finally, i see the lights!

ohhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyyy gosh!  i am so excited that we finally have some lighting in our house!  i am not sure why builders did this in 1979 when our house was built, but except for the kitchen and a dinky little can light in the kids and guest bedrooms, there is no ceiling lighting in our house.  so for the past 2.5 years we have been getting along with table and floor lamps.  certainly not the end of the world, but definitely annoying when the toddler of the house believes that these are toys and should not be standing upright or wants to figure out how they work.  i am a fan of a room full of light, and usually the lamps don't cut it.  so, about a year or so ago, hubs and i decided that we would get some ceiling lights installed in the family room, front living room, our bedroom, and remove the stupid can light above our master bath mirror and install a bar light, like a normal bathroom would have.  i also wanted to replace the dining room and front entry chandeliers.  they provided nice, warm light, and plenty of it, but the traditional style is just not what i have in mind for the house.  i scoured the internets and stores for lighting options.  for months and months and months.  i had a budget to stick to, and unfortunately, most of the options that i liked were way over my budget.  so finally, after about 9 months of searching, i found what i wanted, ordered them and/or picked them up from various stores (the chandy in our master bedroom i had to hunt down because it wasn't always in stock and wasn't in stock online anymore through world market).  then we scheduled the contractor, who was able to come much later than we wanted (we wanted the whole thing done before thanksgiving when we had a bunch of family in town).  the job took longer than we expected.  since the family room lights were being installed in between the first and second floors, the wiring was tricky and so parts of the drywall in the ceiling and walls had to be removed, and then patched, and repainted.  hubs also scraped the popcorn off the ceiling and then after the wiring was done, textured and repainted.  we also had to have the drywall patched in the front room and our bedroom, and then walls retextured and repainted.  and it was very messy and dusty.  so that part was annoying and we couldn't really access either living room for about a week.  which is annoying with a toddler and newborn, we had to stay in the kitchen or one of the bedrooms.  but, it got done and i'm so happy!  wooooohoooo!  here is the result:

family room:

so here's what we installed in the family room. we needed some lights that don't hang down that much since the ceilings are 8 feet.  and we briefly flirted with installing can lights, but i feel like they can be a little harsh in the family room.  so we found these flush mount lights from ikea.  i just wanted something simple and low profile in here.

then above the couch we added this bar lighting

 then the dining room:

this is the chandelier that was in the dining room, and actually the one in the front entry looks just like this but with 5 lights rather than just 3...just not my style

and here's the new....from west elm....we both heart it! this is one we splurged a little on

 then the front entry:

it took me forever to settle on something that i liked enough, it had to have a good number of lights but not be too contemporary or traditional, i like how it is a little rustic looking

it gives off some pretty shadows across the ceiling

 next is the front room.  both of the lights in the front room and front entry are from wayfair and were very reasonably priced:

it's very similar to the one in the front entry, but bigger, and it has 6 lights.  i really like it in this room, it's nice and big and gives off good light.

it also gives off some pretty shadows on the ceiling

 and finally the master bedroom:

i had my eye on this for a long time, and it kept coming in and out of stock.  it's from world market.  there are similar ones at west elm and some other higher end stores, but they are very expensive.  this one from world market is a little over $100 i think for the big one, and $60-70 for the small one i think.

i had to scour the area for this thing and finally had to take my cranky toddler to the store in downtown seattle during nap time and rush hour to get this thing.

still haven't really done anything with our bedroom...we'll get there though

oh, we also had some can lights installed above the dresser for some extra light

 ok, then the bar light in the master bath area....pretty standard but i like the seeded glass covers, there is soooo much more light there now!  

 so that's our lighting project.  we may have some lights installed in the guest room and the kids' room, but since those rooms are smaller, it seems ok with the table lamps we have in there and the one can light that's right in front of the closet doors.  anyway, i'm soooooo glad this is done!  hubs is working on some other projects right now; we're adding a stepping stone path in the back yard, and i have some organizing to do of a bunch of rooms, and we have to finish the front room including replacing the tile around the fireplace and making a shelf/mantel thingy...actually we still have a million things we want to do to the house and yards, haha.  little by little.