Breakfast Room Progress - A Door, A Curtain, and a Light Fixture

We've made a wee bit of progress on our breakfast room at the back of the house. Small progress is better than no progress, right?

First up, a door.

When we first bought the house and moved in one of the first projects we did was build a fence in the backyard so Roary could hang out without running away. (Bad dog.)

The problem was that our house didn't have a back door. Just a lousy side door that led into the driveway. Everytime we wanted to let Roary out we would have to put our shoes / coats on and lead him by the collar into the backyard. It was super, duper annoying. Plus, we have a shared driveway with our neighbours. They have seen me way too many times in less-than-flattering (okay, hideous) get-ups while letting the dog out. 

So we decided to put a door in the back of the house. In the breakfast room. This project was terrifying. Alex rented a diamond-bladed (???) chainsaw and chopped a hole in the side of the house. (See video at the end of this post.)

Even though I would have loved a door with tonnes of charm and character (my dream was to have a wooden, dutch door) our freezing cold winters and piles of snow would make one kind of impractical. We went with a single, steel, french door that matched the windows which would eventually lead out onto the deck.

Please disregard the junk and out-of-control bushes that are all over the yard.
What can I say? Our house is a permanent construction zone.

Please disregard the sad, sad state of our yard.
Again, we live in a permanent construction zone.

Everyone in my family tried to convince me to put double french doors leading out onto the deck but the room is so, so tiny (with two large windows already) that double doors would have left virtually no wall space for furniture placement in the future. The breakfast room could eventually become an office, a playroom, a t.v. room, or a mudroom. 

The trim around the door has finally been painted. If you look closely, though, you'll see that we still have to paint the inside of the door jamb. We'll have to wait until the weather is warm and we can leave the door open while the paint dries.

There was a closet in the room already so we though it made sense to install the door right next to it. We chose a custom "painted white finish" for the door. We didn't realize the colour would be such a stark white. But, what can you do?

When I ordered the tie-up shades for the sunroom (from Pottery Barn) I also ordered a tiny one for the door (hee hee). This is our seventh one so I think I'll stop with the tie-up shades for now. I bought a cheap, magnetic curtain rod and it just stuck to the door. Easy, peasy. 

The curtain just softens the door up a bit. Love. It.

In other news, remember the $39 pendant light that I bought for the room that I liked, but didn't love?

Please disregard the table and chair set which still needs to be painted and recovered.

Well we both had decided that we would keep it there until we found a pendant light that we really loved. Then we would just swap it out and use the white one downstairs in the basement bedroom or laundry room.

Yesterday we stopped into our local lighting store to look at pot lights for the basement reno. Hanging right above the counter was this adorable light fixture:

The picture doesn't do it justice. It is ca-ute. It was even on sale!!!!! We went ahead and ordered it and should expect it in 3-4 weeks. Woohoo!

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a clip of Alex and his best bud knocking the hole in the side of the house. If swearing offends you, don't watch this!! ;)

I am so glad that I was not home when they were doing this!!