Dining Room Update for instant gratification

Like most DIYers, I always have millions of ideas floating around in my head....that plus a woman at my church declared I have ADD this weekend....so theres that too....actually this someecard describes the sitch in my head at all times:

Source: sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net via Katie on Pinterest

Ok, anyway back to the story...so I have a lot going on in my mind and WAY more projects I wanna do than I will probably ever have time for..at ANY point in my life. I do make time for some projects, but occasionally I get too many in the hopper and feel overwhelmed. At the moment, I have the closet project, a new Ana White build (that I haven't even posted about yet!), and 2 pieces of artwork....along with you know 50ish hours of "real" work a week and the normal laundry (when its utterly necessary....if you still have 2 pairs of undies then you're good in my book) and normal house work (and mopping every 6 months is the norm, right?)....so sometimes you I just need little updates/projects that provide instant gratification.

SOOOOooo I bought curtains and a curtain rod for my dining room.....the room this bad-to-the-bone blogger hasn't updated you on in  FOR-EV-AH! The last time I showed you the dining room, it looked like this:

Here's it's current state:

sooooooo since the last time I updated you I have gotten:

6 Pottery Barn Seagrass Dining Chairs in Havana Dark- ya'll know I have an unatural addiction to seagrass, right?

by popping by the Pottery Barn Outlet once a week (and sometimes twice a week) on their truck day after work... I scored these 6 beauties (mind you one of them is out of the frame in this pic) for around 350 bones plus tax for all 6! So now we have 8 total dining chairs. The other 2 end chair lovelies I got for $65 each when the outlet had BOGO!

Restoration Hardware Look-Alike Chandy- swoon!!!

Restoration Hardware sells their Rectangle Shade Pendant for $595. Yikes. I LURVE it, but not like sell-a-kidney-on-ebay love it. This pretty lady came from Overstock...Gotta love the O price at $139 after a 20% coupon in my email. At $450 cheaper than the RH version I will definitely take it. This light is almost 4 feet long!!!! Thats a lotta light. I HEART it. And it's on poles....and you guys know how I feel about pole jobs. 

and last but not least...

a pair of Horizontal Colorblock Curtains from JCPenney & a Target Threshold Rod

I can never decide on curtains. I liked the JCP ones, but they were $100 EACH! what!? no. I will bust out my sewing machine that has been in the box for the 10 years before I will pay $100 each. Then they ran a half off sale and I found a coupon code...so I snatched them up like I was a kid at an easter egg hunt. 

Now other than hanging the rod, there wasn't a whole lot of work involved in this project...but I will share with you my little secret. You know the Target drapery rod I got? Well, it's extendable. Which means it has those little plastic rings at the extension parts like this...

Well, I took a brown Sharpie marker to the rings on my new ORB (shout out to YHL for makin this acronym popular) rod and look how they turned out....

and you can't see them at all when you're standing on the ground (i mean where else would you stand, but you know what I meant.).

So that's my little trick....now I really need to get a silver Sharpie out and do that nickel rod in the pic above this one. Hope my little trick helps someone.

I hope to have a closet update soon. Peace out awesome readers.

PS- please ignor the supa dirty dining room table....it will get cleaned....sometime.

PSS- I purchased all of these items with my own monies...none were given to me or sponsored by anyone.

PSSS- I am trying on new logos on my pics to cut down on them being stolen...it stinks like mustard lookin baby poo when someone claims a room in your house as theirs.

Linking up to: 

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I Like Pole Jobs Better! (Pendant Lights)

I am a big fan of poles....when it comes to pendant lighting that is. What did you think I was talking about? Shame. Now that we have that taken care of I can share with you my latest pole job (I hear you snickering like a 13 year old school girl!). I know the jokes are lame, but it's all good....Honestly, when we were looking at lights I did tell Mr. SS "I think I like pole jobs better".....without even thinking....out loud in the middle of a home improvement store. Yep. I did that.

Ok, so lets get down to business.... this is the pendant situation we had in the kitchen upon moving in.

Two little orangey-yellow glass pendants hanging from the black canopies on the ceiling by black cords. They were okay if thats your thing. Its not my thing. And there were a few reasons that I wanted to change them out:

1. The one of the right had a big crack in the top. If you bumped it, a piece of glass would fall out.

2. They didn't put out a whole lot of light. 

3. I couldn't put an LED or CFL in there without it being seen.

So I started looking at lights mostly to satisfy criteria #2, because I like a lot of light.Then I found these beauties on Pottery Barn's website. 

(image from HERE)

I had a coupon and then they ran a sale.....and then a pair of them became mine. And they are BEAUTIFUL. WAY WAY nicer in person than this picture even makes them look. I absolutely loved them. I even bought an extra in case we ever broke one. I mean I knew these were gonna be the lights for me, errr I mean our kitchen. We finally got around to putting one up. Around that time, I had heart issues that wouldn't allow me to put my hands over my head for very long....so only that one pendant got put up and we lived with two different pendants in the kitchen for 4 months! Yes, 4 months! Can you believe type-A me let this happen!? The audacity! No, really it was just probably just a lack of time and sleep. 

Either way, those 4 months taught me....those were not the pendants for me either. Obviously if my type-A self can leave two different pendants up and not even be motivated enough to put up the other one, something isn't right. So I studied the Pottery Barn one. 

Did I like the glass? Yes. Beautiful. 

Did I like the metal color? Yep, its a shiny,sparklyish DEEP brown/black.

Did it clean well? Yep, you really didn't notice the dust & such as bad as I thought you would.

Did it have options? Yep, I could use the fad-dish Edison bulbs, colored bulbs, etc

Could I change the length? Yep, a bunch extra length was shoved in the canopy

So studying the fixture itself didn't help. I then started looking at other pendants from various internet sources trying to find a common theme in those I liked.... Thats when I realized I liked poles. Yup, I do. They are thick, sturdy, have a solid appearance in the air, add a visual element, and hang uber straight (if your ceilings are straight). That was the problem....I wanted poles in the kitchen rather than cords! 

So I started searching and wouldn't you know Home Depot came through for me. I found these lights which are made by the Home Depot brand Home Decorators:

(picture from HERE)

We went to the local Home Depot and checked the display out they had of it.

Was it on a pole? Yep

Would it clean well? Yep

Would it match? Yep, looks just like the appliances

Could you change the length? Yep, came with 5 twelve-inchers and 2 six-inchers

Could I use whatever type bulb? Yep, it had a glass diffuser!!!!

So, 2 of them became mine and looky at the pretties in my kitchen:

I love them!!! Loved them so much that we put BOTH pendants up one right after the other. Here's my assessment of them in the 2 weeks we've had them up. First of all, they were probably the easiest lights to install that we've ever done...and I've changed out a lot of lights. Secondly, the pictures do not do them justice. They are GORGEOUS in person. Very industrial yet modern and traditional all at the same time. The only slightly negative thing I have to say is that once hung, the diffusers are hard to get on. Not impossible, but just not easy, peasy....but since I put CFL's in them I won't have to open the diffuser but every few years or so. Lastly, they put off a soft, bright light that is perfect for kitchen pendants.The lights themselves are not on in this picture....why?? I have no clue...I just took it because I was so happy to love them.

btw...I am not sponsored by Home Depot. I was not given these by Home Depot. Home Depot has no clue at all that Simply Sarah even exists....I was just excited about my lights. BUT Home Depot if you read this and want to see more of your goodies featured here....well, I would not be opposed to this! ha! :)

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