And on the 103rd Day, We Said, "Let There Be Light!"

It's been 103 days since we stepped foot in The Blooming House and we have finally tackled a number of lighting issues. Of course we haven't been sitting in the dark, but we replaced fixtures that looked like they crawled out of a creepy, abandoned, haunted hospital, the 1800s, and well, the last one only worked when you hit it with a bat. So, with that said, let me recap. We replaced the fluorescent overhead lighting in the laundry room, installed a beautiful chandelier in the foyer and setup a new motion detector spotlight in the backyard.

I'm not about to blog about a bunch of non-forgiving fluorescent lights in the depths of our house, but what I would like to share with you is what Tommy describes as "Pièce de résistance." I myself had to google this silly, sounding phrase, but I do agree as it has become my favorite piece in the house so far!

This is the pendant that was hanging in our foyer. 1800's right? Or atleast it hasn't been cleaned since then.


Tommy and I struggled with our replacement chandelier for so long and I think that's one of the main reasons why I love it so much now that its working so beautifully. The electrical wiring was a bit of an experience and we purchased the new fixture without any electrical hardware since it was more of a shade than the full fixture. We decided to attempt to make our own electrical setup so that it hung just the way we wanted, flush to the ceiling and not hanging down since it would be too low for our taller visitors. (I have no idea why we thought it would be as easy as just plugging something in and voila!)

In the end the final product was exactly how we wanted it, but it took a couple trips to Menard's Lighting Department and have a few workers scratch their heads at our ideas, but we finally got it!

Here is the dark and rusty hole that we were working with.

 

 

 

Here Tommy is buried in capiz glass. 

 And here she is! Our new capiz chandelier that we found at World Market back in Wisconsin... since they took all of our Minnesota store locations away. 

She was very reasonably priced, given the luxury look we think it gives off on a "flashlight budget". Also please ignore the dingy looking walls in the background, I'm still working on removing the glue from the wallpaper. Once we settle on a color, we think it's going to be "fabulous," well, I'd say that, not Tommy. He thinks it looks "awesome." (Oh, and if you work for World Market Inc., and you're reading this BRING IT BACK to MN!)

 

With all the other lights off, it makes all these really interesting shadows on the ceiling and walls. 

When you open and close the front door you might just get a subtle chime or two since all the pieces are dangling on what looks to be a fishing line, hanging from a circular grid. It would have been way cooler if I tried to make this whole fixture myself, and if you're crafty, I really think it could be done! But like I said we struggled so much for some reason with it, that we love our store bought fixture. And that is that.