You Light My World

Moving along in finishing up our outside projects, we got our pendant for our entry way and installed it this week.  Yay for light!

When we were looking for pendants we wanted something unique that wasn't too over the top, especially in the price arena.  I saw some of the most amazing outdoor lights, but when it comes down to it, we just weren't willing to spend the big bucks on something that hangs outside.  It's crazy how expensive those things are!

And then the latest Pottery Barn magazine showed up, and it had their Moroccan Pendant, and I was sold!  They had just sent me a 15% off coupon for PBKids, so I called and asked if they'd apply to to a PB order.  The lady said no, but that she could give me 10% off, and they were running a free shipping promo too...score!  Love it when everything works out like that!

First up, we wanted to make sure everything worked before installing it.  Of course, being Kara and Chris, we had a casualty.

Actually, after Chris dropped the light bulb and it shattered into a million pieces, he said "Call me TJ".  My Dad's name is Tom, and TJ stands for Tom Junior around these parts.  I can say I come by my clumsiness (and also knack for DIYing house projects to be fair) from my Dad.  Apparently spending a weekend with him rubbed off on Chris.  Love you Dad!!  :-)

The pendant came with a 12 foot long cord.  Where in the world do you use a 12 foot long cord to hang a pendant?  It looked like a tether ball instead of a pendant!

We took out the chain links and then wrapped the wires up in the top of the ceiling.  Our 8 foot ladder wasn't quite tall enough to reach though, so we did the completely safe thing and put concrete pavers up underneath the ladder to elevate it some.

I don't recommend doing this for anyone else.  It's definitely not safe.  I like my life, apparently Chris goes back and forth on his :-).

When it was all said and done, we got exactly what we were looking for.  I love the way the light plays off the cover of the pendant.

It reflects perfectly on our blue ceiling, and we've gotten tons of compliments by neighbors already.

Chris initially thought it was too small, but most pendants are pretty small.  We got the 12 inch one instead of the 8 inch one.  What do you think?  Do you like the new look of it?  It's much better than the gaping hole or rusted goldish thing that was there before, that's for sure!

Next up for the 'finishing it off' task in the front is getting that fountain re-painted!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!  We've got family in town through next weekend, so postings will probably be scarce next week.  Happy Friday!!

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Painting the House Part 2 : Lighting

First off, thank you guys so much for your kind words about Kalia and my previous post.  It's so nice to be welcomed back into the blogging world with open arms!  Your kind words really do mean the world to me.

As promised, here's a project post!

When we got to the front of repainting the house, we knew we needed to do something about the sconces.  (As a side note, I had to google that to not call them scones.  Apparently my subconscious is really craving a pastry right now!)  They were the original builder grade ones and had paint chips and rust all over them.  In order to spray paint them, I knew we'd have to take all four of them completely apart, which I was definitely dreading.  So we did some searching for new ones to buy, and the cheapest ones that I only sort of liked were $50/piece.  Well, for $200, I could deal with the hassle and work with what we already had.  It's funny how the price savings can be a huge motivator!

Here's what we started off with :

Look at all that rust!!

We carefully took apart all four lights, sanded down the chipped paint parts, and wound up with about a million pieces to be spray painted.  The picture below is only close to half of everything that needed to be spray painted.

Because of all of the rust, and because we live in Florida where exterior things get pretty beat up on, I went ahead and sprayed these with both a primer and then the actual color, which was a paint and primer in one.  I have no desire to ever take these lights apart again to redo this project!  Here's what I used :

I also think the primer is cheaper than the paint color, and I only needed two light coats of the actual oil rubbed bronze.  There was a garage sale in our neighborhood when I was working on these, and we had several people stop by asking if the lights were for sale.  Too funny!  We've had numerous neighbors compliment us on our new lights too, and they're shocked to find out that we spray painted them.

The key, as with everything paint related, is to do really light coats.  Like so light that you're worried you're not getting enough coverage.  It dries really quickly and you can do another coat right on top to get the coverage you need.  My general rule with most things I spray paint is to never hold the trigger down for more than 5 seconds.  It's so easy to want to do a thick coat to just be done with it, but you'll regret it in the long run.  Trust me on this one!

Here's what they look like today :

and here's what it looks like with our house numbers that we added to the front almost a year ago (really, a year?!?  Is this how life is with babies?  Where did the time go?!).

Which is so much better than the ugly off white, rusted lights that were there previously, and they tie in so much better with our front door hardware too!

The pictures of the finished product give you a sneak peak at our finished paint job.  Stay tuned for that post!

So what do you think?  Worth the $200 in savings?  I actually started to tackle that fountain that has driven me bonkers since we moved in three years ago this weekend, but then the rain storms came in before I could get very far.  Hopefully I get to cross that one off the to-do list shortly too!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  Happy Monday!
 
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Blue Magic : Exterior Lighting

What a weekend. I'm exhausted, and it's only Monday!

There's one more area that needs to get painted before the pool paver guys arrival in ONE week (woo hoo!).

On a side note, as I was looking through these pictures picking one for this post, I couldn't help but laugh at Kodi.  In everyone he's making some sort of funny expression.  I don't even think I realized he was in the shot when I took it.  Goofy dog...he's such a camera ham!

Chris and I thought this area would be pretty easy.  A little bit of trim work, roll, and wala.  Or not.  We had to take off the satellite dish that hasn't been used in who knows how long, and since the previous owners painted most of the boxes and wiring (most of it's for the pool equipment), we had to too.  Oiy.

Friday night we took down the satellite dish and Chris pressure washed.  This side was diiir-ty.  I had to let it dry all day Saturday, so it was Sunday before I could get started out here.

Sunday morning I got up and trimmed as much as my 5'7 self could (holy highness!).  I decided while painting all of the equipment boxes and wiring that I wanted to do something different for those outside lights.  We want to replace them eventually, but there's a loooong list of things to buy, and these don't quite rank at the top, so I wanted to add a little pop of color to the lighting in the meantime.

Heelllooo Krylon Spray Paint in Blue Ocean Breeze.

I just removed the jar, lightbulb, and sprayed a few light coats of the blue on the lighting.

And then painted around it with my Sandstone Cove while I was edging.

Oh, you want to see how it looks with the new paint job for the house?!

Well, me too...but Chris did school work ALL DAY Sunday, and I'm only 5'7, so I only could paint up to a certain height before having to call it quits.  I'm pretty positive and confident that I can do anything.  The problem is I'm also clumsy and accident prone, so me up on a ladder that's leaning against the house trying to finish getting this trim just wouldn't be smart.  I got as much as I could with our 8 ft ladder.

Our neighbors are probably thinking 'what the hey?!?!'  Eh, maybe we'll finish it up sometime this week.  But till then...you can admire my pretty new blue light.

Just the pop of color I was looking for!  Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Happy Monday!

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