Enlightening My Home (IE I Have New Lights)

I’m going to be honest: I’ve been trying to start writing this post for about 30 minutes, but I went down a wormhole google image search looking for funny puns about light that I could use to construct a clever title and opening.  I’m pretty sure there is something to the whole faux-ton concept and how much bloggers love faux-stuff.  But I can’t get my act together so you all get this intro instead.

The point is, I have finally put up new lights in my home!

It has been a long-time coming.  Back when we did the renovation of our new home, there were a lot – and I mean A LOT – of things that we just put off doing.  This was partly because of the expense, but we were also making so many decisions so quickly, and we wanted to slow down and take the time to get things right.

However, even though we weren’t ready to select our light fixtures, we did take down many of the old fixtures before moving in because they were ceiling fans… in our 7 ft ceiling house.  Yikes.

The only light that I replaced before this was the dining room chandelier, so that means that we have been living with exposed electrical boxes or bare light bulbs in a lot of rooms for the last few years.

Yeah.

In other rooms, like our kitchen and bedroom, we did have working light fixtures but they were pretty ugly and clearly temporary.

With our low ceilings we need flush mounts or semi-flush mounts so I went through a pretty intensive search for my favorites.  I wanted lights that would have a bit of personality but not dominate the rooms.  I also needed them to play well with my rather extreme chandelier, as two of the new lights would be in the kitchen and living room which are both connected and open to the dining area.

I was a little bit grumpy about needing flush mounts at first, but I was impressed by how many good options are out there!  However, I kept coming back to this light and shade combo from Schoolhouse Electric as my top choice:

I love the simplicity, the retro style, and also that they are more squared off than you usually see in a schoolhouse light, which often pinches or tapers a lot more.

At $177 each, I’d consider them moderately priced, and they were definitely more than we hoped to spend.  There are cheaper options out there, but also a lot of supposedly affordable flush mounts in the $300+ range.  I looked at a lot of lower priced options in the schoolhouse style but there were none with this same stout profile that I like so much.  So we pulled the trigger this holiday season and asked for three of them as a combined gift.

Once they arrived we had 6 lights ready to go in because I had also stockpiled a few lights while I was searching for these.  I love lights, so have a tendency to pick them up and trust that I will find a place for them…  I had a $25 star fixture that Sage and I found buried in a thrift store booth, an awesome $40 craigslist schoolhouse find that I figured would go well with the the Schoolhouse Electric ones, and a crazy one (destined for our bedroom) that I got at Brimfield Flea Market with my friend Erin, and then got re-wired:

Brad called in an electrician friend to help because I am terrified of electricity, and he took care of this while I was out of the house. I think it is a mark of the strength of trust in our relationship that I was able to step away from this one.

I am just thrilled with the new lights!

The simple schoolhouse style does just what I wanted it to: add a little bit of mood to the room without complicating my already chaotic style.

I put the matching Schoolhouse Electric ones in the living room and kitchen (because they are a connected space) and then also in my office.

I really couldn’t love these more.

The mismatched schoolhouse style one went into the guest room, where I think it looks really good!

I also got to put up the star at the top of the stairs into our basement.  This is a scary disaster zone, so it is not exactly prime blog content.  But having a nice fixture there is the first step in a very-far-in-the-future makeover.  Also, cool ceiling patterns!

I also love the crazy new bedroom light, but I’m going to be coy and not show it here because I’m preparing to post a final bedroom tour next week since that makeover is finally, finally done.  Sorry!

Overall, I’m pumped about these new lights and it is awesome to be able to use the light switches in our house!  It is such a big step forward in making the spaces actually look finished.  There are only a few of these big, house-wide issues remaining (wall grates, I am looking at you) before I can stop making excuses whenever welcoming new guests into our home.

If folks are interested, I am considering doing a round-up of all the flush mounts that I liked but didn’t end up getting.  Please share what you have or your favorite of that style in the comments so I can include them!