Lite Brite (AKA - A Mood Light Bar)

On a recent trip to Ikea (yes, we are lucky to have 2 Ikeas within 20 minutes of our place), I noticed something that I thought would look neat on either side of our TV:

The Gyllen Light Panel

The only problem was the light fixture that went behind it - at over 3 inches thick, it was far from 'low profile.'

Enter:  Hubs' genius idea and the Dioder flexible LED light system.

The Dioder flexible LEDs

Thanks to the *free* mirror hanging brackets,
the panels barely stick out from the wall

The last dilemma of how to mount the glass panels to the wall was easily solved by simply asking an Ikea salesperson for any extra mirror mounting brackets.  Turns out that they keep extra mounting brackets on hand when mirrors are broken in the store for the specific purpose of giving them to customers with broken brackets.  A minute later, I had 8 *free* brackets.  (See, men?  Most of the time, asking a question ends with a positive result.  Why is it that you like to wander around a store for an hour when you could just take 2 seconds to ask someone?)

When we got home, I quickly discovered that the glass panels wouldn't look that great on either side of the TV.  Hubs had an idea to stack the panels over the TV, which also didn't look that great.  Then we discovered that the two of them pushed together fit perfectly across the wall, with a 1/2 inch to spare.

The Dioder lights were SO EASY to install - you literally peel the paper off the back and stick the light strip to the wall, and cut them to size on the pre-marked cut lines.  Crazy simple.

The end result is pretty awesome and modern.  The lights can change colors (they fade from color to color), or stay on any color you choose.

Movie night at our place, anyone?