Modern Lighting Update

Happy Friday! I’m really excited today to share some updated pictures of the home we bought last summer when we returned from our year abroad in England.

To refresh you, we found out last spring that we were being stationed near Savannah, Georgia which totally caught us off-guard. We never expected for the Army to send us here and we have always wanted to retire and settle down in the Lowcounty coastal area between Charleston, SC and Savannah. It was truly a blessing but again, took us totally off guard!

As soon as we found out about the move we knew we wanted to go ahead and buy a home. We had sold our previous home before we left for England and hadn’t planned on buying again quite so soon so it was a bit of a scramble. Last May I flew to Georgia from the UK and found our perfect new “forever” home!

I had been looking for more of a Lowcountry style home with the big porches but this house won me over-it’s on a beautiful lot with privacy and loads of Spanish moss and oak trees and has the perfect layout for our family (including enough space for our three growing boys!) All that being said, it is a 16 year old house and it was showing it’s age in some of the finishes and aesthetics.

I previously showed you how we updated the paint and covered the TV alcove in the living room (click here for all the pictures and full blog post on that transformation.)

Today I want to show you how we have also updated some of the light fixtures and how big of a difference it made! (Some of these light fixtures were provided to me at no cost by LampsPlus.com.)

First, here is the dining room that you saw immediately upon walking in the front door.

Before Paint

After Painting (the curtains came with the house as well)

And here is the new dining room (finally with furniture too!) and this gorgeous light fixture from LampsPlus.com.

Isn’t it amazing?? I may have squealed when we hung it up!

And here is one of my always included gratuitous flower pictures!

We also updated the eat-in kitchen area. Here is a before of this space.

And here is the space after changing out the paint and light fixtures.

The chandelier over the table is also from LampsPlus.com, I’ve worked with them for years and love their selection, especially from their Possini collection. The pendants over the breakfast bar can be found here. I love the texture of the glass and clean shape.

Lastly, for this phase of our update, we replaced some wall sconces with something a little more modern. Here you can see the wall sconce on the stairs when we bought the house last summer, we had a matching in the downstairs hall as well. They were a builder grade simple tulip shape with brushed nickel finish.

And here is the new wall sconce, again from LampsPlus.com. It’s hard to tell the difference from far away because we stuck with the same basic shape.

But up close it has lovely details. I love it, it can be pointed upward or down and the French gold finish is gorgeous.

And in case you were wondering how we’re transitioning from our traditional red and green Christmas decor to winter, I decided to keep the reds to tide me over to Valentine’s Day, here are a few pictures (can you play spot the kitten?)

So, what’s next in the house? We have a few projects we’d like to tackle.

• replace the fireplace tile surround…we’re thinking herringbone marble tile {swoon}
• replace the ceiling fan in the living room (it’s sooooo high up I have no idea how we’re going to pull that off, certainly won’t be me, I’m terrified of heights!)
• kitchen overhaul-paint cabinets, replace countertops as well as backsplash and tile wall under breakfast bar. I’m toying with removing the breakfast bar all together as well like we opted for in our North Carolina house (see here) for more counter space.
• Add a small pergola (and eventually train a climbing rose over it)
• The second floor (aka the kid’s domain) is not decorated at all, at some point we will want to do their bedrooms and the bonus room upstairs, for now they are crazy little monkeys that tend to tear things up so it’s on the bottom of my list!

We’ve been also doing a lot of work in the yard that I haven’t had a chance to post about yet. We’ve cleaned up the landscaping and replaced the mulch in all the flower bed, made new plantings, and added a hot tub! Pictures coming soon I promise!

What do you think of our lighting update? Which project do you think we should tackle next?