Light It Up, Up, Up! – One Ceiling Fans Story
Over the past 4 years as our little family has gone through this somewhat dramatic “style-shift” in our home, from deep tan and brown glazed walls, red accents and a sort of Tuscan decorating vibe, to a brighter, airier more personalized/stylized, yet functional look with whites, grays, blues and even golds (!), I can’t help but get really excited when I look around and realize that more of my house is actually now how I want it, than how I don’t. (eeeek!)
Now that our home sees less and less construction projects, and more and more finishing touches, it makes the butterflies soar in my belly. Will we ever be D.O.N.E, done?… nah. I’m too fickle and indecisive to ever say that I’m going to be “done” with any home I live in. Design is always and forever changing, so in some ways our home(s) probably always will be too.
Today though, I couldn’t help but share the story of our living room ceiling fan, one of the very last “old fixtures” in our home left.
Yes… you read that right, I said ceiling fan. And yes, it has a story.
When we first moved into our home our living room was equipt with the standard, builder-grade “boob-light” fixture in our open living room/kitchen area. (we had quite the collection of those babies if you remember) We knew the first few days after living here that we needed a fan in the space to help circulate air, so with very little thought, we picked up this dark brown fan on sale at our local home improvement store. Being absolute DIY newbies we grabbed our ladder, struggled for about 2+ hours trying to get it installed and then once it was up, flipped the switch and realized that while we had a working fan, we did NOT have any working lights.
(insert frustrated look and eye roll here)
Cason was so incredibly annoyed with the whole process, that he threw his hands up and told me that we’d just get back to it again another day.
…
3 kids, a blog, 2 jobs, 1 dog and 6 years later, I’m happy to report that we’ve FINALLY decided to tackle this ceiling fan project again!
(stop judging us).
As I’m sure you can guess, even in those darker decorating days, that big ol’ brown, monstrous fan on my ceiling was never really my favorite. It was way too much of a contrast against my nice white ceiling and almost demanded the attention of anyone’s gaze when they walked into the room, so I knew that it had to go. That being said, this entire year I’ve been keeping my eye out for the PERFECT fan for this space, to replace the one we had, but it wasn’t until about a month or so ago while scanning a Joss & Main sale, did I find it.
I’ve bought a lot of furniture and decor from Joss & Main, but never a lighting fixture. I was a bit nervous, but took the plunge anyway. This particular fan/light combo ran me about $250 (free shipping). Cason and I were both really impressed with the quality of the fan and loved it immediately! The only downside, was that we were missing a few screws that were suppose to be included to attached the fan blades to the body of the fixture. After a quick call to Joss & Main, they were reordered and sent to our house in about 7 days (free of charge of course).
image posted on our Instagram feed the day of install
Once we had everything we needed, the install started. Bad memories of hours on a high ladder, holding heavy fan motors and tiny electrical parts flooded Cason’s head, so I just stayed quiet and as helpful as possible… while snapping a couple of pictures of course.
If you want to read more about how Cason learned the best way to change out all of our old lights to new ones on his own, you can read our tutorial on DIY lighting install.
Unfortunately about halfway through the install I had to jet off to a meeting, but got a text from Cason not too long after that, with a picture similar to this one attached.
Below the photo was this grainy video that he took himself, with the following text underneath (which I added, taking a guess where it would be if he could have inserted it into the video himself)
I got a kick out of the fact that the ONLY word in the entire video is: “Yessssss!“ LOL.
I love that guy, AND I love the whole brighter, more-cohesive look that this awesome new fan and working light gives to this room!!!
Now, I feel that if our visitors were going to have any sort of interaction with our living room lighting fixture, it would go a little something like…
๐
Happy Monday!
Susan says
That new fan is beautiful! I'm usually too chicken to order from J&M b/c it's all sales final…and that's kind of scary. Looks like it worked out for y'all!
Unknown says
That really is a great ceiling fan for the space. We just moved into a home with flimsy plastic covers on all the lights. First project: Ceiling fans!
Unknown says
Looks great. I'm in the process of picking a new ceiling fan for our kitchen. It's proving to be quite the process. *sigh* A DIY-er's life is never easy.
MamaZuzi says
We took our ceiling fan out of our bedroom and for the life of me I don't know why. I miss it on these warm/hot summer nights. By the way, I saw another bloggers posting about your awesome studio space and loved it so much I included it in my Studio Sunday blog post at: mamapicturethis.blogspot.com. My space is hideous… maybe someday it can aspire to be as lovely as yours!
Unknown says
Gorgeous! It's amazing what big impact small changes have. Even the carpet looks lighter!
ackimber says
Where are those floor lamps behind the soda from?
Love the redo!
Steph Gittins says
Beautiful! I love how the lighter colors make the whole space seem bigger.
Crystal says
I love the new ceiling fan. We have the same ugly one that you had for so many years. I can't wait to replace ours! I showed my husband the picture of your new ceiling fan to light a fire under him…. :o)
Unknown says
looooove! it. what a difference one little fixture makes. And you made me feel way less alone as I continue to ignore my master bedroom (I will get to it one day, I swear!…8 years later and counting!)
Lolly Jane says
Your "room" convo made me LOL! ๐ Great "after"!!
Shannon says
I live in Texas and ceiling fans are a must. I also feel that they stick out up there on the white ceiling. I'll have to check out this style because it does have a more subtle look.
Shannon @ bohemianjunktion.com
JenniferMarie says
I love it! I have been struggling with what ceiling fan to get in our living room, I am going to check out Joss and Main right now!
Jen =)
srpprcrftr says
wow, love your new ceiling fan.
It seems that every time I see a decorating show, the decorator always wants to take fans down. Don't think so, not in our climate.
Very dry and pretty blasted hot here so our fans make such a difference. We have a swamp cooler not an a/c. We usually turn off the cooler in evening when it cools off, just have fans going and they are life savers.
Nobody ever said installing a ceiling fan was quick or fun/easy. Since we've moved a bit from one part of country to next we've installed several ceiling fans. They have gotten better looking and the light kits more attractive.
One of first things we did on our KY house was take some pretty ugly fans down. We have fans we changed out in our house now in western CO. If I have to look at those things I want them to be decent at least.
We had to put ceiling fans in several of our rooms in our house in Mt, there wasn't any other cooling available. Don't need it there too much as we lived out on 20 acres and had lake breeze to help cool things off.
I'm really envious of your new fan, really modern and very snazzy looking. Enjoy your new fan and your lovely home.
No things are never permanent when decorating as we continue to grow and change our ideas. That's actually a good thing, to grow and change ideas, now the expense of changing things in our homes isn't always great but if we do most of work ourselves then it's ok isn't it? Happy life
Kristin says
You have such a beautiful home! Love the after pictures =)
Lauren says
Love the fan, Shelley, but love your living room even more. This might seem like a silly question but could you tell me how tall your ceilings are as well as the wainscoting? We have super-tall ceilings in our new (to us) living room and I'm trying to create a cohesive design that won't break the bank and works with the scale of the room, furniture and walls.
Honey I'm Home Blog says
Hi Shelley, Your new fan looks gorgeous. And I love the "before" & "after" of this room. Wow. What a fun difference. I've enjoyed catching up on your blog & your Studio 5 segments I've missed lately. Thanks for being a constant source of inspiration.
Warmly, Michelle
Faith, Trust & Pixie Dust
Unknown says
best designer, decorated, stylish ceiling fans in india