Another new light

We've made a lot of progress in our dining room since we moved in...

Except for that crooked, sad little light fixture. I came across the perfect replacement on theFoundary.com: a woven wire pendant light - for just $34. Unfortunately there was no shipping to Canada, so I had it sent to my dad, who not only drove it from Wisconsin to Nova Scotia, but also installed it.

Love.

Installing a bathroom light fixture...finally!

My dad is in town for my upcoming wedding and while he was checking out our new place, he installed a new vanity light in our bathroom.

It works! I've been waiting months to have it installed (the placement of the junction box + my paranoia around all things electrical = too complicated for me). I love it, mostly because we now have a lighting option that doesn't involve a noisy overhead fan (which made quietly getting ready in the morning next to impossible).

Next steps: paint the ceiling gray and add crown moulding.

Mirrored mantle display

Hello blog friends! I took an inadvertent break from blogging to catch up on some DIY wedding projects and to enjoy some pre-wedding festivities, like my second bachelorette party and wedding shower (I'm a lucky girl, I know).

I managed to slip in a few home improvement projects, including this mantle update:

A cute start, right? I used heavy-duty double-sided tape to hang the mirrors, since I didn't want to mess with drilling or nailing into brick (to make it look like the mirrors were hanging from the ribbon, I hot-glued small nails to the ribbon and used tiny pieces of double-sided tape to attach it to the brick).

Apparently the tape wasn't heavy-duty enough, since hours later I heard a smash when one of the mirrors fell to the floor. Oops.

DIY planters

I found these gorgeous French planters at Winners - on clearance - for $29. It was love at first sight.

I drilled some holes into the bottom of each one and added a few handfuls of gravel for drainage...

Then planted some lavender - one of my favourite scents - for a pretty and fragrant way to greet visitors.



At less than $50, it was a relatively inexpensive way to boost our home's curb appeal.

Exterior Update

I checked a few things off the 'to-do' list this weekend. Finish painting the shutters? Check.

There's still lots to do outside - paint the windows, replace the rain gutters, finish digging and mulching the flower bed, redo the driveway, replace the light fixtures - but I'm thrilled with the progress we've made so far.

DIY wedding cutlery

Our wedding reception will be more of a fancy backyard BBQ than a traditional reception, and since Adam's band is playing a big outdoor festival the day after our wedding (oh life, you and your timing), clean-up needs to be a breeze. Enter paper napkins and plastic cutlery.

Each guest can grab a knife, fork and spoon wrapped in a napkin and tied with a simple piece of twine (we're also using twine in our centerpieces) from galvanized planters that will sit on the buffet tables.

I decided to add handles to the planters by drilling two holes into each side, threading twine through each hole, and knotting the ends to create a handle.

Pretty pretty, non?



Painted shutters

Adam and I have slowly been trying to improve our home's curb appeal (it turns out peeling windows and beat up shutters don't give a house that "cared for" look). For reasons that probably involved some discounted green paint, the previous owner started painting the exterior...

and then stopped (apparently it wasn't until they got to the shutters that they realized the colour didn't work).

So we pressure washed the siding and painted over the green paint...with more green paint. It's actually called "Dark as Night", and it's an example of why you should never ever buy paint without seeing the colour in person. I chose the colour online (obvious mistake) and asked my mom to swing by the hardware store to pick it up for me (the store, which is close to my mom's house and not so close to our house, was having a big sale on paint). When I opened the can, it was hunter green. Which was not what I wanted. At. all. Luckily we were able to take it back to the store, where they added some more black. Phew (wipes brow).

Then, while we hummed and hawed about buying a ladder, it rained for two months and Adam had to listen to me start every conversation with sentences like, "Imagine how much better the house will look after I paint the shutters" and "I really can't wait for this rain to stop so I can paint the shutters" and "WHY HAS THE SUN FORSAKEN US? P.S. Still excited to paint those shutters."

Luckily, he's pretty patient. And frequently has an excuse to leave town with his band.

Anyway, it finally stopped raining, we bought a ladder (which Adam used to take down the ugly string of Christmas lights running along the front of the house), and I got started on painting the shutters. So far it's five down, three to go, but I had to share a little preview:

So. much. better. Up close, you can tell that they should really be replaced (I scraped and painted them without taking them down for fear that I wouldn't be able to put them back up again), which we fully intend to do, when we replace the windows. And speaking of the windows, unfortunately the newly-painted shutters make the peeling windows all the more obvious, so that's painting step two.