Brass free - Part 2

One of our resolutions this year is to replace all of brass that is currently in our home. We started by changing out our door knobs. Read about that here.

Since we are working on redecorating our bedroom, we knew we would be replacing the old ceiling fan with some new, thus getting rid of more brass.

While on one of our recent trips to Lowe's I dragged Justin to the lighting department to look at what they had. I had no intentions of really finding anything - I just wanted to see what they had to offer. I personally thought that we would have to look online for something, but I was surprised to find a nice looking ceiling fan that I liked and Justin loved the price too. We didn't purchase it at the time but we both agreed when we were ready to make the purchase this would be the one we took home. 

The other weekend I took a short weekend trip to my parents with my brother and sister-in-law. Justin was planning on coming up Friday after work but thought he should stay home and get some much needed things done around the house. We missed him at my parents but I think I might go out of town more often...Justin did so much stuff around the house in only two days! One of those was surprising me with the new ceiling fan. When I came home (to a very clean house), I walked into our room and noticed that the room was so bright. Our old light only had one bulb but this new one has four. It makes such a big difference in the room. 

I was so excited that Justin had not only replaced the old ceiling fan but in so doing also taken one more step towards updating our bedroom. I have a great husband! 

I am so grateful that Justin worked so hard to get the light up before I got home. If you have every put up a light or a ceiling fan you know just how hard that can be but to do alone  He is just so great!!

Peeping Tom's

Before you starting thinking that we actually had someone peeping into our windows, let me go ahead and set your mind at ease: we have not had anyone peeping into our windows. But if someone wanted to, it would have been really easy since we have not have any window covering on our front two kitchen windows since some time last year.

When we started updating our kitchen over a year ago we never thought it would have taken so long to complete. To see our kitchen updates from start to finish click here, here, here, here and here. Once the work was all completed (well...we would love to get new flooring, counter tops, and back splash...the list never really ends), we took down the old flimsy binds with the plan on putting new blinds and some curtains up to add more color to the kitchen. After spending hours looking at Pinterest and other online decorating idea books, I decided to skip blinds and go with Roman shades.

With the decision made I went on the search for some fabric. Since I am not a big fan of buying fabric online I thought I would be limited to the few fabric stores we have around here and got a little frustrated. I had head about this great fabric store in Brookhaven, so one Saturday Justin and I made the trip and found some great fabric. The sad part about all of this is how long the fabric sat in our closet waiting for us to make the shades. Our newly painted and partly decorated kitchen sat like this for almost 7 months.

I knew I was going to have to get someone else to make the shades for me since I don't know to use a sewing machine, but it took much longer than I thought. After looking around for someone to make the shades I was disappointed to learn that professionals charge almost $500 for two shades. I know that some of you are thinking, "I didn't pay that much for mine!" Don't worry Justin would never allow us to spend that much money either. Crossing professional made curtains off the list was easy, but now I was back to square one. I was talking to some friends one night and told them my struggles. One friend said she would be happy to help me with the curtains. This friend just happened to be an excellent seamstress and very crafty. Check our her blog Designing Emily!

After getting her all the materials she started working on the shades. At first we were working on them together. Really, she would work and I would take pictures. We soon realized that she could finish them up a lot faster if she didn't have to wait on our schedules to line up. Within a few weeks she had the shades finished. They look great and really complete the breakfast table area. They really did turn out just like I imagined. I am very happy with them!

Now Justin and I don't have to worry about people looking into our kitchen window anymore. I love that we are now able to close the curtains at night. I know this is silly, but I feel much safer at night knowing that people walking or driving by can't see into our house.