Make do and mend Mondays

Mondays are fun days when you see things happening around the home. Jobs getting done and things being spruced up...

I have mentioned how I loved watching Kirstie's Homemade Home. She advocates looking for second hand furniture instead of buying new. Her reasons are that it is cheaper, often better quality if it is old and good for the environment. Yes to all points but I think for me that most fun about buying vintage or antique items is that you have something unique.

I went to a place with a friend of mine that sells vintage and unique Belgian and French garden accessories during the summer. The woman imports the items herself and then sells them from her own garden. I bought a couple of fun items. One of them was a set of wrought iron garden wall sconces. They sat while Jos was too busy at work waiting to be hung. They are incredibly heavy. They would have been hung already but Jos did not feel his hooks were strong enough and he had to buy bigger ones. But now they are hung and I have placed two pumpkins on them to celebrate autumn.

And now I would like to hear your opinion about something I was considering. I do like the rusted look of these but I am thinking of maybe painting them black. What do you think? We moved my black wall ornament over and exchanged it for the garden mirror. Should I leave it all as is? Should I paint the sconces black? Should I move the wall ornament around the corner to the front of the house?

I added a photo that shows the true colors of the items and the brick wall. I hope you tell me what you would do? I love black items but is it too much black?

To update my challenge to finish UFOs in my quilt studio...I am now close to finishing the hand quilting on a doll's quilt that I made the patchwork top for and then left for later. I am really enjoying the quilting and glad the challenge has made me pick it back up again.