The $200+ light fixture vs. the $18 solution

Pretty much every home in Northern Virginia was built with this light fixture in the dining room.



I cannot even begin to tell you how much I hate this light fixture. But we don't really use the dining room all that much and most of the light fixtures I was looking at to replace it with were running $200+. That's a lot to spend on a room you don't spend a lot of time in. At least in my world it is.

But, I hate that light fixture. (My apologies if you like it...) We actually had it in our previous townhouse and I hated it there too.

Then came my hero, a simple can of spray paint. $4 worth of matte black pray paint + 6 $2 lamp shades from JoAnn's = a light fixture I can live with. (And have been for 4 years now.)


Please ignore the single shade trimmed in black, I thought I was going to do that to all of them and was living with it for a few days when I decided against it. I was too lazy to take another picture. (We also centered the table, but yet again... too lazy to take another picture. Note to self: work on laziness.)