By now, you’ve seen the gigantic map Kyle gifted me this Christmas. Well, I am happy to report the map is just the beginning of all the goodies Schoolhouse Electric has in store for us. Owner Brian Faherty and his team have turned a little lighting company into a breathtaking lifestyle brand. Not only can you order customizable, handmade lights for your home, but Schoolhouse Electric is now creating its own furniture, lamps, bedding, accessories and such. Heck, they’ve even created a good looking extension cord. My kind of company.

Here are a few of my personal favorite pieces…

And here’s the Schoolhouse branded room that I LOVE…

Portlanders – you must visit Schoolhouse Electric’s beautiful showroom in NW Portland. The building has been lovingly restored, and it’s so very Portland. For all you out-of-towners – you are in luck. Everything seen above lives online, so these goodies are just a few clicks away from being yours.

Keep a watchful eye on Schoolhouse Electric. I have a feeling the best is yet to come.

A few weeks ago, I meandered around Portland’s last flea market of the season. Because our bungalow is small and already jammed full of stuff, I wasn’t looking to really purchase anything. I was just looking for fun.  BUT, I stumbled upon a piece that I loved, and I ended up chatting with a local craftsman by the name of Matthew Grizack. He constructs custom pieces that are made of reclaimed steel and wood, and they are BEAUTIFUL. We’d been on the hunt for a  tv stand for months, but everything I’d seen  had either been waaaay too expensive or from a big-box retailer. Matthew agreed to make us a custom TV stand and I was thrilled. Buying a piece from someone local, who uses salvaged pieces to construct the final project, was just what we’d been looking for. Sweet success.

In short, the piece was delivered yesterday. I took a lot more non-iPhone photos, which I will post soon, but I wanted to give you a sneak-peak of the final piece. We are in love. Matthew was great to work with a created a media console that we’ll have forever. The $450.00 was an amazing investment and is much more budget-friendly than the original TV stands we were spying.

The piece is much bigger than it appears in the photos. Someday, Kyle dreams of having a 52-inch TV, so we created the stand to accomodate the TV we don’t even own. The piece is heavy, so as soon as we move this from our family room to the basement, I’ll take more photos of it inside our home.

If you’d like to hire Matthew to create a custom piece for your home  (he builds everything!), feel free to contact him at mgrizack@gmail.com or 401-632-3481.

I’m thinking I’ll accessorize the bottom shelf with textured baskets and such – any other ideas?

Remember when I blogged about my hand-me-down dresser? I haven’t forgotten about it, promise.

As it turns out, I was apparently on a white paint terror this weekend. All furniture in our house should’ve made a run for it, because I was having a ball with my paint brush. Besides our staircase, what was I painting? This beautiful dresser I’d recently inherited from my Momma’s sweet friend…

I painted it. And I had all these plans to go crazy with a paint color or even a design, but when it came down to it, I just decided I like white furniture. A lot. It matches everything, and in a small and old house like we have, it makes rooms look a little bit bigger and fresh. AND, for all you wood furniture fans out there, don’t be mad at me! The dresser had this funky paint and stain on it, so I promise I didn’t paint over pretty wood. I painted over dingy paint, which is something the photos don’t show.

Here’s a quick shot of the dresser with a few coats of white paint in our guest room…

As it turns out, the dresser actually needed five coats of paint. Yes, five. Yikes. It’s safe to say I did A LOT of painting this weekend. Now, it just needs needs knobs and it will be done!

So, about the knobs….I actually have them, but I only have three of them right now, and the dresser needs six. I found the knobs at Anthropologie on sale for $2.95 each. Score. They are called the ripe melon pull and I love the ceramic gourd and the fluted brass. Classy, eh?

The store only had three of the green knobs (they still have white in stock online if you want to grab a few of your own), so the other three are currently in the mail and being sent to me from New Jersey. As soon as I have them in my hands and place them on the dresser, this little baby will be in business. Here’s a sneak peek picture of the dresser today…

I am hoping to have my puurty green knobs by the end of this week, which means this tired dresser will be all dressed up and ready for its grand reveal next week.

Stay-tuned!