DIY (cheap!) pendant lights

Our dining room was looking extremely uninviting with a couple of bare bulbs pig-tailed from the ceiling.  But all the pendant lights I really loved were way too expensive for us at this point in time.

The Bronze Copper Shade by Tom Dixon is a big favourite of mine.  I even checked out suppliers in Glasgow for these when we were over last summer hoping they would be cheaper in the UK (where Tom Dixon is from).  

No luck.  Same price.

The Octo pendant light by Secto is also a light I considered until I saw the cost.  Love these lights.  

Maybe one day!  

Actually, I have recently seen these beauties in action over the dining table of a good friend.  They do not disappoint in real life!  

Simple and beautiful!

But I needed to find a cheaper option.  

So I went to West Elm and saw these.

Definitely in my price range.  Love the wood tones.  But I didn't love looking into a bare bulb at the dinner table.  And frankly I couldn't get the Octo pendant out of my mind!

So I decided to pick up a couple of cheap pendants from Ikea, hook them up and replace them later with something nicer.  At least I'd have something there in the meantime, right?!

I found these.

$9.99 for two!  Can't beat that!

Before I got to install them, I was in The Home Depot and happened to see some birch veneer edging strips.  I loved the colour and thought I might be able to jazz up my pendants by making a sort of lamp shade like the West Elm ones.

I cut a couple of rings out of particle board that were the same size as the top of the Ikea shade and then started stapling veneer strips all around it.

After awhile it started to look like a funky hairdo.  But I kind of liked it!

I originally planned to glue the loose ends on the bottom together to make a sort of sphere, but decided against it when I got them up.   Actually, I was kind of worried I'd mess them up!

I wouldn't say they are my dream pendants, but I do really like them!  They have a soft, organic, Scandinavian feel to them.

And for the cost, and the little time they took to make, I will not feel guilty replacing them down the road. 

Puppy love

Gosh, it's been awhile since I've written!  I really have slowed down my pace since we moved in.

 I do still feel like I'm busy, but now I'm not stressed about getting so many big things done.  It's all stuff I just want to do, but that we can live without.  

And I have been MUCH more patient with the kids because of it.  So really, this is a better place for me. 

I have just realized that I haven't even been taking as many pictures as I should which is leaving me with very little to show on the blog.
Sorry about that!  I will have to get on that in the next few days.

I have put up mirrors and door handles and clothes rails and light fixtures.  I've painted and organized and cleaned as well!  I just have no pictures to show, unfortunately.

But I did take pics of our most exciting recent news.

We are getting a puppy!!

I just love this little girl already!

The kids have named her Keltie Blue and she is an 8 week old Brittany Spaniel.

We get to bring her home next Sunday!

We went to visit her at the breeder's last week-end.  

Seven puppies in one room---  little girl heaven!!

Since I have never had a dog of my own (only lived with my room-mate's Irish Setter in university), I have been reading up a storm on how to prepare for this little bundle of joy.  It's a bit like having a kid!  Only, as my friend put it, I can still leave her in a crate for a couple hours-- something that is kind of frowned upon with children.  ;-)

I really wanted to have the basement space available to us for playing with and training Keltie so I called back our drywall guy.  

Once again, my pictures are shamefully behind, but we are now finished all the drywalling, the priming, and the painting on the ceiling.

Tomorrow he finishes painting the walls, then trim and doors.

We should be ready for Keltie's arrival on the 24th!

The floor in the basement has been a bit of a problem for me. 

In the beginning, I planned on calling in a company to polish the concrete floor as our finished floor. 

Expensive.

So I looked into Marmoleum and cork.  

Still expensive.

So Paul suggested I try to polish it myself!  Ack!  I've heard that before!!  Like when I wanted to hire an Architect at the beginning of this reno project!!

Although I suppose that worked out well enough in the end.  So I'm going to give it a try!

I promise I'll take lots of pictures of this time-- even if it's a monumental disaster!

Glass panels

Our three glass panels were installed this week!

Now we can finally start using the shower in our master bathroom.

But first I had to seal the grout.

It turned out to be a very simple job with this little brush/bottle thingy I picked up at Rona.

Ready for use!

We had our glass guys install a towel rail right in the glass since I've been having a hard time finding a place for one anywhere else.  

The only other spot was that far wall in the shower.  Not exactly practical.

The other 2 glass panels were an idea I came up with for the entrance way.

This was my problem in the front hall.  

The stairs going to the side door and basement needed to be enclosed in some way-- either railings or walls.  But I wasn't sure which way to go.  I didn't love that anyone standing at the front door could see straight through to our main living space and backyard, but neither did I like the idea of closing it all off with walls.  

Railings seemed a bit too busy for this space anyway.

So I decided to get two frosted glass panels made.

They are simple and modern, let light shine through, and give us some privacy at the front door.

They also show the zig-zag of the stairs behind them which I really like.

 This is the view from the front door.

I really like how these turned out.

And now we have the perfect spot for that giant piece of driftwood that Paul hauled back from the cottage.

I think this rustic piece of nature looks just perfect next to the sleek, frosted panel of glass.

And we do actually use it as a coat rack!

Now we just need a slightly smaller bench to replace that big wicker one.

Renovation fatigue

We've been living in our house for a full month now!

I kind of hoped we would be a lot more organized than we are.  

But with Christmas, 

and the kids off school for 2 weeks, and going to the cottage for New Year's,

and a whole host of problems to fix, I haven't done as much unpacking as I wanted to. 

The truth is--- I'm just tired.

