The Finishing Touch

A few months ago, we decided to replace all of the appliances in our kitchen. I had some before pictures, but I don't know what happened to them. The dishwasher had stopped working so it was always hanging open as a "drying rack" for the dishes I was hand washing. There were several pieces on wall mounted microwave (the vent thing on top, the handle) that were broken that my husband had re-attached with ugly screws. The gas range was finicky about lighting, and the fridge was making weird noises. So, it all got replaced with beautiful stainless steel versions.

If you've ever done a home project, you know it never stops with what you had originally planned to do. Replacing the appliances led to replacing all the cabinet hardware. We previous had these large black ceramic knobs that we referred to as the "clown" knobs. They weren't horrible, but they were quite "in your face" bold. So those are all now nice brushed nickel and what a difference that made!!!

Then, it turned into new wall art, and replacing our tiny round bistro set with a square pub height dark wood set.

Lastly, we wanted to get a new sink and faucet. I wanted a single basin sink, as the sink I previously had was divided. But not divided down the middle, it was more like 1/4 and 3/4 and the faucet was offset to the left. That 1/4 section was hardly ever used - a waste of space.

You are probably wondering what in the world any of this has to do with jewelry. Well, for one, projects like this are time consuming. Time that is taken away from me getting to make jewelry. Hee. Hee. It takes a lot of time to pick things out, clean out old stuff, help with arranging, etc....

Secondly, I ended up buying this sink because of a jewelry challenge! In May, Erin of TesoriTrovati had a challenge that was inspired from wedding flowers. You can read all about the set I entered into the challenge here in this post. Well, lucky me, I won!!! And the prize was a $100 gift card to online store CSN Stores.

It didn't take me long to figure out that I was going to purchase this sink. The price CSN was offering it for was less than Lowes and Home Depot. Shipping was very reasonable I thought. I ordered it on a Tuesday and it was on my doorstep on Thursday! How's that for customer service! I couldn't be more pleased with my purchase from CSN. So thank you Erin and CSN for offering this prize.

This just proves that you never know what creating jewelry will bring into your life! I love creating jewelry and I would certainly continue to do it even if it would never bring another penny into my pocket. But it is nice that the extra income I make from it can help sustain our home, or be donated to worthy causes, or go into buying more supplies. I like participating in different challenges as well because it always pushes me to design something I might not have ever thought of.

Now that this lady has a good working sink and dishwasher, she is sure happy it will free up more time to bead!