Hope you lovies had a great long weekend! So this tutorial could not be more simple. I am telling you guys, these giant macramé rope lights will change.your.life. they are that good.

So when I say giant, I mean HA-UUGE.. Not just the rope, the light bulbs too.

The knot for this project is as easy as can be. Its a great way to be productive AND watch Netflix because once your hands get the memory down you can sort of go on autopilot.

You’ll need:

Rope or Cording (make sure you use a coupon!)*
Lamp Cord
Socket Kit
Small Vessel (that can be drilled into)
Glue

*So don’t throw things at me, but I’m not sure how much cording to tell you to buy. Let me explain. For the huge rope, I bought 35 yards ($1.49/yd) and it easily covered 15 feet of lamp cord. For the smaller one I bought 40 yards ($.59/yd) and it covered 8 feet. Obviously the thickness plays a massive factor in how far it goes. The good news is that you can use clear tape to connect the ends together if you need to add more and you’ll never see them (also make sure that you use at least a 40% off coupon at JoAnn when you are buying it.)

Start by securing your lamp wire. For pictures I have it taped to a wall, in real life you’ll want to tie it around something like a chair back or doorknob to keep it stable.

Find the center of your cording and place it behind the lamp wire.

Take the left side and put it over the front of the lamp wire.

And under the right side of the cord creating a small loop on the left side of your lamp wire.

Then take the right cord and place it behind the lamp wire.

Pull the entire length of it through the small loop that you created on the left side of the lamp wire.

Repeat your little heart out. As you are creating more and more knots the design will start to spiral. As long as you are starting with the left side and taking it over the top of the lamp wire the spiral will go in the same direction. If you take the right side over, or put the left side under the spiral will switch directions and you’ll have to undo the knots.

Pretty soon it’ll start to look like this:

Once all of my knots were done it was time to wire the socket. You can do this before you start knotting if you want, its completely up to you.

For your socket cover you’ll need some sort of cup or planter. For my lights  I used a thrifted copper cup and a clearance plastic cup from Target that I spray painted white. But you can use anything! A wooden bowl, a ceramic planter, really the sky is the limit!

Start by drilling a hole into the bottom of your cup.

Then attach the treaded nipple to the socket base (make sure that you tighten the little screw on the side so that your socket doesn’t unscrew when you are twisting the light bulb!)

Put the washer, then the cup, then the socket base onto your lamp wire.

Attach the socket according to the instructions provided.

Then screw the washer onto the threaded nipple.

Slide your rope up (this the the only adjustment that you wont have to do if you wire your socket before you start on your knots) and around the end of the threaded nipple. Glue in place.

Ta Da!!

Now for the details on the giant light bulbs. Man oh man are they the stuff of legend.

I found them at a light bulb store when we were in LA but after some internet sleuthing, I found the best prices at School House Electric (way better than what we got them for)

Did I mention that they are massive?

A photo posted by Schoolhouse Electric (@schoolhouse) on Jun 24, 2015 at 9:57am PDT

So here is the thing. A light blub that big, its not just a bulb. Its the entire light. So while they aren’t cheap (around $40.00) they are freaking showstoppers.

Seriously though, can you imagine how fantastic 3 or 4 grouped together would be? I might just have to make that happen….

The post Giant Macramé Rope Lights appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

So now that you’ve seen Alex’s entire space, lets talk about how we solved some of the renter’s woes.

The vertical blinds on both of the windows was probably the biggest hurdle. I was completely for taking them down entirely but there were a few problems with doing that.

1. There was literally no where to store them. No. Where.

2. They are more fragile than the leg lamp on A Christmas Story. There was no way they were going to survive relocation even if we found somewhere.

3. To replace the sun blocking powers they have we would have to get some major blackout curtains, which on our time limit (and within a budget) wasnt an option.

The blinds had to stay. So the best option that I came up with was to hide as much of the ugly as possible.

We bought some simple brackets and wood from Home Depot, as well as curtain rods and hooks from Ikea and built a cornice box to hide the track.

