plonq | Going Retro

atara posted about this already in her journal, but I felt it was worth repeating here since our respective friends lists don't entirely overlap.

When I bought this house there was a fairly nice chandelier in the dining room, but before I could get too attached to it the woman with whom I was finalizing the deal said, "Oh, and if you don't mind I'd like to keep the lighting fixture when I move out. It was a gift from the children for our 50th anniversary and I'd like to take it with me." I couldn't say no to that, after she had just finished selling me a near-antique 8-piece dining room set for next to nothing.

She replaced the light fixture with the old one, which was okay...

This is the old, ugly light that was over the dining room table.

This is the old, ugly light that was over the dining room table.

I should say, it was okay in the sense that there wasn't a hole in the ceiling with wires hanging down from it. The fixture has no character, but I was too much of a bachelor to care that much.

Does it produce light? Yes.
Is there a hole in the ceiling with wires hanging down so that I need to wire up a light bulb or something? No.

It's all good.

A few weeks back we were entertaining

orleans and

gryllus, and as part of that we wandered through The Forks market downtown. While we were there we wandered down into the basement of the Johnson Terminal (an old warehouse that's been gentrified and turned into a centre for coffee and kitsch). We've been through there before and made token purchases, but this time

atara spotted a chandelier that caught her fancy. She dragged me over for a look and I liked it as well. It had the futuristic, clean lines of Art Deco (are you supposed to capitalize that?) and we both thought it would be a good fit in our dining room.

Wow. This has WAY more character than the old one.

Wow. This has WAY more character than the old one.

The wiring and hanging process only took way more work than I had anticipated, and we were both concerned when we turned it on for the first time because it looked awfully dim. I suggested that we should wait until dark and try it again because it casts most of its light indirectly. It's not as bright as the old lighting fixture, but it casts plenty of light for anything we'll be doing in there - and it looks WAY cooler. New toys rock!