Now that we've got a working kitchen and a comfortable couch to sit in, I just don't feel like tackling the stack of boxes that still fill our guest room and basement.

I've got reno burnout.

So we're just going to slowly settle ourselves in and hold off on all the finishing touches for awhile-- like stair railings, the fireplace, door handles, basement drywalling, closet doors...

Not exactly little stuff, I know, but we can live without it.

I have put in a few shelves, and clothes rods (so we have a place to empty our boxes to).

Hooks, too, are a necessity!

We carted this big piece of driftwood home from the cottage last week for our front hall.  

Paul, (I can practically hear his family chuckling right now!) pulled it up from the beach and suggested we use it as a coat rack! 

Love it!

When we were in Scotland last summer, Paul's family friends the McKays of McKay Flooring gave us 3 whisky barrel staves from their line of Scottish whisky barrel flooring.  

The coolest flooring ever!

We packaged them well and carted them home with our luggage.

I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but had a couple of ideas for art projects.

In the end, we decided to just leave them and hang them up exactly as they were.

I think they look great!

They still even smell like whisky!  

So, hopefully soon, I'll be able to do a bit more posting. 

In the meantime, I'm back at the boxes-- keep, garbage, donate. 

:-)

I love it, I hate it

Our plan for the kitchen island was to have some kind of wood table at the far end that would be used for our daily meals.

I always thought it would be wonderful to do a live edge, walnut slab counter but was open to other suggestions.

It just so happened that while Steve was finishing our floors, he came across a very large, single piece of walnut at Exotic Woods in Burlington and texted me a picture of it.

It was gorgeous!  And just the right size, so we went ahead and bought it.

It was actually a bit more than 2 feet longer than we needed, so we cut off the end and will use that in the main floor powder room.

The slab did have some HUGE holes and cracks in it that needed to be filled.

Steve taped the back side of all the cracks and slowly, bit by bit filled them with epoxy resin.  This process took a lot longer than we expected.  We were actually starting to wonder where all the epoxy was going!  Seriously, he would pour in a cup or so of resin in one crack to top it up, and the next day it was completely gone!  As if he never poured any in at all.

But eventually it started coming together.  We left the epoxy clear instead of colouring it brown like many companies who make these tables do.  

I love being able to see into the cracks-- gives it a bit more depth, I think.

So, it was all working out and looking pretty much amazing.

But then Steve needed to shave down one side of the slab with a skill saw and asked me to hold the end steady while he cut.

In hindsight, I now realize that this was when it all happened!

See this nasty stuff here?  Actually it's just walnut sawdust. 

But it turns out I am allergic to it!!  

I have eaten walnuts many times in my life, and am not allergic to anything else that I know of.  But 2 days after getting my face and arms covered with the offending sawdust, I broke out in a horrible, itchy, red and swollen rash.  Contact dermatitis my doctor called it.  Similar to a poison ivy reaction.

I'll spare you the pictures of my face, but this was what my arms looked like for 2 weeks.

And did I say that it was intensely itchy?  Like wake-me-up-in-the-night itchy.

Benadryl and Claratin used with a prescription cream eventually cleared it up, but not in a hurry.

So of course the big question is, can I even use this gorgeous table now?  My sister is already trying to find a place for it in her house!  No sympathy.

My doctor seems to think I should be OK once it's sealed (which has been done now).  

We haven't been using it full on yet, but I have touched it a few times and seem to be OK.  

Thank goodness!

Steve thinks I'll appreciate it more after all it's put me through.

Maybe one day.  

For now, I'm still suspicious and just growl at it now and again.

Grrrrrr!

Moving in

Well, I'm exhausted, haven't eaten a decent meal in a week, and overwhelmed with my seemingly endless to-do list, but we are finally living in The Bennett house!

The whole family is really happy to be here.

The move out from our old house took a lot longer than expected.  We thought we de-cluttered enough to make it fairly easy work, but 10 years of stuff just seemed to be endless.  Toys, and paint cans, and junk drawers and stuff under the beds was seriously never-ending.  And of course, since we are living so close to the new owners, we couldn't exactly leave the place dirty either.  So the good part of a day was spent scrubbing, wiping, patching holes, painting and vacuuming.

But we got it all done, and this is what we're living with now.

This is the guest room--our current room of shame!  But it's not all that bad, really.

This is our kitchen/dining room/family room.

Although we are still waiting on our counters and oven (a story for another post!), it is pretty livable now.

The front living room isn't too bad either, except that none of our furniture really fits anywhere in this house--mismatched stuff everywhere.

I have been doing quite a bit of cleaning at this house as well.  And some unpacking.  But the problem is that we don't have organized space to unpack stuff to.  

I decided to tackle this right away by building our Ikea PAX units.  I had our contractor size our walk-in closet area to exactly fit 4 deep units on one side, and 2 shallow ones on the other.  

The plan worked out like a dream!  This is what the cubbies looked like before.

   

And this is how perfectly the PAX units fit.

With some of our stuff in place.

And the other side.

I need sliding doors and a few more shelves, but we're almost there.

In the middle, I mounted an Ikea mirror on hinges (I saw this done in the showroom and thought it was brilliant).

Behind it are hooks for necklaces.  

Very neat and tidy.

We've still got a lot of work ahead of us here, but at least we can comfortably live though the rest. 

And in the meantime, I'm really enjoying everything about this house.  Especially the view out the back.  

This is how we're falling asleep every night (partly because we don't have any blinds or drapes yet!).

I think it's gorgeous.