West Elm Hack: 3 Jar Chandelier

As I noted in an earlier post, we have been humming and hawing over lighting decisions for most of the rooms in the house. The search came to an end of the dining room and kitchen a few weeks ago, and I am proud to say we have new lights hanging above the island and dining table!

For the dining table chandelier, we took advantage of the West Elm 20% off lighting sale and purchased their 3 Jar Chandelier.

Photo from West Elm

They didn't have any in stock, so I ordered over the phone and opted for store delivery to save the shipping and duty charges. After making the scary drive downtown (which included an Ikea pitstop for hotdogs and an As-Is visit), I made it to West Elm and picked up our light.

When my dad was here last week, he had installation on his project list. Chris saw it before me and told my dad I wasn't going to like it. He was right, it looked too modern in our space, the pewter coloured metal didn't match the bronze pendants hanging over my island and the silver cord didn't match anything. We thought about taking it down and selling on kijiji, but having been without a proper light for so long, and the fact that it had so much potential, I decided to give it a makeover.

Before the makeover when Chris took it down.

So I used a Sherry Petersik trick and bought a can of oil rubbed bronze spray-paint. After taping the light sockets, all of the metal parts got a few healthy coats of spray (multiple light coats works best). Although it doesn't match my bronze pendants exactly, it's much better.

The cord still had to be improved, so taking a cue from our wedding Boutonniers, I decided I would trying wrapping jute twine around the cord. I was able to get away with only gluing the top and bottom of the cord making it easy to change in the future if need be.

I love the way it turned out. It fits the vibe of our old house so much better than the original version. 

22 Hours Later: Our Trip to Maine

It feels like I have been MIA for ages on the blog. We've had a busy couple weeks, so please excuse the radio silence. The busyness started with a whirlwind trip to Maine to visit my good friend Cait and her sweet new puppy Piper. My husband decided we could drive and after 11 hours each way (with a snowstorm on the way back), we proved him right. It was so good to catch up with Caitlin, meet Piper and introduce Chris to all the Maine landmarks.

After showing up at 2am and getting a bit of sleep, Elliot rewarded me with some cuddles.

We had to get this guy a Maine lobster roll the first day. 

Note: Don't let two girls who don't eat lobster pick out the lobster spot. 

Chris was introduced to all things LL Bean!

My comrads at the start of our shopping trip.

And After!

No trip would be complete without a trip to Scratch Baking Co. for their yummy bagels and spice cookies.

The Beach Walk Had Beautiful Sights

Including this pretty girl- the star of the weekend!

All in all, we had a great trip. The driving wiped us, and then we hosted my dad the following week and this week is our 1st Annual Country Christmas which means we spent last weekend decorating, prepping baked goods and tidying the house. I hope to be back later in the week with some DIYs and our wedding pictures have finally arrived, so you should expect an update soon!

Retail Insparation

Sometimes when I am out and about, I see things in stores and think "I could do that". Here are a few of my latest inspiration pieces:

1. ABC Painting from Wal-Mart. I thought this would look really sweet in a nursery or kitchen. It would be easy to make with a piece of wood or canvas and a simple stencil kit

2. Kraft Paper Mural Ikea: This would be simple to recreate with a roll of Kraft paper and some craft paint to make a beautiful holiday mural.

3. Felt Bunting at West Elm. After crafting burlap bunting for my wedding, I thought this colourful felt bunting inspired from West Elm would be a cinch. All you would need is some spare felt and twine. I might try to recreate this one for my holiday decor this year!

Harvest Share: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

This post should probably be called "Why I'm Not Participating in Harvest Share Next Year", but I did want to share some of the positives as well.

The Good: We got to try a few vegetables that we had never tried before, the produce tasted better and lasted longer because it was so fresh, we got some good recipes each week with our list of produce. Probably my favourite thing about the program was creating the photo project

The Bad: We wasted a lot of food- I tried hard to use everything and freeze what I could, but I still found the personal size boxes too much for just the two of us. I found it was difficult to stuff everything on my fridge on pick up days, and we got a few things that I never would have bought myself, and really didn't enjoy.

The Ugly: I don't really know how to explain this, but as excited as I was to participate in this program, it created a lot of unnecessary anxiety and stress for me. We always had to worry about picking up the basket before the farm closed (they do offer a drop off program for $7/week), I had anxiety about packing everything up to properly store, Chris complained about never being able to find anything in the fridge, I stressed myself out trying to incorporate all of these veggies into our dinner meals, I made some epic disaster dinners just to use the vegetables (hint: celery root soup is a bad idea).

All in all, it wasn't awful, but there are enough lessons learned that I won't be participating again. Next summer, I will be buying my produce from all the local farmers markets and plan to grow a few more things in my garden!

Last 4 weeks of Farm Baskets

Remembering

Today is Remembrance Day. Growing up in an East Coast Military town, Remembrance Day has always been a pretty important day. It became even more personally relevant a few years ago when one of my high school classmates lost his life in Afghanistan on my best friend's birthday. Chad was always full of life, he was fun, hilarious, smart, sweet and very kind. He died doing something he wanted to be doing, something he was proud of, and we are grateful for the time we had with him.

If you have a chance, please take the time today to remember those who have served, those who came home and those who didn't.

Life Lately

I'm currently light shopping for almost every room in our house...it is painful and I have not made one solid decision yet.

I made oreos again last weekend to bring to my friends house. They were better the second time around because I let the dough mix until it was full combined and balling up in my mixer.

The holiday cups and flavours are back at Starbucks- certainly an early indicator that the holidays are upon us!

I made wonton soup on Sunday night for the first time, and it was delicious. I somewhat followed this recipe.

This guy had a late night photo shoot a few days ago, I loved how they turned out!

Halloween Wrap Up

We were very much looking forward to our first Halloween in our home. I learned I have a bit of a pumpkin fetish. We ended up with 5 of them at our house. Chris even got into the spirit and brought home a giant jack'o lantern! We had a pumpkin carving night on Tuesday and after a couple hours we had done 3 pumpkins. Chris did an awesome job on his Cars themed pumpkin, and it was a huge hit with the two trick or treaters that made it to our place (the downside of rural living)!

Maiter had reconstructive dental surgery (aka wood screw implants) the day of to ensure he was a perfect replica!

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and have a great weekend!