Lighting Updates

I'm on a mission to in some way, shape or form update all of the lighting in our home without spending more than $500 total!  Think I can do it?  I'm pretty sure that I can, it's on!  My first attempt was in our downstairs bathroom, I didn't take before pictures, but I assure you they were ick.  I have a picture of the one in our master bathroom though and it is almost identical, however, I already disposed of the shades that were on them so you'll have to use your imagination.

This is what I currently look at every morning in my bathroom:

Imagine this with smaller bulbs and an ugly tulip shade on it...

But don't cry for me yet, this week that is about to change, I'm hopefully going to have a big reveal of my "new" master bathroom by the end of this week!!!

This is what I did to the one in my down stairs bathroom:  

And all I had to do was spray paint it with a little brushed nickel finish spray paint by Rustoleum, switch out the bulbs for bigger ones and voila!  I can see keeping these guys for a few more years, or at least until we get to do an overhaul on the bathrooms.

Spray paint:  about $7

Lightbulbs:  yikes, I can't remember, let's just say $5 for a four pack of vanity bulbs?

Total cost: approx. $11

My favorite, though, is what I did to my kitchen light, this is what used to be hanging above my kitchen table:

And this is what is there now:

I totally stole this from a "House Proud" that I saw featured on Nate Berkus and I couldn't be happier with it!  I bought a mini pendant light kit from Home Depot and had my brilliant husband install it, which should have been super easy and straight forward but we had some difficulty lining up the holes to attach the base to the ceiling, but once we both muscled it together it was pretty straight forward.  The hard part was figuring out how to attach the lanterns, I used fishing line and I just played with it for about two days.  If a strong wind blows through my kitchen I will be very sad to have to reposition them but I think it should be able to withstand a nice breeze.  I will warn you that you should avoid letting the lightbulb touch the sides of the lanterns, it will burn through!

Pendant light kit: $14.99

9 Japanese lanterns:  approx. $35 including shipping and handling 

(note: I did not use all 9 lanterns)

Lightbulb:  had one lying around

Total cost of this light "fixture":  $49.99

A bit more than I wanted to spend but I had to pay shipping and handling twice because I didn't order enough lanterns the first time around.  What did I do with the old light?  Just you wait, I've decided to try and figure out a way to make it cute, stay tuned.

So, let's recap, two light fixtures done, $60.99 used of my $500 overall lighting budget.