Better After

31 In decor/ My House

My Brass Candlestick Collection

I’ve been looking for a reason to share my growing collection of brass candlesticks with you, so I invented one! I started a “Collections Tour” with some of my blogging friends, and it kicks off today! Whoop woo!

I’m so intrigued by the things people decide to collect and why. For instance, I have a friend who collects Santa Clause figurines because his mother was SO good at making Christmastime magical, he actually believed in Santa until 7th grade. I have another friend so obsessed with Disney that every single room in her home is top-to-bottom, wall-to-wall Disney, not exaggerating.

So today, not only can you hop around from blog to blog and see what your favorite bloggers are into collecting, you can use the hashtag #whatIcollect on instagram or twitter to share a peek of your collections too! I would seriously love to see it. Please, won’t you let me be a voyeur inside your head?

Unfortunately, there’s no scandalous story or magical childhood memory behind my collection. I recently started collecting brass candlesticks simply because I like them and they are easy to find. Every time I swing by the thrift-store there is usually an assortment to choose from.

And here they are! Such a cute little group.

I’m now learning that the quality of brass can vary wildly, so I’m starting to be pickier about which ones I’ll buy.

I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite because they are all like little baby children to me. HA! Kidding. They are just candlesticks. Of course I have a favorite. It’s the first one on the left of the picture above. I’m pretty sure it’s the highest quality brass in the bunch. It’s much heavier than it looks and has a really lovely warm tone when it’s all polished up. (It could use a bit of polishing right now).

The one next to it is some kind of candlestick mutt which I’m pretty sure was pieced together from three separate candlesticks of various metals, same with the other long and skinny one. The third from the end and the little one on the end are probably the cheapest quality, and it shows in their yellowy brassy tone that is not my fave. They were probably some of the first ones I bought when I didn’t know any better.

It’s also hard to tell what you are getting when you find them at the thrift store, because they are all in desperate need of polishing and look super dull and brown. Like this:

But going by their weight is a good way to judge if you’ve found a worthwhile one. Just pretend you are playing Clue and ask yourself if your candlestick could viably be used as a weapon or not. Easy!

Here is Mr. My Favorite up close and personal, and you can see exactly where it needs some polishing again. I just use Brasso, which you can find in the cleaning aisle, but honestly, I’m not THAT impressed with Brasso. It still takes a ton of elbow grease to really shine them up.

I plan to keep adding to my collection whenever I find any that are especially unique. Now I just need to collect more candles!

Ok! Now it’s your turn! Snap a picture or two of something you love to collect and share it with us on instagram or twitter. Just use the hashtag #whatIcollect, and if you tag me @betterafterlnz (or @betterafter on twitter), I’ll be sure to come by and say hi!

Check out the rest of the bloggers on the tour by clicking on the linky thing below. Yay fun!

May 12, 2015 By Lindsey @ Better After

2 In tables/dressers

From Coffee to Consoles

(Sorry if you’ve seen this post before, but I seem to have inadvertently deleted it from the universe. Trying again!)

I hope you had a lovely Mother’s Day and got spoiled rotten! Mine was nice, my daughter gave me approximately 600 cards and pictures and coloring book pages and post-it notes, my 9-year-old son gave me chocolates, and my 13-year-old son gave me a 3-pack of disposable razors. Yeaaaaaikes. I’d better get on the ball and teach that one a few things, or someday he’s going to be the husband who buys the 3-pack of disposable razors for his kid to give his wife on Mother’s Day.

But does it really matter if you got razors for Mother’s Day? Does it matter if your diner was frozen pizza? Does it matter if you are an ugly old coffee table? (stay with me here). Of course not. You just gotta remember what you DO have. I have four happy, healthy kids and that’s more than I deserve. And this coffee table had four attractive little legs and a solid top and bottom, and that was more than enough to …

… turn it into an entertainment console of awesomeness! *sniff* It seems like just yesterday Natasha was bringing it home from the thrift store, and now it’s all grown up!

May 11, 2015 By Lindsey @ Better After

12 In The Mystery Thrift-Off

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It’s getting closerrrr! The Mystery Thrift-Off participants have received their items, recovered from the shock, and are currently in the process of making them over.

Follow some of the behind-the-scenes action from the participants on Instagram and Twitter, (even though I am so terrible about remembering Twitter) with the hashtag #themysterythriftoff.

The big reveal and voting will happen the second week of June, so keep your eyeballz peeled for that. We will be voting on our favorites, but I’m still stumped on what categories to use, so I welcome your suggestions! Remember I’ve never done this before, so I’m still just figuring it out as we go along. But it will be super fun no matter what!

Huge thanks to our sponsor, Redesign by Goodwill for making it all possible!

May 9, 2015 By Lindsey @ Better After

5 In other rooms

Stop and stay for a tile.

Wow, what a week! In the past seven days I have hosted nine people at my house, thrown a surprise 30th birthday party for my sister, had my favorite band come over and play a private concert for me nobigdeal, dealt with sick kids, the baby getting his molars, a dead air conditioner, and a broken down car. Is it Friday yet?

Is it? I don’t think I can even crack my open my eyes to check.

I think I’ll head back to bed (hahahahahaha, I wish), while you feast your eyes on this lovely foyer makeover from Sabrina at Little Pink Notebook. From beige and bland to gray and anything but! Those hexagon tiles are enough to ‘stop’ me in my tracks. Get it? Because they’re shaped like stop signs? What’s that? Stop signs are octagons? I’m tired.

May 8, 2015 By Lindsey @ Better After

5 In Uncategorized

Dream Team, Take 2

Sorry I don’t have a before and after to share today, but I have something even better: the sequel to THE COOLEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

If you haven’t read part one, it basically involves me cyber-stalking my favorite band until they agreed to come and play a concert for me at my house. That band is called TEAM, and that concert happened in my backyard in November of 2014.

Well, they just so happened to be passing through this part of the country again, and apparently I didn’t scare them off too badly the first time, because they agreed to come and play another private acoustic set for me and my friends. Oh man, I just love this band so hard.

They are so talented and fun and funny. I could listen to their music all day. And I do! Please check them out and tell me you love them too. You can stream all their music for free on their website right here.

Caleb and Jared on guitar and Rico on … Pop Rocks?! I didn’t have any maracas for him to play this time, so we improvised. Haha, he made it work.

They just left this morning to continue their tour with Cartel on the west coast, so check them out if they are stopping in your city! You won’t be disappointed.

May 6, 2015 By Lindsey @ Better After

8 In miscellaneous

Goodnight Granite

With spring officially here and summer quickly approaching, you are probably not thinking about your fireplace at all. Pish posh! Now is exactly when you should be thinking about it. You aren’t using it, so now is the perfect time to give it a makeover. And also clean out your flue? I don’t know, I haven’t had a fireplace in ten years. But probably you should look into that.

Then, when winter rolls around, your fireplace is ready to burn and looking good too! Isn’t that all we want from a fireplace?

Kammy at Kammy’s Korner was sick to death of her fireplace and its pink granite surround. Despite horrified gasps from her family and friends, she went ahead and painted right over it. Painted granite? You betcha. She stenciled a trellis design over the top, and it looks like a custom tile job to me!