Last night I was chilling on the sofa while Mojo our lovable Chihuahua was laying on my, when I glanced into our dining room. I realized then that our house has come a long way since we bought it late December 2008 and moved in January 2009. I think one the changes I love most that we've done thus far is the lighting. Finding the right light fixture has been the starting point of most our room re-dos. When we first moved into our home, our living room had the ugliest ceiling fan. It was an ugly faux wood grain brown one. Although I'm not the biggest lover of ceiling fans they are a must for No. California heat waves. See what I mean.

Since the fan was a keeper, we did a quick update with white spray paint. Perfect solution for updated a dreary ceiling fan. Our ceiling fan now blends into the our what ceiling and is not not and ugly eyesore. See you can barely tell its there.

Since spray painted our of ceiling fan white, most of of lighting updates have happened this year. Since I love the look of drum shades over dining room tables, they look so chic and give off a great cool vibe in a room, we upgraded our old basic dining room light. Here's how our old dining room, right after we started taking the sucker down. Yay its was really up there! Lovely.

We customized the Eden Drum shade we purchased from CB2 by hardwiring it and using a down-rod similar to styles you see in resutrants, which gives the light fixutre a nice clean look for our dining room.

I love the the ambiance the light gives off when its on.

Next we upgraded the same light in our sons room (the previous owner installed the light fixture in every room in the house! I think they took the more is the merrier approach. Again this light fixture was ho hum.

The look of is bedroom change the instant Mr. CLH installed his new light fixture. I found a wood grain style drum shade on clearance at Lowes for $ 53 bucks (read more about it here) His new bedroom light is a serous upgrade and cool.

Inside of the light fixture is a cityscape, I love the warm glow in casts in his bedroom.

I saved the the best for last, Ok maybe I'm a little biased because the light fixture is in my bedroom! We swamped out the same light fixture that was in my sons room for a modern version of the chandelier. For me its the wow factor in our bedroom and I love it, we also added a dimmer switch on the chandelier. Here's the chandelier in the late evening with the dimmer switch on.

And with the lights all the way. I love the shadows the light fixture cast in the room.

So far we switched out or upgraded five light fixtures in our home, I know ones missing our bathroom! But thats a post for another day. For me lighting and paint is one of the best ways to add instant drama into a room and make it personal. Have you've been slowly updated the lighting your home? What's your biggest wow factor lighting upgrade so far, or what will it be?

I guess I was channeling Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz, with the post title! Moving on...a few weeks back I ordered some fabric samples for our diy headboard, possible pillows & living room dogie bed. First up potential fabric swatches for our long forgotten Master Bedroom re-do. It's been on pause while I work on my sons tween bedroom re-do (which should be done soon). When Mr. CLH & I talked about our headboard, we both agreed we didn't want white and a pattern could be fun, but then it limits the other colors and patterns we can include in our bedroom down the line. Since we decided to stick with solid fabric I wanted the fabric to have texture and be soft. Here are the two fabric swatches we are considering for our headboard. The darker fabric is a Medium Weight Linen the color is Charcoal. The lighter fabric is from Diversitex Claridge Basket weave the color is Elephant.

Here's how the potential headboard fabric would look with our bedding, the white represents our duvet, the grey our coverlet and the grey & white fabric Euro pillows. At first glance I really like the darker shade.

Looking closer, I really like the pattern weave on the Elephant swatch, I think the color might be too light?

My other options is going with charcoal, which looks like more like a deep grey.

I'm hooked on the Nail head upholstered headboard from West Elm. Its no huge surprise I love the color of the hardboard and the texture. I also like the idea of doing double nail-head trim. I also love how close the nail head time is to the edge of the headboard, it creates a nice finished look. I've never done a nail head trim, hopefully its not hard, I'm thinking black round nail heads.

Double the fun? Or more work? lol

Here are my other two fabric swatches, I'm considering sewing some pillow covers for our living room with this fabric, so its subtle Ikat print (swatch # 2 on the right). They would cover our yellow pillows - I would use the pillow covers from time to time, when I wanted to freshen up the look of our living room. The colors and fabric type are a perfect match with our lumbar pillows. I hope you gals aren't tiring of my love from yellow!

Often when I come home from work Mojo's on our sofa on one of the pillows, and I find myself washing our pillows more often than a want. Even though he's small he still sheds some in the Summertime. I decided to make him a bed for living room that's cool enough to lay on the floor, like his bed in our bedroom. I'm thinking the Chevron print with turquoise / blue piping - for an additional fun pop of color. This picture below from Eddie Ross, sums up how I love cute dogie beds on living room floors. It just makes me smile.

What do you think of the fabric swatches for the diy headboard? Basket weave or linen, for those of you that have done nail hoards before, any tips? Thanks

Secondly - Chevron floor dogie pillow for Mojo? Or am taking on too many projects, lol