April 19, 2011

bye bye birdsnest, hello sea urchin

When you renovate your own house, I've found over the years (and over several different houses) that there are things that you are willing to put up with that aren't the norm. Or maybe that's more of a living with an architect thing. He's rubbed off on me. I'm not really talking about structural issues or things that are bad. Just things that might make some people crazy that we are perfectly happy to deal with. Like our light.
I love our kitchen light. It's funky and a little silly and it makes me smile just to see it. But, at the same time, about once a year it either needs to be rewired with a new strand of lights or all the bulbs (that would be 200 of them) need to be changed. I'm happy to do this because, like I said, I like my light. But someone else might not love it 200 bulbs worth. So alas, it had to go.

Lowe's and Home Depot had absolutely nothing that fit my slightly strange and modern criteria and I was starting to think that I'd have to order something and have it quickly shipped so that we could make our listing the house deadline when Will reminded me that he would be up in Maryland for a day and could pop into IKEA.
Oh, IKEA. I do love you. I couldn't have, say, my whole house or even the whole of any room IKEA, I'm not the Fight Club type, but when it comes to inexpensive but fun details, they are often my go to people. The light was no different. We considered "The Artichoke" but decided it's a little too common now (not that I don't like them, however) and thought about some wiry led things but finally settled on this one, which we have dubbed "The Sea Urchin" because, really, it does look like one.
I'm surprisingly happy with it. As much as I liked my Birds Nest, The Sea Urchin looks perfect in our modern meets classical kitchen style. And bonus! Only one light bulb to change! Yay!

What do you think? Still funky enough? Will it appeal to buyers?