these bright lights have always blinded me

K and I have been struggling to find a new light fixture for above our kitchen table for months.  Lots and lots of months.  In the meantime our ugly upside-down e-collar light fixture (which is made of PLASTIC I discovered last weekend) has been getting filthier and filthier and I'd say it was getting uglier and uglier but really, we all know that's not possible.

I mean, look at that thing.

Like D's cowboy boot collection?

Hideous.

The problem, of course, is the two of us agreeing on something.  We came close a few times--this Hundi lantern from Pottery Barn,

or this Moravian star light,

Y'all have to help me convince K to let me remove the flashing from our front porch roof so we can bring out an electrician and hang this light above our front door.  Seriously.

but price and worry about the need for more light in our kitchen always stopped us from buying something.

(It was mainly the price.)

Meanwhile, I kept seeing this neat idea online, where people took functional but ugly lights and made them shiny and new.

I'm talking, of course, about those ubiquitous brass chandeliers and my BFF spray paint.  I found a bunch of pictures to send to K and after a little negotiation she was convinced.  (By "a little negotiation" I mean "the project total would come in around $20.  Max.")

See, when we replaced our dining room light I insisted that we keep the chandy that came with the house.  I think the original intention was to re-hang it when we moved someday, so one of us could take the new one, which really was a dumb idea because an ugly light fixture wasn't going to magically become less ugly by sitting in our basement for five years.  But whatever.  We had our free light!  (and by "free" I mean, "$300k")

Obviously we needed a bright, happy color, and since my stand mixer and my favorite gargantuan mixing bowl are red we decided to make it a threesome.

Yeah.  It was not a good thing.

At all.

Which meant another trip to bLowes and another week of sporadic painting (seriously, why is it always raining when I need to get outdoor stuff done?) but finally we had this:

More boring black, but whatever.  It looked a lot better.

Unfortunately, I had to hang it then, which was a pain and a HALF.  Find wire cutters.  Trim wire.  Trim chain.  Remove old fixture.  Wire new fixture.  Screw new fixture onto support bolt.  Attempt to attach cover plate.  Fail because support bolt doesn't extend past the cover plate so it won't attach to anything.  Unwire chandelier.  Redo support bolt.  Rewire chandelier.  Try to attach cover plate.  FAIL BECAUSE THE STUPID BOLT IS STILL NOT DOWN FAR ENOUGH.  Unwire.  Redo support bolt so that only the tiniest bit of bolt is still in the mounting bracket.  This is going to work, so help me.  Try to attach cover plate AND FAIL because the cover plate is thicker than the entire length of the GD support bolt.  Storm away from ladder and half installed chandelier before transforming into Hulk and SMASHING everything.  Have restorative Diet Dr. Pepper.  Have brilliant idea.  Take cover plate from old plastic light and compare to new cover plate.  Old cover plate is much thinner.  Race outside during break in rain to spray paint old cover plate.  Wait impatiently for it to be not wet (waiting for "dry" would take too long").  Unwire chandelier.  Undo support bolt.  Switch out cover plates.  Rewire chandelier.  Attach to support bolt.  Which is now too long for my new thinner cover plate.  Unwire.  Redo.  Rewire.  Unwire.  Redo.  Rewire.  Unwire.  Redo.  Rewire.

Seriously guys it literally took me two hours to get that stupid thing installed and now I have to touch up all the chipped spots because yeah, spray paint is not so durable when wire cutters and pliers are involved.

BUT.

It looks totally awesome.

Yeah I know it's hovering maybe a foot higher than it should be (never decide how high to hang a chandelier while standing on a ladder, folks) but lord that thing is like our very own supernova and after living with it for a week, debating if there was enough patience in the universe for me to take it down, add more chain, and rehang, K and I think that if it were any lower we'd all be blind by the end of the month.

Man there's not a single thing that hasn't changed in that picture.  Except the curtains.  Ugly laminate floor is gone (replaced by ugly painted subfloor...), great-grandmother's oak table stolen rescued from the parental furniture store, two chairs from the dining room set stored in our basement, cowboy boots replaced by sad dog toys, new cabinets, of course.

And I'm saying publicly that from the instant K saw that black sisal rug and wanted to take it home I hated it.  I hated it in our last house, I hated that it was scratchy, I hated that it was black, I hated that it is annoying to vacuum and impossible to clean messes out of but God bless it that is the only rug in the universe that has taken daily stampedes from our two rampaging wildebeasts and has not shifted AN INCH.  With every other rug we've put there I'd come home to a bunched up, sloppy mess shoved under the kitchen table that I'd have to readjust, and readjust again every time the dogs heard a knock at the door or they wanted outside or they saw a cat or smelled food or I don't know, every time water was wet.  I haven't had to mess with that rug ONCE.  And that is why it will stay there forever and ever amen.