First Snow!

The first snow at the new house!!  

We loved watching the snow fall- it was beautiful!  

There is a river down there somewhere :)

Bailey loves the snow!  She jumped into a pile of snow and came out with an acorn in her mouth.  I'm pretty sure she is part squirrel :)

What we did on our first snowy day of the year... brewed beer and cooked schnitzel and spaetzle :) We brewed a stout beer (Midnight Mass Stout) that will be ready for Christmas-- our taste testers better be ready!  The schnitzle turned out great.  The spaetzle was not as easy to make as it looks, but it was delicious!  

Great snow day :) 

Pottery Barn look-alike lighting

We wanted to make our 70's house feel more modern and decided that changing out dated light fixtures would do just that.  We looked in magazines and did some shopping and realized that we loved Pottery Barn... we just don't love the prices!  Our goal has been to find Pottery Barn look a like light fixtures!

Foyer Light:

Matt and I went to Lowe's to buy blinds for our master bedroom and of course bought more than just blinds. We walked down the lighting aisle and both saw this light at the same time and knew we had to buy it.  We love the lantern look and this light looks perfect in our foyer!
        
               Pottery Barn $250                             Lowe's $70

  

                            Before 

                              After

         

Outside Lights for breezeway:

We have a breezeway between our garage and house and it is very dark at night.  We love the look of lanterns and found these on clearance at Lowe's!  Thank goodness that Matt is so handy, he had to crawl up into the attic of the garage and run electrical for these lights.  I love how this project turned out!  It not only provides light, but makes a statement.

                  
             Pottery Barn $300                                       Lowe's $20

     

                          Before

                           After

Breakfast Room table light:

The breakfast room had this retro light with 5 large light bulbs.  We had recently replaced all the light bulbs in our house with LED bulbs, however the bulbs just didn't work in this fixture.  This light fixture has a dimmer and the LED light bulbs either flickered or buzzed... very annoying!  Instead of buying new light bulbs, we decided to just replace the fixture itself.

                       
              Pottery Barn $100                                                   Ikea $40

          

                                      Before

 

                                          After

Laundry room lights:

Our laundry room/mudroom is the room we first walk into and also the room the dogs play in all day.  The harsh florescent lights had to go.  We love these soft flush mount lights and they work great in the space!  We actually had this same light fixture in the stairway at our old house.

                  
             Pottery Barn $230                                              Ikea $30

                          After

                                       

As you can tell, we live at Lowe's... they should start charging us rent. :)  And when Ikea comes to St. Louis next fall, we will be broke- we love Ikea lighting!

What a difference new lighting makes!

Small changes make a big difference

We decided to do a light update on our master suite...

We decided to tear out the shelving in our walk in closet and start fresh.  We love the Container Store and designed a new closet with so much more hanging space than before! We double hung our clothes and added shelves to hold our shoes.  Good thing Matt is handy and I love to organize!

Before

After

New blinds!  I hated these roller blinds more than anything else in the house. We decided to install 2inch plantation blinds.  It only took two trips to Lowes and zero trips to the ER... I call that a success! 

Our bathroom screamed 70s.. gold everything!  I removed the hardware from the vanity and spray painted the hardware Rust-oleum Universal oil rubbed bronze. This spray paint covered great and didn't require a primer.  I just washed the hardware and put about 4 coats of spray paint on it and voila, the look of new hardware without the cost.  

Small changes really do make a big difference!

Off The Rails

An eventful evening... A couple of weeks ago we heard this huge crack and loud boom.  It was pouring down raining and we go outside to find out what made that loud noise.  A tree had been pulled out of the ground, roots and all, and had fallen on top of the tram- this was not good!  Matt went down to inspect and found that a 10 foot piece of track was bent beyond repair.  Looks like our "handicap access to the river" will be out of commission until we can repair it.  We knew it was inevitable that a tree would fall on the tram, but we did not think it would happen a month after moving in.

 

I will miss going down to the river.. hoping to get it repaired soon.