Lit Up

I've been looking for years for a sparkly chandelier to replace the "boob light" (as the fabulous Tommy Smythe once said) in the nook in our bedroom.

I considered a number of options, but for one reason or another I never pulled the trigger. Probably because most of the ones I liked I had seen online, and I was hesitant about buying something I hadn't seen in person. I'm weird like that.



Then one day not too long ago I noticed a new shop near Trader Joe's that had all kinds of sparklies in the window. The store was closed, but I went back a few days later and snagged the most beautiful chandy. And it was only $65!

It wasn't hard-wired, but I didn't let that stop me. Or rather, I didn't let that stop Erik. Once again he did most of the hard work—and the way the previous light was situated made connecting the wires a serious PITA. But after much cursing and trial and error, we were finally able to get it working. (We followed the instructions here. It was basically cutting and splicing the wires. Not difficult in concept, just hard to get to.)

So here it is in the nook:

It hangs a bit higher than I wanted (we cut the wire too short), but it adds the perfect touch of glam in that corner of the room. And I like that it's not something I've seen everywhere (although this style seems to be getting popular).

You may have noticed we changed a few other things since the first picture was taken. I swapped out the pillow on the chair, got new curtains and painted the entire room a lighter blue (it's hard to tell in the pictures, but it brightened up the whole room). It's a bit of an Ikea moment: The chair and ottoman, curtains and even the picture and frame are from the Swedish shopping mecca. I don't think there's anything from Ikea in the rest of the room—somehow it all ended up in that corner.

What do you think? Better than the boob light?