Shedding Some Light on the Situation

We're soooo excited! The electrician made a visit this morning and made all outlets GFCI, upgraded the trip wire (or something...), installed an extra outlet in the garage, pointed out that my dryer socket DID in fact match the plug... (LOLZ!) and last, but certainly not least... he finally hung our West Elm Capiz Chandelier. Just LOOK at it in all it's sparkly, tinkl(e?)y glory!


Something to note for those of you out there who have bought this chandelier...

1) It doesn't come with a ceiling plate. We had to reuse the brass one from our old chandelier. Not pretty, but it will do for now.

2) As it is designed to be a "plug-n-play" lamp, the wiring side of things is a little more technical than you'd think.

3) When cutting into each little plastic wrapper on the strings of shells, be VERY careful not to snip the fishing gut on one that has already been released. (We lost one string in the unwrap process).

All in all, I am VERY happy with it. Because we don't have a separate dining room, the chandelier grounds the area and makes it feel more defined. I also like the play between the stark, dark table, the "classy" chandelier and the modern white chairs. The chandelier brings just the right touch of drama to the space, and makes it feel special. Now if I could just find a bowl that fits the scale of the new dining table, and something for the wall to further define the area I will be happy.... Peach paint, textured walls, vertical blinds and popcorn ceilings are still there unfortunately, but we'll get there eventually. It took us a year to finally have a home to put the chandelier up in, whats a few more months to give it the surroundings it deserves.

Ladumaaaaaaaaa!

I regularly check the sales/clearance sections of some of my favorite furniture home stores and I often spot bargains just begging to be snapped up. A couple of weeks ago I spotted this gorgeous capiz light fixture at West Elm on sale.

I had also seen a similar one in John and Sherry from This Young House's bedroom and thought it looked beautiful in there. I saw the price drop to $59 and was tempted to buy it, but we're kind of on a saving streak and trying to conserve funds for any incidentals we might come up against with the house purchase so I stayed away. But then... on Friday when Sherry posted about the West Elm steal, I started to panic that hundreds of TYH blog readers would rush westelm.com and it would be sold out in minutes.

I made a deal with myself... if we went through to Palacios and didn't spend the night -- thereby saving the $60 lamp cost, AND the light was still available when we got home, AND if after seeing the Lucas house in person I had found the perfect place to put it, would buy it. So yesterday, while going through the hundreds of photo's I took from the trip I spotted at least three places I would love to put the fixture I decided to take the plunge and buy the darn thing before I lost my nerve.

So here it is... we bought the mocha one because it best suits our desired color scheme. Isn't it gorgeous?? Is it too much to be used as a chandelier over a dining table? I also thought it would look great as a low slung light over a side table in the living room, it would look wonderful in our bedroom and actually... it would work great on the landing at the top of the stairs... or maybe even one of the bathrooms... a pretty light to look at while soaking in the tub... I am pretty sure it will go in the dining room... but I like that I have plenty of other options for it as well.

Now that I have secured one for myself, y'all can go crazy!