Let there be light

Light fixtures: A sign we are near the end of remodeling saga. It also means we are nearing the end of our budget. So what's a girl to do? Improvise.

This is what we started with. A horrible outdated brass chandelier. A cheap ceiling fan (with pieces of the wall border cut out and pasted onto it so it matched) and a fluorescent tube partially hidden in a cabinet. None of it was staying.

I had very specific ideas of what type of lighting I wanted - simple school house style retro pendants and chandelier. These were my inspiration pieces.

This chandelier for over the dining room.

http://www.schoolhouseelectric.com/lighting-and-hardware/fixtures/chandelier/chesapeake.html

A simple flush mount pendant for the main kitchen light.

http://www.schoolhouseelectric.com/lighting-and-hardware/fixtures/otis-4.html

And a pendant for over the sink (but in the same oil rubbed bronze as the above two, minus the blue strip on the shade)

But if you add up the cost of those fixtures and shades, the total comes to a whopping $766.30!

Originally, I budgeted $500 for lighting but that $766.30 doesn't even include undercabinet lighting which we estimated would be about $180 so I really needed to make some changes and be creative if I wanted my vision to work. It took three trips to make what I wanted happen. First up, our local thrift store. I had seen lots of "vintage" (read - really old fashioned) style light shades and fixtures there before and they did not let me down. I had to search through a lot of really bad shades but I found a pack of 4 milk white 2.25 fitter shades in just the style I wanted - for $1!

Then Habitat Restore. Again, it took some digging and squinting before I picked up a chandelier and a pendant. The chandelier was ugly brass and had horrible shades, in other words, not that different from the original, except this one had potential. The pendant was the perfect color. It was a tad long and we were trying to figure out how to cut it shorter when we realized it was in sections so we just removed the middle rod to get it to a perfect length. Add in a new glass shade that I also found there and we are getting close to finished. Total: $35.

The last stop was good old Home Depot. They have basic pendant fixtures and one or two styles of schoolhouse shades so I grabbed another milk white shade to match the four I got at goodwill, a white plastic flush mount kit and a shade to fit, plus two cans of spray paint, chrome and oil-rubbed bronze (originally, I was not sure which finish I wanted for the kitchen fixtures). Total: $28

Grand total: $64. Of course, I wasn't quite done yet. And if I was a good blogger, I would have lots of wonderful process pictures with all my supplies laid out but I don't. But basically, I took this chandelier

(picture is mid spray paint but the painted side is away from the camera so this is really what it looked like when I got it)

and some supplies like this, give or take a few :-)

 and did some of this (ignore chrome color, I tried both and liked oil rubbed bronze best so I redid the chrome one)

 and this

To get this.

and this

and all together, this: 

Nope, I'll never be a professional blogger. But at least I have nice kitchen lighting. I'm happy and so is the budget!

Update: We ended up using a coupon to buy under-cabinet lighting so all the lighting combined was $224. I came in over 50% under budget! But I also just selected a kitchen backsplash tile and will be taking all that savings and putting it directly towards that. Oh well, you win some, you lose some :-)