Dining room pendant project - part 1

I oogle lighting during my lunch break. I have lights in every room, but most are far from ideal.
My current target is the dining room chandelier. It came with the house and is cute, but only sort of worked with my dining set, and I knew I'd probably change it down the line.

9 person thanksgiving. before I actually lived there.
at least the walls were painted.

bling bling

I'm giving away that dining set, and now the existing chandelier really really doesn't work with the new round table and settee arrangement.

Side note: More to come on the new dining setup when I get a chance to take pictures. The table got brought in only last night and needs some work, but the pictures below give a general idea of what I'm going for.

Back to lighting. I've waffled on what would be the best replacement. I like the diffused light and modern appeal of drum lights:

every modern barbie house needs a bowl of pears

While barn pendants and their rustic, minimalist look make my heart go pitter-patter:

pears for all

My big issue with barn pendants has been their single bulb. Would not sufficiently light up the dining room, much less my life. Drum pendants with multiple bulbs are more $$ than I'm willing to part with, especially since I'm leaning towards the barn fixtures. What to do, what to do.....

While running errands the other day, I spotted a torchiere lamp sitting by the side of a dumpster. Ugly lamp on its own, but upon closer inspection, the ceiling facing shade was metal and barn-ish shape. And had TWO light sockets. Mind made up for me. Thank you dumpster fairy! 

woop, there it is

Good thing one of my back seats was already down, cuz that baby was in the car 3 seconds later. 

don't mind the perma-coats of sawdust in the trunk,
and spare cardigans in the back seat

Does it work? Who knows, but it can be rewired if necessary. Either way, it has all the components of a great barn pendant lamp, I just need to take a hack saw to the thing and get it disassembled.

In terms of refinishing, I'll leave the brushed aluminum outside alone, but the inside is cruddy looking and needs help.

yes, that's a home depot receipt sitting on the seat.
they litter my life.

I recently spotted an unopened can of minty green spray paint sitting in the back corner of my  'garage' closet. The tone would compliment the other colors in the living space, and would be pretty to look up and see a pop of color at while sitting at the dining table.

Kind of like this:

But inside out. And no white. And no wire cage. And two edison bulbs. And swag hung rather than mounted:

But you get the idea. Hopefully.



-Lindsay