Chandeliers belong in kitchens and bathrooms ...

And anywhere else you can sneak one in! A few weeks ago Mr. Nick and I were up at one of our rental properties to turn a unit after a tenant moved out. Of course this always means multiple trips to Home Depot which inevitably leads to me wandering around with stars in my eyes dreaming of the future. Very rarely does my husband humor me as I chatter away about claw foot bathtubs and faucets that look like water pumps but thankfully, for me, he decided to humor me this time.

And I am now the proud owner of the Maria Theresa Hampton Bay 6 light chandelier. And let me tell you, it is gorgeous. Definitely not at all reminiscent of the $99 price tag it carried.

Originally we were just going to put it on our list as an item to come back for but when I started looking in the shelves there were none available for purchase. Then, on a trip to another Home Depot it wasn't even displayed. When chatting with my mother about this she very quickly reminded me of Home Depot's awesome return policy and of the fact that sometimes, when you go back to buy something, it may not be there anymore. So that was enough. Mr. Nick agreed without much of a fuss at all and put the chandelier on order. It took over a week to arrive but now it's here in this teeny tiny box (obviously this is one of those, some assembly required situations). The box actually works out perfect for us though because we're not quite ready. A recent search of three more Home Depot's in the area has only solidified my choice, the chandelier is no longer on display in our area (they even sold someone the sample). So the lesson learned is, when in doubt buy it, you can always return it later.

And I leave you with a couple of ways my mom and I have used chandeliers in our past decorating. Enjoy!

This is my old guest room. The bed, curtains and chandelier came from Ikea. The lamp shade is from Marshalls. The throw is a gift from my best friend (a TJ Maxx purchase) and the framed little prints are greeting cards from Cincinnati, The bed was originally a yellow which caused me to walk right past it but my mom (again!) reminded me that things can be painted. Speaking of painting. She did the treatment on the wall using a mix of regular and metallic paint, a stencil and a plastic bag. She is sooo talented I know! We only had $300 to decorate this room, which is photographing larger than it actually is, so we were pretty happy with it.

A closer look at the painting while Sasha and Fat Pip enjoy a friendly brawl.

This is part of my mom's bathroom ... it's all vintage and I love it.
She lives in a Lindal Cedar Home so everything has the deep rich mahogany trim.

And in case you wanted to see more of her bathroom. Mr. Nick made this fireplace out of MDF. I'll have to do some close-up photos of it when I'm there next ... she LOVES daisies so he worked them into the design pattern.

Ordering large scale photographs

Those who know me know that I love taking photos. I'm not a professional by any means but I really enjoy being behind a camera. I recently splurged and bought a DSLR, which you can read about here, and have gotten more serious about printing large scale photographs. As a card carrying Costco member (is there any other kind of member?) I have happily printed through them, enjoying their "anything goes" return policy, fast turn-around times and of course low prices.

However, when I took photos of my niece and nephew and had them blown up I was unhappy with the large scale resolution of the prints. So I started shopping around for a better printer. Having enjoyed great results with my first 24 x 36 I am now a card carrying member of Ritz Pix (I swear I don't have "need to belong" issues). Membership basically means that I get 5% cash back on my large scale printing.

This photo actually took 4 prints to get right, the first time the laminator was fritzy so there were lines in the plastic and the second and third times the crop was off. Because of that it wasn't ready in 1 hour like advertised but they were totally dedicated to making sure that I was happy with the product. And I am. I chose to mount since it's a photo and will tend to sag behind the glass at such a large size and I chose to put the laminate film on because it has UV protection and will keep my photo from fading in the sun. The color is beautiful (not at all displaying well in this photo), there is no graininess and the mounting is really nice. They will be getting all my printing business from here on out.

In case you're curious, I took this photo about halfway up, as we hiked to the top of Mt. Olympus in Greece. The mama and horse were all by themselves with not another living creature for miles (except us of course). I did deepen the colors in photoshop and made sure that the photo was saved at 400 dpi but other than that I didn't do much else. I took this with my cheap-o Canon (before Mr. Nick consented to my relentless reminders about DSLR cameras). That's Mr. Nick and I in the back, one at our wedding and one at my brother's wedding. It's leaning against our piano (did I mention we need to move out of this apartment ASAP). I left them in so you can see how big it is.

Home Depot's plant return policy

This past Christmas we decided to be "green" and get a living Christmas tree. We were in the process of closing on our land so it seemed like such a good idea to buy something that we celebrate with and then plant as a forever reminder.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. We put our house on the rental market and moved within a very small period of time so the decorating of the Christmas tree fell by the wayside. Wanting to make sure that the tree went in the "perfect" place we decided to store it at our apartment until we could get a better "feel" for where it should go (this was back when I thought I was secretly harboring a green thumb and plants would grow taller just at the sound of my voice).

Fast forward seven months and our poor "living Christmas tree" is no longer living (yes, I understand the irony). So, on my mother's suggestion we decided to try to take advantage of Home Depot's plant return policy.

They say they will take any plant back within one year of puchase if you have the receipt. That receipt is crucial (according to the woman I called over the phone). We arrived counting on doing the credit card look-up (which by the way I think every store should do) because we had lost our receipt. Unfortunately they only store cc information for 90 days. Luckily though we still had the price tag on the bucket so she was able to scan it and give us store credit. Honestly I think she just thought Mr. Nick was cute but I thought about it and I'm okay with pimping him out in the name of saving money. And let's face it, he is ridiculously good looking :)

So that's that. The tree has been removed from our lives, leaving a trail of dead pine needles from our balcony to the parking lot. I'm sure our apartment manager hates us by now ...

Mom and I pose in "happier times".
We'll miss you living Christmas tree. We promise to do better next year.
p.s. Mom made my sweater for me when I was in 5th grade.