Shedding New Light

Remember when I said my super sweet hubby bought me an awesome Valentine's Day gift for the dining room? Well, it's all finished and ready to be revealed! But first, a little background information.

Ever since we moved to the new rental house a couple months ago, I've wanted to get a different light fixture for the dining area. This is what was there when we moved in:



A contemporary-style silver chandelier with alabaster glass shades. Or in other words, "ick." (You can see another picture of it here - second to last picture.) So I started paging through a stack of old Pottery Barn catalogs to get some inspiration and found this beauty:



Gorgeous! But expensive. So the search continued for something similar... then I saw this post from The Lettered Cottage and loved the Pottery Barn knock-off chandelier she created for only 75 bucks:



And so, this is where my hubby comes in... for Valentine's Day, he bought me the supplies I needed to make my own Pottery Barn knock-off chandelier! Woo-hoo! He sure knows the way to my heart. :) Here's the final results:







So much better than "ick." I love it! The chandelier and shades came from Lowe's, and the jute trim came from M & J Trimming. I attached the trim with a few dabs of hot glue, and ta-da! A stylish chandelier for about a quarter of the price... in yo' face, Pottery Barn!

I also made a make-shift cord cover with a bit of burlap I already had. Wrap it around the cord, and hot glue the ends.



Hot glue is my new best friend.