time (I already had the pink for Bri's room from another project). It's not quite done yet. These lamps we've had for at least 4 years now, so the shades are looking a little sorry. I have plans to recover the shade, but I haven't had a chance to go look for fabric yet. Here's the progress so far, though!

Before:

After!: