Sunday, October 6, 2013

Kitchen Lighting Plus a Bit of Landscaping

     Just when Sunday nights were starting to become my regular blogging time, I missed last Sunday - oops! A couple days after our last post went up, the electricians finished their work for the lighting, switches, and outlets in the kitchen/dining area.

A rectangular arrangement of recessed lighting frames the perimeter of the kitchen.



     A nine-inch schoolhouse pendant from Millennium Lighting hangs over the sink, and matching fifteen-inch pendants hang over the planned island. 

    Here's my favorite! (Even though Steven and I have both banged our heads on this at least once...haha.) This pendant from Quoizel Lighting will hang over the dining table, and the plan is to let it steer the color palette in the kitchen. Since the walls, cabinets, and floors will all be pretty neutral, we'd like to do something colorful for the backsplash tile and island base. 

     This is part of the "bit of landscaping" we've spent some time on over the last couple of weekends. Less than a month ago these areas on either side of our HVAC units were absolute weed beds, so this is a major improvement! We made the effort here to put down landscaping cloth and a thick layer of mulch to deter our invasive weeds. We also added a fig and two blueberry bushes today. It seems that our pups, Ginny and Lily, are settling down just a tad and not digging so many holes as of late - hopefully these blueberries will not be dug/chewed up like the previous ones. Sadly, the shrubs we planted out front early last year have been all but taken over by weeds as well. Getting the front beds in check is on the fall to do list!
     Even though projects like these take a little bit of time and cash away from our current primary focus (KITCHEN!), I would encourage anyone else living through a remodel to remember to enjoy your home during a long-term renovation. Prioritizing tasks for the house (the physical structure) and the home (the daily life) isn't the easiest thing, but a balance is definitely needed for sanity's sake. Knowing that I have beautiful shrubs instead of weed beds and actually finishing a project is giving me a nice morale boost tonight :)

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

2 comments:

  1. I'm really enjoying watching all you and Steven are doing to your home.....and SO impressed with your talents and tastes! Have you thought of putting a chair, large box, or anything else
    under the beautiful dining room light to force you to walk around it and not bump your heads. Someone told me that trick when we were without a dining room set, and kept bumping heads.

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    1. Hi Sandra! That is a great idea - thank you. If we were really smart, we'd go ahead and put the dining table in place so we would only have to retrain ourselves once!

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