Light Whore

When I started this blog I imagined Jordan and I would both contribute. Haha, well... Jordan will never contribute in the sense of actually writing a post, but he will come up with some way cool home improvement projects for me to write about! Some of you may not know this, but my husband is a light whore. As soon as we moved into this house he started planning all the places he wanted to add lighting. So far he has done the kitchen, living room, and backyard. His latest lighting project has been our front yard lights. I never thought our house could look like this.



I'm absolutely blown away at his understanding of light. He even added a light up in the tree shining down on the far left roof, above the garage (hard to make out in the picture). Not only does it look like a professional did it, but he bragged about how easy it was. I'm so glad my husband appreciates design as much as me, even if it is in a slightly more masculine and technical way.

Kitschy But I Don't Care

A couple weekends ago I was able to finish my terrarium. I didn't post about it right away because I wanted to see if the little guy survived before I started raving about my terrarium making skills. I'm proud to say it's not only alive, but growing!

This was a super easy project. I bought a $5.99 glass cookie jar from Target, potting soil, pebbles, moss and a shade plant. I found the moss at Pet Smart of all places (Thanks Brittany for the tip!!)! And it was very inexpensive, about $7 for a bag full. Moss goes into hibernation when it doesn't have water, that's how it survived in a plastic bag. When it's exposed to water it starts to grow again.

I did a couple layers of the rock and soil, wiggled the plant (I can't remember what kind it is, but I love it because it looks like a miniature tree) down into the soil, and topped it with 2 kinds of moss (both kinds were included in one bag from Pet Smart). I had a ceramic panda left over from some bamboo I had long since killed, so I added that to my mini rain forest. Now I spritz it with water every couple of days and get to enjoy greenery in my living room!




I had plenty of left over supplies and decided to make another one for my dining room. I found an old glass jar and layered it the same way with the rocks and soil topped with moss, but this time I left the top open. Remember the 10 clay penguins Jordan bought me for Christmas? I have one hidden in each room of my house (minus the one Jelly ate). The dining room penguin is huddled down in this a mossy field.

The Bench

When we moved into this house the old renters left some junk for us. Jordan was inches away from throwing this bench into the garbage but I just had to save it. Although it was covered in rust and the wood was rotted there was just something about it that I loved. Since I've been in a DIY/Crafty/Project mode recently I decided to see what I could come up with. Although it was really dirty and dangerous to sit on I really loved the charm of how weathered it looked. I wanted to try to replicate the look without having to worry about when my last tetanus shot was while sitting on the bench.

(Peanut would NOT move out of this shot)



We visited Home Depot and bought some new boards for the bench seat and back. I primed them with Kilz primer I had left over from another project. Once I removed all the old rotted wood I started sanding the chipped paint off the iron. I sanded and sanded and sanded. I wondered if it was lead based paint and I sanded. I tried to remember the symptoms of lead poisoning and I sanded. My finger nails were sharpened to itty bitty points and I sanded. I never got every bit of chipped paint off, but I wasn't going for a brand new bench look anyway.



After sanding I used Rustoleum spray paint to cover all the iron. I wanted to stay close to the original blue color, so I went with Bahama Sea by Krylon. I guess I'm used to working with regular paint because I didn't realize it would take so many coats of spraying to cover the whole bench. I ended up using 4 cans of the blue color and the blister on my trigger finger can prove it.




After the primer was completely covered and the blue paint was dry I lightly sanded the iron and the edges of the boards. The white primer shows through very subtly but it gives the weathered look I was going for. Hindsight is 20/20, now I wish I had used black primer. I had thought about it but I was worried it would be too dramatically different from the blue. Right now it's a little too clean looking, but give it a couple months in the backyard and I'm sure it will look dirty enough.