Updating the bathroom light fixture

Okay, I’m just going to jump right in to today post because I’m anxious to get everyone’s thoughts…

So reason #3,508,237 why I love Pinterest is that you can get a little inside scoop on what other bloggers are getting ready to do. I especially love keeping up with Elizabeth of The Mustard Ceiling because she tends to pin photos before her “Bam or Slam” feature (love that, btw…you should check it out and weigh in on the decision). Well if you happen to follow me on Pinterest, then you may have noticed a few added photos of bathrooms – This is because we are gearing up to overhaul our master bathroom.

The plan is to change the paint color, possibly add a chair railing (or something that LOOKS like a chair railing) and add some new art/accessories—and who knows maybe a new bathroom faucet! Here’s the bathroom in its current state. Not terrible, but could use a little love and a lotta bit of personality:

Another big thing to update is the lighting. It’s hard to tell in the photo above, but the two glass and chrome fixtures are a little traditional for our tastes…I’ve been scouring the internet for good deals on replacement light fixtures, but haven’t really found anything that it’s in our price range (which, as always, is cheap and/or cheaper). Then I had a sort of revelation during a recent weekend trip to Lowe’s with John. Instead of picking out an entire new fixture, we could try just replacing the globes! Although I’d prefer a fixture with straight lines throughout, our current ones are in good shape and could be given a new life with updated globes. Here are the options I brought home to try out:

We’ve got:

  1. a frosted globe with linen-like dashes in it (can’t see it in the photo, but I promise they’re there) -$10
  2. a clear glass globe with a modern-yet-sort-of-vintage grid pattern etched into the surface – $8
  3. another frosted globe that’s a bit smaller and straighter then the first -$7
  4. and another clear glass globe with bubbles in the glass. -$7

Here are the original lights again – You can see the globes a bit better in these photos:

To try the new ones, I took the lightbulbs out and then unscrewed the hardware holding the old glass in place.

The old globes sitting next to the new ones on the counter really show just how dingy they’ve gotten over the years. We are definitely going to give them a good wipe down before donating them to our local ReStore (unless we have any locals who need a set of traditional light fixture glass!).

Here are the new ones in place and ready for our scrutiny!!! Three of the new ones on the fixture to the right and the big frosted globe made it in amongst the old globes to the left:

Here are a couple of close ups of the one on the left (try to ignore the old globes flanking the new one in the center…):

And then the other set:

I also took a couple of shots with the lights off since I know they are sort of hard to see.

So far, John and I are both leaning towards the grooved globe – It’s got that vintage vibe we like without getting into traditional. My second favorite is the other clear glass one with the bubbles in it, but that was John’s least favorite so it’s a no-go. The small frosted one is a bit too small and it’s not as contemporary as I’d like, and the big frosted globe is a little TOO big. So this one below is the front-runner:

Ideally, I’d like to find globes that really aren’t globes as all – Something with straight straight straight lines with no curves at all. Like the ones on this light fixture (which is well out of our price range at $98 each – we need two):

Oh well…I think I’m going to try Home Depot in the hopes that they have a more contemporary selection of globes before I pick up the grooved ones from Lowe’s. At about $60 for 6 of the globes, we’d be saving a lot of money since most of the fixtures I’ve seen are about that much for one – But I’m still not sold yet…

What are your thoughts??

(Photo credit for dream fixture: here)

getsocial
have yousubscribed?
Everybody's doin' it.