$5 chandelier

I am like my mother. Yesterday, a stranger informed me that I have a great phone voice. That voice {which both of us can turn on and off} comes directly from the woman who raised me. Today, while washing the dishes, I sliced into my finger with one of our giganormous sharp knives. Trust me, that's from my mother.

However, years ago I promised I would set myself apart from my mother in one specific area: clutter. My mother likes to keep things. Lots of things. Throughout my child hood, though there were piles of things that were supposedly headed out to the thrift store, things never seemed to get more sparse. 

I will vouch for her though, she never bought expensive things. She shopped almost exclusively at thrift stores, a habit I have also picked up. A couple of days ago, I was taking a bag of clothes to the thrift store and I happened upon a chandelier. It was just the standard brassy kind with five arms. They only wanted $5 for it, and that's a steal for any light fixture. 

When Matt came home from work I greeted him at the door with my hands clasped behind my back and that, "Don't look behind me and when you do, don't be mad" smile. He took it like a champ and simply asked where I was planning to hang it.

When I came home the next day, Matt greeted me with the same smile he had seen the day before. It wasn't finished yet, but here's what I found.

There was no medallion for the ceiling yet, but the hard part {taking down the old light fixture} was over. I don't know if you ever saw a before shot of that light, but I took one after he took it down. It was just one of those standard long bulb lights.

I have no idea why this was in our kitchen. New rule of thumb for moving: Replace all existing light fixtures. Often they're just some sort of "standard- hug the ceiling" light and to be honest, they're just plain boring. We ran out to Lowes to grab a ceiling medallion and with a little team work, it was looking like this.

I decided to wait til the morning to take the rest of the pictures so they would have natural light in them because I needed to do the dishes, but when I flipped it on in the morning, one of the light bulbs had burned out. Drat. :)

The longer we live here, the more it feels like home. Plus, we aren't breaking the bank to change things up. This whole project was less than $10 {+ whatever lightbulbs will cost}, and it makes a huge difference to the look and feel of the kitchen. 

I have no idea where this light will be in our future home. Maybe it'll end up some bright coral color in my little girls' room. Who knows? But for now, it will remain in all of its brassy glory and help us keep things bright and happy in the kitchen.