Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Side Door Makeover

I finally had enough of living in a fish bowl. Our side door of our house that goes into our kitchen and the door that goes into our garage is basically a giant window. This definitely isn’t the kind of door that I would choose but I can’t just go out and by all new exterior doors. So I’m making it work. First off, they needed a paint job. Since I’ve already painted my front door black I’m going to do that same with these.
Next we needed new door hardware. Because our house was bank owned they replaced the locks with bright brass colored door knobs. Not only is that my least favorite type of hardware but it also doesn’t match one thing in the entire house. I took everything off the doors before I painted so we could completely start from scratch. The funny thing was that I actually thought I could install these new locks and door knobs myself. Ryan was off at his fantasy football league party and I thought to myself that he would be so impressed to come home to see I did this all on my own. What a mistake. Ten minutes into reading the directions and piecing things together I knew I had made a mistake. Needless to say we had to spend the night with no locks or door knobs on our doors. My dad saved the day on Sunday and installed everything. He had to totally rebuild the frame on the garage and make holes for the deadbolt locks. There were never any there in the first place!
Last is the panel that I purchased from Country Curtains. I grew up with my mom always ordering all of our window treatments from there so it’s just natural for me to do the same. They aren’t too spendy and you know that you are going to get quality products and good customer service. Plus they send you swatches in the mail for free! I hate the feeling of ordering things from catalog or the internet crossing your fingers hoping that they match.
 It's amazing what a little thing like some fabric can do to change the whole feeling of a room. I can now go down into the kitchen at night without feeling like someone could be looking in at me without me now even knowing.


Monday, August 29, 2011

Kitchen Lighting


So I’m going to go piece by piece in the kitchen because there is a lot to do to get it where I want to be. The first thing that I wanted to tackle was the lighting. About two days after moving in the light over the kitchen sink just stopped working, and yes, I did try changing the bulb. That means that this whole time I’ve been standing in the dark while doing dishes! The lights that were up before were very basic anyways.
I wanted to add some more character to the room so I’ve been searching for months and nothing had been sparking my interests. Then one day I was wondering around in Menards and noticed how cool outdoor lighting looks. Lightbulb! Who says that outdoor lights have to be outside? Of course I needed to find the best deal so I went to the internet to find the perfect lights that were also in my price range. Ta da!

Next was the chandelier that hangs over the kitchen. Enough said.
I got a tip from my Country Living magazine by building your own by buying the chandelier and lamp shades separately to save some money. I was able to put this together for only $100!
As you can probably already tell I love to find a good deal. That’s part of the fun of updating. The less you spend the more you can update so take the extra time and do your research. It takes a lot of patience but in the long run it is totally worth it.