Hmm....Schoolhouse Light Fixture

As promised, a post not about the baby!

A couple of weeks ago, I came across At Home on the Bay's DIY schoolhouse light fixture, and I fell in love with it. (And, in fact, with her whole house/blog). She was, in turn, inspired by the lovely but expensive fixtures at Schoolhouse Electric.

At Home on the Bay's DIY Schoolhouse Light

I commented that I knew I needed one in my house SOMEWHERE, and I wasn't kidding. After thinking about it, I remembered that, in fact, my house is filled with ugly boob lights, and all of them need to be replaced! I keep meaning to do a whole blog entry giving a tour of the strange and discordant collection of light fixtures that came with this house. Some of them are great and appear to be pretty high end. Some of them have not been touched since the house was built in the mid-80's. Anyway, I decided on the fixture in the center hallway downstairs at the first candidate for replacement.

And, then, on that same trip to Home Depot, the night before Abe was born, when we bought shelf brackets, we picked up the same light fixture as in the picture above, for $29.97:

Source: Home Depot

....along with a can of purple spray paint. Nothing else has been done in that hallway. It needs painting, and it needs some art on the walls, and it might just need a custom built shelf for baby toys and books in an unused corner if I can get my husband to build me one. But you have to start somewhere, right?

I opted to leave the oil rubbed bronze finish on the metal part of the light. I taped up the glass with Frog Tape, leaving a 1 1/4 inch stripe all the way around.

Then I took it outside and painted it, doing several light coats. When I took the tape off, it was....less than perfect in a few places, but I decided to pretend that wasn't happening.

Then Dave hung it up.

....which is when I noticed that my line is slanted. Hmm. Also, I had decided not to do the pretty little silver stripe along either side of the big striped like in At Home on the Bay's version, but now I'm thinking that might have been a mistake, and I might take it down and do it after all. But I'm afraid it would just accentuate the crookedness of the purple stripe. Also, look--now we need to paint the ceiling where the old fixture was! And that old yellow REALLY doesn't go with purple (I picked the purple because I like purple with my Nantucket Fog; I haven't decided yet what color that hallway is going to be. Umm, something else that goes with purple?)

So, anyway. My finished project does not quite live up to my vision. But let's just compare it to what was there before to make me feel better:

Crookeder, but still better.

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