31 Days: The Simple Fix

When moving into a new home, we often have mental lists of all the projects we want to tackle right away. Stripping wallpapers, painting, replacing light fixtures. We want to jump in, guns a-blazing, and tear into home decorating projects.

This is usually when mistakes are made.

A better approach is to live with things for a while, listen to the house, and hear what it's trying to tell you. Watch how the light travels in rooms at various times of the day. Learn to appreciate the things that you thought you hated.

A case in point. This dining room light fixture was at the top of our "must change" list when we bought the house.

It looked so wide and awkward, with those little lamp shades askew at every which angle.

And then I had the brilliant idea to remove the goofy little shades one day.

It was as if the chandelier took a big sigh of relief and said "Thank you! I've been waiting so long for someone to take those ugly things off me!"

Now it finally looked like a colonial style chandelier that belonged in a colonial style house!

I added the bittersweet garland to really give it some drama.

Hello, lovely!


To think I went from hating the chandelier to loving it that quickly and easily. And the best part is that it cost me nothing...free change is good!

I really love the warm antique brass color of this light fixture, too. By the way, did you get the memo? Brass and gold are back in style. Yep, you heard me right. It's the hot new design trend. See, the designers got us all hating our brass and gold about ten to fifteen years ago. We listened and switched out all of our fixtures to oil rubbed bronze and nickle. And now, of course, the designers have changed their minds and bronze and gold are back in fashion once again.

Never trust a designer.

And furthermore, never trust your knee jerk reactions to the elements in your house. What was once a curse can become the blessing in disguise.