The Goldilocks of lights

One thing I really didn't mind when we moved in our house was the lighting.  I actually didn't even notice it.

I think I had plenty of other things that I was focused on, so I didn't even pay attention to what was lighting our rooms.

Now that I have painted everything, redecorated and finally have knocked that wall down, I have a lot more time to stare at our light fixtures.

What we have is not exactly bad, but its pretty far from good too.

The previous owners didn't care too much about sticking with the character of the house, so they went with lots of cheap late 90's early 2000's stuff that doesn't flow with the house at all.

We have a serious problem with boob lights in the house- which we call nipple lights.  I'm sure once you see one it will need no explanation...

Now do you get our name for these lights?

So now my mission is to overhaul the lighting in EVERY room.  All nipples and boobs are coming off our ceilings.  Immediately, if not sooner.

We started the lighting overhaul with the kitchen when we removed the track lighting.

Yes, I said track lighting.  It was like the early 90's pink elephant on the ceiling.  So weird, outdated and out of place.

When that bad boy came down, I was not even sad to see it go in the junk pile.  For a fleeting moment I thought about selling it on craigsilst, but then I realized I would not want to meet the person who was interested in buying such a piece of crappy lighting.  Plus, a part of it broke when they took it down, so it was no longer usable.   Seemed like a win-win to me.

I'm not trying to say that can lights are sooooo 1918, but they are a modern update that is not a glaring example of how NOT 1918 this house is.

We actually went with all can lights in the kitchen because we want all the focus to be on our new chandelier.

Our chandelier search has felt a lot like Goldilocks and the three bears.  We had to sleep in a lot of beds, to find the right one.... or if your prefer, we had to kiss a lot of frogs to find our prince.  You can chose which fairytale you like best.

Too swoopy

Too modern

Too circular

To blah

So yes, we did finally find one, but it was not the easiest thing to find.

We went to antique lighting stores, modern lighting stores, the ReStore, goodwill, rummage sales etc and couldn't seem to find the right one.

Since it will be the focal point of all three rooms (living, dining and kitchen) and will be in your sight line as soon as you walk into our home, we want it to be perfect.

We agree that we don't want anything to ornate (curly Q's are not for us), or anything too modern.  We are looking for that perfect mix of old and new (isn't that the story of my life) and we just couldn't find it.

We actually went to this awesome lighting store that we stumbled upon 5 years ago hoping it would be our lucky charm again.  We actually were walking past it on our way to breakfast one Sunday morning and we noticed a huge rot-iron clock in the window that we loved.  We had just bought our condo and it was the perfect scale for our 14 ft walls.  We bought it and took it home that day.  It was a match made in heaven, with a little slice of fate on the side.

So naturally, we figured we would fall in love with something instantly at that shop, just like we did all those years ago.

It was actually the opposite experience.  We pretty much hated everything in the store.  What was worse is they were having a huge sale and everything was at least 20% off, some things were 50% off.  You know I love a sale, so I was willing myself to love something in that store, but it just wouldn't happen.

In a last ditch effort, we stopped by both Home Depot and Lowes just to check their lighting out.  I can't afford to be a vintage lighting snob when I have run out of options.

A small miracle did occur in the aisles of Lowes.  We agreed that we kinda-sorta liked the same light fixture.

I know this doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement of our love for this chandelier.

Probably because it isn't.

We like it.

We also liked that it was returnable for up to 90 days.

Sold.

We could take it home, hold it up and see what we thought about it in our space.

It is so hard to judge lighting when its hanging amongst 900 other lamps and chandeliers in the aisles of a store.  Not to mention the overly lit ceilings leave much to be desired in the ambiance department.

So we have a chandelier option, but once we unwrapped it, assembled it and held it up in our dining room, it looked like a mini-lier, or whatever the cute term is for the smallest chandelier known to man.

It was a huge let down.  We actually agreed on one that we both liked, but unfortunately it is not the right one. What we need is something with presence and some width, dare I say girth.... to it.  We need a chandelier that is a focal point and feels like it fills the vast expanse of open space that we created when we knocked down the wall.

But time is wasting away and we need to get a new chandelier up before B-day (also know as baby shower day), which is now 9 days way (not that I'm counting).

So the lighting hunt really got revved up this week.  I finally caved and hit up the Lamps Plus store which I had been avoiding for no particular reason and of course, that is where I found the one.

The one

You know how I knew it was the one?

It hit all our requirements:

• Was large enough to fill the space
• Was traditional without being too modern
• Was not overly ornate
• On sale (that is always one of my requirements)

Of course I had to sell Chris on it, but he actually picked this one out of all the ones I found at Lamps Plus, and so it was a done deal.  We both loved it.

We also loved that it was marked down 60% off since it was a customer return and the chain had been cut to a certain length, so we couldn't make it longer (which doesn't bother us at all, since we will probably make it shorter).

So I went back and swooped it up and in a matter of hours it will be hanging in our dining room in all it's glory.

Chris's attempt to show what it will look like hanging

So in the end we found our prince, or our perfect bed, or whatever.  Its a match made in Lamps-Plus-Heaven.