Happy New Year! (That bit will make sense in a moment—bear with me.)
The time had come to say goodbye to the ceiling fan in our bedroom and bring in a light fixture with more personality and presence.
Before anyone cries foul for fan lovers: we aren’t anti-fan. We removed the ceiling fan in our first house’s bedroom too and replaced it with a powerful Hunter table fan that’s perfect for warm months—one we plan to use here as well. My wife jokes that we’re “fan fans,” and we do love fans when they’re in the right spot so form and function come together. For instance, we’d never remove the fan in our sunroom. But in the bedroom, the big old ceiling fan just wasn’t getting along with Ed the Bed.
On a recent trip to IKEA we chose the Maskros pendant lamp as its replacement. It comes in two sizes; we went with the smaller one (22 inches in diameter) because the larger option would have been huge. It felt like the kind of statement piece a bedroom can wear well, and at a very reasonable price we finally pulled the trigger after months of thinking about it. This is one of those polarizing purchases, but it makes us grin, so we said yes to something fun.
It looked dramatic on the IKEA showroom hang, but once we got it home its biggest demand was obvious: “put me together.”
First we had to take the fan down. With the house power off (we’re safety-obsessive), I disassembled the fan. Over the years I’ve learned that removing all the blades first makes the rest of the job far easier and keeps you from bonking your head while disconnecting the fixture from the box.
Removing the fan exposed an imperfect ceiling: uneven paint and a square patch that didn’t sit flush. Not ideal.
To tidy it up, I borrowed the idea of using a ceiling medallion. I picked one up at the big home improvement store and installed it to cover the patch and add a bit of architectural detail. The medallion not only masked the roughness around the junction box but also made the new pendant look more substantial rather than hanging from a tiny ceiling nub.
Technically, the IKEA instructions recommend securing the fixture fully before attaching any of the “spokes.” Because we wanted to find the perfect hanging height—low enough to tuck under Ed’s top rail but high enough not to look awkward—we temporarily attached a couple of spokes to estimate the final look.
IKEA suggests coiling extra wire inside the canopy, but we trimmed the cord to our desired length and stripped the shortened ends for a cleaner, neater installation.
With the fixture secured and all the spokes attached, it started to feel more balanced. The medallion added weight and proportion so the pendant didn’t look like a giant orb suspended from a small point. If we paint the ceiling later, the medallion will give the whole installation an even more finished look.
Next up were the 82 paper “flowers” that come with the Maskros set. They’re pre-cut, pre-hole-punched paper pieces that snap into place to create the lamp’s distinctive globe. If you’re crafty you could replace or color them, but we liked the clean white finish—bold shape, classic color. IKEA even packaged them in small boxes that helped curl the edges out, which was a nice touch.
After just ten minutes we had all 82 flowers attached. Ta-dah! It looked increasingly like the showroom piece and not nearly as intimidating to assemble as we’d feared.
At first the pendant felt a little bigger than expected—showroom scale can be deceiving—but once we add a larger 8 x 10 rug and some wall art, the room will feel more balanced. Even without those additions, it didn’t take long for the fixture to grow on us. Every time we enter the room we smile—and sometimes we high-five. It’s playful and joyful, exactly the kind of statement piece a bedroom can use.
Though it hangs low (the bulb is just above eye level for me), it sits over an area we never walk through because of Ed and the bench at his footboard, so the lower drop works fine despite our modest eight-foot ceilings.
By day it reads crisp and soft; by night it’s almost like our own little Times Square New Year’s Eve ball. Sherry likes to sneak into the room at night, count down, and flip the switch with a squeal: “3…2…1…Happy New Year!”
The fixture accepts a 40-watt bulb, so it doesn’t flood the room with light. Instead, it contributes to the soft, moody layering of light we already enjoy from our bedside lamps and the vanity light in the sink nook. It’s perfect for the atmosphere we were aiming for.
Another unexpected bonus: the pendant looks stunning from bed and reflects beautifully in our bathroom mirror. Small pleasures add up—like the view of the fixture when our heads hit the pillow. And yes, Clara is fascinated by the paper flowers. We’d let her get closer if we trusted her not to crumple one and try to eat it, so for now she’s an enthusiastic photo critic from a safe distance.
The light is centered in the room, so any slight off-kilter appearance in photos is just the camera angle, not the installation.
So there you have it: the new, bold slice of personality we added to our bedroom. We don’t miss the old fan (we’re donating it), and the pendant never fails to make us giddy. As a final note: the lamp sparks joy for us—literally and figuratively. Clara likes it too.
Do any of you own the Maskros pendant? Or are there other dramatic, large-scale light fixtures you’re loving lately?
Psst—A few readers asked for more photos from different angles, so here they are:
Clara likey.
Update: Things have evolved since the install. We made a few tweaks to how Ed the Bed and the new light interact—small adjustments that improved scale and balance—and we’re happy with how it all settled in.