Shedding New Light

Remember when I said my super sweet hubby bought me an awesome Valentine's Day gift for the dining room? Well, it's all finished and ready to be revealed! But first, a little background information.

Ever since we moved to the new rental house a couple months ago, I've wanted to get a different light fixture for the dining area. This is what was there when we moved in:



A contemporary-style silver chandelier with alabaster glass shades. Or in other words, "ick." (You can see another picture of it here - second to last picture.) So I started paging through a stack of old Pottery Barn catalogs to get some inspiration and found this beauty:



Gorgeous! But expensive. So the search continued for something similar... then I saw this post from The Lettered Cottage and loved the Pottery Barn knock-off chandelier she created for only 75 bucks:



And so, this is where my hubby comes in... for Valentine's Day, he bought me the supplies I needed to make my own Pottery Barn knock-off chandelier! Woo-hoo! He sure knows the way to my heart. :) Here's the final results:







So much better than "ick." I love it! The chandelier and shades came from Lowe's, and the jute trim came from M & J Trimming. I attached the trim with a few dabs of hot glue, and ta-da! A stylish chandelier for about a quarter of the price... in yo' face, Pottery Barn!

I also made a make-shift cord cover with a bit of burlap I already had. Wrap it around the cord, and hot glue the ends.



Hot glue is my new best friend.

Look What I Found!

This is why I love T.J.Maxx. Cute stuff, cheap.

I have a mild obsession with pillows and baskets, so it's no surprise that I came home from T.J.Maxx yesterday with, you guessed it, a pillow and a basket. The big basket might be one of my favorite T.J.Maxx finds ever. I've always wanted one of these baskets from Pottery Barn:



But there was one thing holding me back from buying it... the $200 price tag. Are you kidding me?! Even if I had that kind of money, I'm not sure I could feel good about spending $200 on one basket. Insanity.

My $29.99 price tag was much more realistic. :) Chunky woven goodness.



And a new down-filled throw pillow for $16.99... fluffy striped goodness.



On a side note, it is sunny and nearly 60 degrees today. In February. In Ohio. Uh-mazing. The Lord is good!

Valentine Roses

As if my husband wasn't sweet enough for running out on a Sunday night to get groceries by himself, he felt he needed to be even more of a perfect man and come back with a dozen white roses in hand. :) How lucky am I?



He already bought me another awesome Valentine's gift (which I'll blog about later... it's for the dining room and not quite finished yet!) and apparently I have yet another gift coming tonight. Wow!



I hope all of you have a Valentine's Day (and husband!) as wonderful as mine!