THIS is the final rose...

Let me first start off by confessing that yes, I did have a neon beer sign hanging in the living room for the last 3 years. My husband was desperately trying to hold on to that itsy bitsy part of his "bachelor" days and with two small children, I didn't have the energy to fight it. Plus, I knew I had to have that "perfect" replacement before even trying to remove the darn thing. You see, my husband thinks that everything must be securely mounted with heavy-duty screws (like we get crazy earthquakes in IL), so I knew that I'd have huge holes in the wall.

I eagerly awaited the day when the neon glare would be no more. I often joked that when he turned it on, the kids and I would suffer from migraines.

Then finally, one day last summer we went to our friend's new house, and I saw these gorgeous, unique shelves our friend had built. His shelves were amazing, and I knew that Jeff could make something similar, but smaller to replace the beer sign.

I don't think we even made it home before I was nagging him to build it.

So here's the awful before (I'm so embarrassed to show this...)

Now that's one beautiful bar sign! *gagging...gagging***

And here is our version of our friend's shelves:

I really love it for our space.

I love the small lights he mounted underneath.

I love that now I have a space to proudly display our family pictures.

I do not love that the cord shows...but hey, it's better than a neon glow!!!