Our New Lighting & Fans, Dining Room Updates, & Closet System Plans!

I’ve been juggling a bunch of different projects since moving in and while I don’t yet have any fabulous “after” pics of fully completed rooms to share, I thought I’d give you a peek into where everything is at! Many of you have told me how helpful it is to see the progress on projects instead of just the final result so let’s get to it… (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement available {here})

The Last of Our Kitchen Updates (For Now…)

We’ll be doing a major kitchen remodel sometime in the near future (probably the latter half of 2022) but until then, I wanted to add a few small but impactful updates to make our kitchen a little more our style. I made what I think will be the last of our kitchen updates this past week by swapping out the overhead light in our kitchen (which looked a bit more suitable for over a pool table than a kitchen island) for this {this shaded chandelier}:

I love it! It definitely makes our kitchen feel more updated and makes me a little more able to live with my white formica countertops and my on-their-last-legs appliances instead of jumping right into a renovation:

All of the small kitchen updates we’ve made have really made a difference from what our kitchen looked like when we bought the house:

The previous updates I made included painting the yellowed sections of cabinetry, swapping out the dated cabinet knobs to {these more modern knobs}, removing the old wallpaper and installing {this gorgeous two-toned blue wallpaper} in the backsplash area, swapping out the kitchen faucet, spray painting the can lighting trim white (it was very yellowed with age), and adding {these new counter stools}. {This post} on our budget kitchen updates has all of the details of those previous projects.

Our Almost-Done Entryway

We remodeled the entryway in our Connecticut home during the last year we lived there and since I knew we’d be moving, I made sure to choose furniture and accessories that would work in our new home too. Everything from the console down to the artwork fits beautifully in our new space!

We had the hardwood floors refinished prior to moving in (details on our hardwood floor refinishing is in {this post}), had the space painted BM Simply White, and then just this past week replaced the dated lighting with {this capiz pendant} (medium size):

If it looks familiar to you, it’s because it’s the one light fixture we brought with us from Connecticut where it hung over our kitchen eat-in:

Things remaining on my entryway to-do list are swapping out the door hardware and the wood blinds on the front doors and (at a later time – it’s low priority) changing up our entryway doors and the arched glass above them. But we’re getting there – here’s a look at what it looked like when we moved in so you can see the difference:

Lighting & Fan Updates on Our Porch

Our back porch got a little lighting upgrade too! The light fixtures we had on both sides of our covered porch were these dated sconces that were so rusted out that we couldn’t even get them open to change out the light bulbs:

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For replacement sconces, I was looking for something super simple with clean lines and found {these Warwick sconces} that I LOVED but yikes – their price tag was way higher than I wanted to spend for my porch! I kept looking and found {these super similar matte black sconces} at an AMAZING price. So similar to the original ones I found but totally budget friendly:

We also swapped out our porch ceiling fans several months ago but I don’t think I ever showed you! It’s the reason why I couldn’t spend a lot on the sconces – because I spent way more than I should on the fans for this space 😊:

My new fans are {these 52″ 3-blade fans} and while I considered them pricey when I bought them in June, they have gone up several HUNDRED dollars each since then! It’s really nuts how every time you look to buy something lately, the price seems to have gone way up!

Our New Dining Room Console

The only room in our new home that we are completely starting from scratch with is our dining room. We had a built-in china cabinet in our old house so had no freestanding furniture piece for storage and our old table was too long for our new space so we sold it before we moved. I’ve ordered a new overhead fixture that’s going to either go in the dining room or living room (I’ll decide once it arrives) and I finally found a console for our space too:

I found it at a local design shop where I was able to buy it off the floor (a big win to not have to wait!) and at a discounted rate since it has some scuffs on the top from being on display. You can find the same piece online at several stores including {here}, {here}, and {here}. Now I’m on the hunt for a new dining room table and have spent hours and hours looking but have yet to be able to come up with anything that’s the right size and style without waiting until half way through 2022 for it to arrive…

Our Closet Plans

And last but not least we’ve got big changes coming to our closet that I can’t WAIT for! When we bought our house, the closet that Jeff and I now share simply had a shelf and single rod along the long wall which resulted in a lot of valuable unused real estate since our closet ceilings are quite high:

Before we re-carpeted our bedrooms and closets we removed everything from inside our closet because as you can see, the old “system” went all of the way down to the floor where they had carpeted around it. I love being able to start with an empty shell of a closet that we can do exactly what we want with! The only little hiccup? We’ve been living with most of our clothes still in boxes or on two freestanding rolling racks in our bathroom since moving in because our closet system isn’t available for pick-up until early November.

But it will be worth the wait! We went with an Elfa system from The Container Store and working with one of their free closet designers, arrived at this design plan for the long wall:

Plus we’ll have some shelving and hanging space on the short wall too. I decided to DIY the installation to save some money so we’ll see how that goes – I’ll be sharing it on Instagram Stories next month!

You may remember that we used IKEA’s PAX system in the closet in our old house which I absolutely loved (you can see our IKEA closet {here}), but decided not to in this house for two reasons. (1) The PAX wardrobes are just a few inches deeper than the depth we have on our long wall before you hit the door so we would have had to make some modifications to our closet door or have it overlapping our door trim which wouldn’t look so hot. Also (2) we plan to create a second small closet off our bathroom when we remodel this space and one of the great things about the Elfa system is that you can use easily reconfigure your space with the components you have or by adding a few new ones. So when Jeff gets kicked out of this closet to the new closet, I can rearrange it easily so that it works best for me 😊.

I’m also in the middle of making some changes to our laundry room, the shelving in our family room, and our powder room while concocting ideas for finishing off our attic space too 🙈 but I’ve kept you long enough so that will wait for another day! Until then, I’ve added a bunch of new finds to my Shop page to check out {here} and have spent some time scouring Nordstrom’s newly released Holiday Gift Guide (I love their selection and that they have free shipping+ free returns) and thought I’d share some of my favorite gift ideas I found (scroll & click pic to shop):

For those of you trying to get your holiday shopping done early, I’m working on my family’s annual Favorite Things Gift Guide and will be sharing that with you soon! Enjoy the rest of your weekend (I hope your weather is as beautiful as it is here today) and I’ll see you back on the blog next week!