Your money for my opinion? Deal!

I think I'm supposed to have some sort of disclosure statement about exchanging my opinion for gifts from a business looking for advertising. I don't get paid for the links in the side bar, though there are a few affiliate sponsors over there, so if you click and then buy something from them I get a kickback. So far I haven't received any kickbacks as an affiliate.

If you follow my blog you'll know that I try hard to support the smaller businesses, but a lot of DIY projects require going to the big box, so when CSN Stores offered me a $100 gift certificate I said yes. {And if you're interested in reviewing their products on your blog, drop me a note and I'll give you the contact info.}

The big decision was how to spend the $100. I thought about it for a week, talked to Mr. C, we both mulled over it and then decided there were a couple things we needed so why not spend it on them? The first: a light for the back porch. The older motion sensor had a switch so it could be turned off completely, come on for 20 seconds {or something like that}, or come on for 5 minutes. The timing never seemed to work correctly, so if you wanted light for an extended period of time you were taking a gamble.

The other need? Handles for the still incomplete kitchen redo. 6 handles and 1 outdoor light for $100? Totally doable.
For the light we picked the Vauxel Nautical 10" Outdoor Pendant in burnished bronze. I ordered it and the handles on Monday, the handles arrived Thursday and the light arrived Friday {both ground delivery, they shipped from 2 different warehouses}.

The light is exactly what I expected, and was really happy with how quickly they arrived. I don't think I've ever gotten anything from Amazon within the same week of ordering. The product is good, the price was pretty much equivalent to other stores {plus free shipping, so it was actually probably a little cheaper than other stores} and all in all a great experience!

The downside, and this has nothing to do with CSN, is the bubble globe that covers the bulb is small and a regular sized incandescent bulb barely fits in it. No chance of a CFL fitting under the glass. What's up with that? We're going to get an LED bulb, but weird for the designers not to think of the light bulb when designing, right?

For the handles Charlie knew exactly what he wanted, and since he's building the cabinets he has 100% say in the matter. He wanted polished chrome to play off the retro design of the older cabinets, but a clean, modern, updated look for the new additions to the kitchen. The Whitehaus Straight Pull fit the bill and for 6 handles sent us just over the $100 limit. To be precise, $1.07 over. The arrived well packed and quickly, are sturdy feeling and just what we'd imagined. We'd actually looked in shops all over town for handles like these, but there's not much in the way of chrome these days. Unfortunately, they're awaiting their fate in the box they shipped in.

The plan is for the doors to be finished this week, but I'm not holding my breath, and you shouldn't either. I don't want to have to issue any other disclaimers thanks to some overly optimistic reader mishap.