light lovin'

So, when A and I moved into our apartment about 14 months ago, I was dead set on getting pretty lights. I hate the cheap, ugly lighting that people usually have, especially in apartments. First thing we did was replace the kitchen chandelier. I don't have a before picture of the lighting that came with the apartment, but here is what we chose to replace it with:

We got it from Urban Outfitters, and I love it. It was fit with European lighting, but we took it to a lighting store and they rewired it for us, and they changed the color of the wire so it blended better. I'm obsessed. It really makes our kitchen unique. The whole endeavor was about $250 (initial cost, plus shipping, plus rewiring), so we had to hold off on anything else for a bit.Please ignore my outfit for a MOD party and look at the simple, but not "me" lamp in the background. This came with the marriage. Adam took bright pink lamps from his mother's house, painted them and put neutral shades on them when he moved out on his own. There were two of them and while they are fine lamps, we wanted something different. I'd been eyeing the clear ones for two years, and finally a year after the chandelier we found the best priced ones out there, that also included shades and were a good shape.

We got these from Crate and Barrel. They were $90 a piece, but compared to some of the prices we saw we were happy with it. After a certain point, it is better to just save up and get what you want instead of settling for something cheap and ugly.

The prize piece of our lighting, was the standing lamp from anthropologie that I've been ogling for about a year. We just got it as a joint Valentine's Day gift, and I'm loving every bit of it!

Again, the lamp is from Anthropolgie (with an anthro price tag too!), but the lamp shade is from Pottery Barn and was on sale! Woot! Woot! We spent quite a bit of money on lighting these last 14 months, but it makes us happy to have pretty things. I'm glad we saved for what we wanted, instead of settling for cheap, unattractive things, that won't make it past a year.