Kitchen Explosion

I had a total DIY fail a couple weeks ago. I have wanted to change out the light fixtures in our house for a while. They are all super basic and part of the builder's lighting packages so everything looks super generic. I think light fixtures are an easy way to make your house look more custom without a huge expense. 

I say easy but we've been here for almost three years and this is only the second one we've switched out. I have my eye on the dining room next so we'll see how long before I tackle that one. 

Here's the original kitchen light. 

It was fine but I think it was too small for the space and really kind of boring. I found a couple options that I really liked but this corner is already pretty busy with the painted chairs, copper curtain rods, and patterned curtains so I decided we better stay pretty simple.

I ordered a simple linen drum shade from West Elm and it sat in the box in our dining room for about a month. When we got back from Hawaii I found the motivation to install it. Installing light fixtures really isn't that hard. Like wires to like wires and make sure it's grounded. Except when I flipped our electricity back on....boom! I sprinted to the breaker box to turn it off and unscrewed the fixture...I was pretty nervous there was an active fire in the ceiling. Luckily it was just a bunch of smoldering wires and some black burn marks.

As a realtor, I have a good relationship with an electrician and they squeezed me in at 8:30 the next morning. The electrician had it up in 30 minutes and he told me I had done everything right except a few stray pieces of wire were touching each other that shouldn't have been. He just told me to make sure I get the entire exposed wire covered and/or electric taped next time.

Live and learn. I'm going to attempt the dining room on my own although I might make sure Derrick is home this time. I really like how the drum looks in the kitchen though. It's really substantial and neutral enough to live with everything else going on.

If I hadn't had to pay for the electrician this would have been a $150 upgrade...not bad for a fixture that size in my opinion!