The giant wall with the sliding door actually has 3 seperate sections on it (with windows on either side of the door) so I bought 3 packages of basic white curtains from Ikea to visually seperate them (and have a place to tuck the blinds behind when they are open). They are also fully functioning curtains that can be closed if Alex wants to hide the blinds while they are shut.

What a huge difference it made!

I have to say, I’ve bought a lot of curtians from Ikea and I was SUPER disappointed at these ones (normally I love them) They were all different lengths and cut wonky. So my advice is to make sure that you have at least 4” to work with on your curtain length to hem out the problems.

Renter Woe #2 was that there is no overhead lighting in the living room.

The solution that I came up with was to add lamps wherever I could.

These simple wall sconces were made with baskets (I just removed the handle and bent the rings so they could lay flat against the wall) and a light kit.

The table behind the couch was also a great place for a light because the cord is completely hidden by the rugs.

We also added the awesome macramehanging light above the desk. I wish you could understand how huge the light bulb is. It is easily the size of my head!

Renter Woe #3 was the beige. So much beige. I think one of the reasons that I am so against it is becuase it just feels so lifeless. Plants are lifeless beige’s best friend.

We found a handful of plants at the flea market and the rest at Home Depot. Um, you guys. Remember how my life was changed by Staghorn Ferns? Yeahhhhh. They sell them at Home Depot for $10. Just another reason why California is so much cooler than Utah. (If you didnt know, HD sources all of their plants from local growers, so you’ll find different plants in different climates. Which is why Southern Utah has such a killer cactus selection!)

Renter Woe #4 was the oatmeal carpet. I had a few of you ask about putting rugs over the carpet, so lets talk about it! (I’d love for you carpet dwellers to weigh in below!!)  I am not a huge fan of carpet (we dont have any in our house at all) but ripping it out was absolute the least likely change we could have made. Luckily (?) it isnt the worlds plushest carpet. The main seating area has a giant seagrass rug down first and the woven rug on top of it, which seemed to give it a pretty good base.

All design rules out the window, if you have ugly carpet, why cant you cover it up? Sure your rug might shift and buckle easier than it does on hardwood or tile, but I’d much rather fiddle and adjust than look at the bad carpet. Its not fair that some people get hardwood AND cute rugs and others are destined to carpet exile with not even a bandaid.

While we are on the subject of the rugs, I’ve got to tell you about a project adjustment that we just didnt have time for.

I wish with all my heart that a larger sisal existed. This one was the only one that World Market had in store, but if they had had another I would have bought 2 and taken a few rows of squares off of one and put it on the other to make it bigger. The rug itself is a bunch of squares stitched together with twine, so it would have been a perfect fix. It haunts me everytime I look at the pictures!

Just picture it with a few more rows on the end and all the way underneath the couch! Alex if you’re reading this, go buy another one and save it until we come down again, I’ll do rug surgery when we get there!

I feel like all in all we did a fantastic job working with what we had! And I seriously need that orange rug and those chairs for my house.

The post Solving Renter Woes appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Last week we took a last minute whirlwind trip to LA to fix up my Brother in Law’s new apartment. Like most rentals, it was a beige wonderland. Complete with vertical blinds, popcorn ceilings and oatmeal carpet.

The original plan was to throw a few new rugs and pillows down and maybe add a little bit of art. Um. That didn’t happen. Instead we packed everything we possibly could into the time we had there and worked our butts off.

He had a few good staple pieces of furniture (like the couch from West Elm)  and the rustic wood kitchen table but that was about it.

I’ve learned a few things in my DIYin’ days the most important being, you are going to pay with your time, or you are going to pay with your money. There were a million projects that I would have LOVED to DIY in this makeover but 3 days just wasn’t enough time to pull them off. So the good news is that if you aren’t really a DIYer you can duplicate so much of this room because its all for sale! (I will link everything below) We did do a few projects though, so watch for tutorials throughout the rest of the week!

Just a reminder, this is where we started.

This is what it looks like now:

Wall Mirror | Fringe Pillow | White and Gray Tribal Pillow

We decided to flip the couch and divide the big room into 2 smaller spaces.

