How can I be excited over switchplates?

LauraMax

LauraMax

Cathlete
This summer I did quite a bit of work on my house (new backyard fence, entire interior painted, knocked out a wall & put in a breakfast bar, bought new lighting fixtures--OMG are they expensive!).

So my finishing touches are the switch & outlet plates. I just ordered some beautiful oiled brass ones & I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm more excited about getting them than getting Drill Max. Am I sick or what?

Next is my kitchen ceiling--the last thing on the first floor. I'm putting in a tin ceiling & I am chomping at the bit! And I've had to delay it for about 2 months b/c of poor old Cosmo's vet bills, but I'm already getting estimates........has anyone else done this? It's a drop ceiling but tin panels are now being made for drop ceilings. I'm trying to get a sense of how much $$ I have to save, I'm guessing this might be my most expensive project so far. x(
 
You are not sick...or maybe I'm sick too. In that case we'd make good company. :)

I'm in the midst of some fairly major renovations. One of the things we did was replaced most of our heating system. I'm still swooning over my new Buderus boiler and PEX radiant tubing. :p

The last DVD I bought was on how to DIY concrete countertops...

As for tin ceilings, I've never worked with them, but I saw a show on the DIY channel where they installed them. It didn't look too hard. Here's the link: http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/hi_bathrooms/article/0,2037,DIY_13903_3727507,00.html
 
Oh, I suffer from the same sickness. I get ridiculously excited over little things I get for my house. Like, oh, I don't know, knobs.:p

I'm currently looking at pricing on granite counters for my kitchen, and we've gone from thinking "let's put a workout area in the basement rec room" to "let's rip out the basement entirely and redo it!".

Oy.
 
Thanks Gayle. You know, I wish I could do something like that, but it's a drop ceiling & what's making me nuts is the panels are the standard 2' X 3', but the tin panels are 2' X 2', so I have to have the whole damn ceiling re-grid.

Oh Shelley the counter top thing got me too! When I put in the breakfast bar I really really wanted a butcher's block counter, but it turned out to be something like $25 per square inch LOL. So I went with regular pine, which looks nice but not quite what I wanted. Granite would be awesome.

So would a finished basement. That's the last thing on my long, long list. But this stuff is so much fun! :)
 
YOu just appreciate the aesthetics of detail.

I wouldn't say 'excited,' but I went to a bit of care selecting pulls for my ceiling fans and lights: long, fan-blade-shaped pulls for the fans,and squat, light-shaped ones for the lights (I have a couple of combo fans and lights, so having them this way makes it easier to quickly grab the one I need).

I also bought cute light switch plates and matching outlet covers.

Even if noone else notices, YOU know that there's that little bit of beauty just a glance away!
 
LOL!! I spent a small fortune on Baldwin Brass switchplates and I adore them. I worried at first that they would look too ornamental and draw attention away from the decorative furnishings in my rooms but I haven't found that to be the case at all. My style is colonial with a few antiques thrown in for good measure, and the switchplates look like they belong there.

One of my cousins put in a faux tin ceiling and, my hand to God, you would never know it was wall paper. It looks fabulous--really pretty.
 
I just installed 6 flush fans around the house. I did 4 bedrooms, one in the living room, one in the dining room and one in the garage. They are all the same fans. I thought it would make the house a lot better. I just got the okay today for the shed I want to put in the back. Now I can hvae the concrete laid and set it up.:)

Kathryn, Nice touch doing the different fan pulls. It WOULD make it a lot easier to differentiate.
 
LauraMax, I went on a switchplate BINGE about 6 months ago. We had just gotten new Pergo throughout the house FINALLY after living with a ratty carpet for a billion years. I saw ONE brass switchplate in a hardware store and that was it for me. I then spent HOURS online at a bunch of places that sell billions of different kinds of switchplates and now almost EVERY switchplate in my house is some sort of arty-looking creation. I remember I had a huge chart, with little diagrams of how many plugs or whatever in each switchplate in each room, and then I would annotate it with my possible choices. Every day I would wait patiently for the mail to arrive with more switchplates.

It's the same sort of obsession I have with my Collage video catalogue lol.
 
Oh good, it's not just me. :+ A small fortune is right--the brass ones for the first floor cost over $100, & I'm getting tin plates for the kitchen (to match my future ceiling), another $100.

<sigh> 1/3 of next paycheck goes into savings for that ridiculous ceiling. x(
 
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