01 February 2010

winter light

after living for two years in a shoe box of a house, with no space for a dinning room table, we now have a nice open "great room," and a proper dining room table. trouble is, the lighting is all wrong. yes, there is an overhead light, but i typically despise overhead lighting, especially this type, which filled every room of my childhood. my childhood not being entirely pleasant, to say the least, i tend to go for "accent lights," and basically, any form of lighting other than overhead.



the overhead lamp in this room also happens to be offset from where one would probably choose to place a dining room table, or, at least where we chose to place our table (and, what's up with that allen wrench in the fixture?). it would be easy enough to hang a nice pendant lamp over the table, either a swag type, with the cord draped over to the wall outlet, or, i could even conceal a cord in the oh-so-attractive dropped-tile-ceiling . but so far, i haven't been able to locate an affordable pendant lamp that i like the looks of. i've strung white christmas lights in two locations, bracketing the table, which increased visibility considerably, but it is still too dark to eat by without candles on the table, we found that two canles weren't enough.



luckily, i happened upon this candelabra at the goodwill a couple of weeks ago. we may end up spending our entire pendant lamp budget on taper candles, but, by god, we can see our food! plus, all those candles help warm the room, and cosmo gets a big kick out of lighting, and blowing out each of those flames every night.

6 comments:

julie said...

You got that candelabra at Goodwill ?!? NICE JOB!!!

Do you know how to make candles? That's another skill that I MUST learn.

cake said...

i do know how to make candles. but...alas, wax and wick isn't all that cheap. i have tried making them with used wax, but the candles just burn super fast.

mep said...

Dinner by candlelight every night . . . you're living the dream!

I too detest overhead lights.

Actchy said...

The allen wrench works for me.

Anonymous said...

I inherited tons of candles from my MIL, so come over and check them out and take what you want! We rarely use candles.

bb said...

i hate overhead lights too. and your candlabra is great and the 'lighting ceremony' is even better. but if youre looking for a different solution, go buy an inexpensive track light, (not as difficult to install as you might think.. i had a similar problem with a god-awful flourescent panel once).. with 3 or 4 bulbs going in different directions at least it throws the light around a bit to the walls. $50 well spent if you ask me