One of the biggest struggles with such a fast turn around is that ordering things online wasn’t an option, we were limited to what was available in store at that moment. Our main shopping sources were World Market, Target, CB2, Homegoods, IKEA, and the flea market. I feel like everything that we bought was really affordable.

The second that I saw that orange and grayish tribal rug I knew it would be so perfect in the room. The problem is that it wasn’t big enough to live underneath the couch and both of the chairs. The solution was to put an awesome geometric sisal underneath.

Sisal Rug | Orange Tribal Woven Rug

The chairs are literally my favorite thing in this entire space.

The cute little side table is a planter from IKEA with a wooden plate on top of it.

Navy Striped Pillow | Bolster Pillow | Brass Lamp

Desk | Shelf Brackets | Rug | Aqua Teapot | Brass Vase | Basket | Calendar (Target in store, similar) | File Holder | Folders | Hourglass | Ceramic Peanut | Stapler | White Planter

This giant wall was a killer. We knew that something needed to go there but we just could not for the life of us find anything! At the very last minute we found this shelf at a random furniture store. It’s the perfect size for the wall and the wall hanging (a table runner from target!) is such a great accent.

Wall Hanging | Black and White Picture Frame | Mint Bowl | Vintage Fiat Photo | Glass Jars | Brass Candle Lantern |Cardboard Boxes (Target in store) | American Flag Pillow | Yellow and Gray Pillow (Target in store)

One of the easiest (and most effective) ways to customize a space is to update the lighting. In the dining area I took out that white monstrosity of a fan and replaced it with this super cute wicker pendant light. We took all of the blades off of the fan for easy storage and changing the light made it so we could center the whole room.

Alex already had the table and chairs so all we needed to do was add art and a rug.

I’ve seen this black and white watercolor buffalo picture floating around the internet and was super happy that it was in store. The flag we found at a vintage clothing store. Its got the perfect amount of fade on it.

Black and White Rug | Buffalo Print | White Pitcher | Gem Bowls

For art on the wall by the window I did this super quick brush stroke piece with black acrylic paint (tutorial here!). I didn’t want to add more color because the flag was plenty, so doing it in black and white was sort of a no brainer.

Wow that was a lot of pictures! But just for fun, here is a before and after again.

Tomorrow’s post is all about breaking down how we solved all of the renters woes and a few things I wish I could change, so you wont want to miss it!

The post Alex’s 72 Hour Apartment Makeover | Reveal appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Decorating a rental can be seriously hard. Most (ok, ok, all) of the projects that I do don’t reeeeally involve rentals…at least rentals that cant be altered. So I guess I could say that theoretically decorating a rental is hard.

Until now. I’ve earned my patch.

My brother in law Alex just moved to a new apartment in LA and at the very last minute (like the day before) we decided to take a road trip and help him spruce it up.

It is the beigest of beige and exactly what you picture when you think of a typical rental. Popcorn ceilings, bad linoleum, oatmeal carpet, beige walls, and the worst thing…vertical blinds on every window.

There are a few things that were working for him. The ceilings in the main room are really tall. Like super tall. When you open the blinds there are some massive windows hiding behind them. He also had a few pretty good pieces of furniture, but it wasn’t doing him any favors.

In a perfect world I’d repaint, rip out the carpet, and throw those stupid blinds into the ocean.

But in the real world? The paint and carpet cant be changed. The popcorn ceiling has the privilege of staying intact. The windows are west facing and the blinds have to be closed the second 1/2 of the day or else its 9000 degrees in there. So no ocean.

All of that coupled with the fact that we were only in Cali for 72 hours and completely unprepared with tools and supplies made for a whirlwind room makeover. The plan was to throw down a few rugs and freshen up the couch with new pillows. Psssh. You don’t need tools for that.

Of course that didn’t happen. Though I don’t know why, I’ve come to grips with the fact that I cant do small things. A few pillows? Its just not real.

Here’s the thing. Renting is real life. But just because you cant alter the actual space doesn’t mean that you cant have a beautiful home. And I am seriously sorry if I’ve ever made you feel like if you cant repaint you are S.O.L. There is SO much you can do…you just have to get creative.

I cant wait to show you what we did! But I have to know, looking at this space, what would you do? How would you make this feel like home?

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