Home Lighting Updates

Part 1

Over the past 10+ years we’ve lived in our home, we have been able to do about one big remodel project per year.  It’s not nearly as fun as a big reveal like everyone gets on HGTV, but it is what our budget would allow.

Some projects have way more wow-factor impact than others, but so far I can say I haven’t regretted anything we’ve done.  Our landscaping projects we’ve already done more than once.  Those dang plants keep growing.  Even the cacti. But I’m hoping to limit the other remodels to one each.

Our house is modern architecture, but the builder put wrought-iron light fixtures everywhere which was the popular Tuscan look in 1999 when our house was built.  The fixtures were fine, but it always bothered me that the look wasn’t quite right.

A few years ago, we updated most of the fixtures and have continued to work on new ceiling fans. I know those are not “in” but they are a must in AZ. We are slowly replacing and upgrading lamps throughout the house as well.  Some of our choices are budget and others really aren’t.

To be honest, though I love everything we’ve chosen, not one person has walked into our house and said, “Your chandelier is stunning!”  So bottom line, new lighting has not been a jaw-dropping upgrade to my home.

Even so, I’m sharing our updated lighting and the links where available.  I am not an affiliate but am linking for convenience.

Here are our selections for the first part of our house.

The Hundi Lantern in our entry, the dining room Savannah chandelier (no longer available, but similar) and table lamps  in our living room all came from Pottery Barn.  I would not consider these budget purchases, but the designer came to our home. She helped us choose and we were both happy with our selections.

You might also spy a pair of silver glass Evelyn table lamps on our console. They have silver bottoms and I love the look with the mercury glass I have out. I purchased those at World Market, but no longer see them on their site.

The Glendale Pulley Task Floor Lamp has received quite a few compliments. It adds a rustic touch to our room and is a good reading lamp for me. I find the men really like it.  The table lamp is discontinued, but PB has many similar to it.

The perforated metal globe pendants over the bar came from West Elm and are no longer available but there are similar on Wayfair.  These lights are not replacements, but additions – we added the entire bar!  Sounds like another blog post to me.

My DF Dona (who is a designer par excellence) and I were shopping several years ago in our favorite Kierland Commons. We spotted these modern pendants at West Elm. Like everything she’s ever suggested to me, these are just perfect for our bar. I might add that on another shopping excursion to Hobby Lobby, she found the large clock over the bar. I LOVE shopping with her. Too bad she’s “retired.” Wink, wink.

The pendant over our kitchen table is huge and makes a big statement in the room.  The one now available at PB is smaller but still very pretty.  Home Depot has some really pretty choices at very good prices.

Last on this post is the pendants we hung over our kitchen bar.  When we first got them, they were sort of the rage and were very different.  Now they seem a dime a dozen and you can find them quite reasonably everywhere. I linked the Amazon offering. We still love them though and they are perfect for the room.

Because lighting takes up a big hunk of budget and likely won’t all be purchased at one time, here is what we took into consideration:

Our Style

We wanted to make sure we had lights that would match the style we were going with in the future but still made sense with our home’s architecture and our furnishings.  Too bad there is no crystal ball to show me what the next great style will be.

Blending in an Open Concept

We didn’t get every single light at the same time.  Our pendants in the kitchen came years before a the new drum pendant over the kitchen table and had to match all the lighting in the family room.

Budget

We used a decorator from Pottery Barn for a lot of our choices, but we also found some of what we wanted online.  Lighting was just never important enough to me to spend big bucks on and choices at Marshall’s or TJ Maxx worked just fine for years.  Replacing as many lights as we did was a big splurge for us.

I’ll share the remainder of our updated lighting on a later post, but this gives you an idea of how much planning, work and money goes into a lighting update and the impact (or lack thereof) you might expect.

In case you caught it, the little gray fur ball on the top picture is Mandy.