If this post had a moral, it would be: when something in your home feels off, either fix it or let it go. Our story stars the awkward pendant light that hung in the living room for far too long.
This fixture always felt wrong. It was the only permanent light in a very large room and sat awkwardly to one side of the ceiling instead of centered over the window or the seating area. At one point Sherry tried to distract from the poor placement by painting the glass shade a soft blue to add some personality while I was out for a run, but that turned out to be more of a photography problem than a decorating win: every time we took pictures it cast a blue tint over half the room.
We ultimately removed the paint — reversible projects are the best — and briefly considered spray-painting the chain to match other bronze hardware in the room. In the end we realized the fixture simply wasn’t our style. We planned to replace it eventually with a drum pendant or install recessed lighting throughout the space. That left us wondering whether it was worth continually fussing with a light we planned to remove.
Fate decided for us: about a week after Sherry wiped off the paint the light stopped working entirely. It flickered once, then wouldn’t come on at all. We tried swapping the bulb and checking the basics, but it was dead. It was a little shocking that it chose to quit before we’d had a chance to remove it on our own timeline, but once we opened it up we found the cause — a wire had torn or come loose near the base. It was a fixable issue, but since we’d already decided to remove the fixture and relocate the junction box later, we let it go.
With the fixture down, we needed a quick, tidy way to conceal the electrical box. We went with a simple white plastic ceiling cap over a metal junction box cover: small, inexpensive, and unobtrusive. The total cost was under two dollars. Long term we’ll have an electrician rework the wiring and move the junction box to a more logical, centered spot in front of the window so any future pendant or recessed lighting will sit where it belongs.
The simple cap isn’t glamorous, but it’s far less distracting than the outdated, oddly placed fixture that used to hang there. Removing the pendant instantly opened the sightline to the backyard. I no longer mentally argued with the ceiling every time I looked out the window, wishing the light were two feet to the right so it would be centered. Small changes like that save surprising amounts of energy and aggravation.
At night that corner is a touch darker without the pendant, but we plan to solve that with a console table and a table lamp once that piece is finished. Eventually we’ll bring in an electrician to install new lighting in the right places — possibly recessed cans for overall illumination and a centered hanging pendant for style and function.
We donated the old pendant to Habitat For Humanity ReStore, so it’ll get a new home instead of gathering dust in a closet. As for our living room, removing the misfit fixture was a small change with a big impact on how the room looks and feels. Sometimes the best upgrade is simply taking something away — especially when it clears the view and opens up better lighting possibilities for the future.