New house: Let the transformation begin!

Furniture is ordered and should be here in six weeks or so. A decision has been made about new countertop to replace the gold and black "flipper's choice" granite, and someone will be out this week to measure. After looking at countless paint chips and putting swatches on the walls, a color has finally been selected, and a painter has been chosen after taking numerous bids. It will be a few weeks before she can start the job, so rather than just sit around waiting, we decided to start replacing light fixtures, since the ceilings don't need new paint.

First up were the simple, flat ones that we want to fade away into inconspicuousness...a couple in the kitchen, one in the entry, and one in the hall. (We had considered something a little fancier in the entry, but we decided that we didn't want it to compete with the dining room fixture.)

lowes.com

The sputnik went up today in the dining room, and the transformation was amazing. Here's the "before" fixture:

And here's what the dining room looks like now, sans gold leaves and teardrop. Picture it with white beams and white walls à la the swatch underneath the windows...and furniture.

This is the 35" sputnik I told you about in an earlier post that sells for less than $200 at Lowe's. As it comes out of the box, it combines the familiar mid-century style with trendier Edison bulbs, which will look good with my daughter's color palette of dark blues and golden yellow. Of course, the bulbs can be changed if they decide on a more traditional sputnik look. If you want a lot of bang for your buck, you can't go wrong with this fixture.