Kitchen pendants = ugly, no style, characterless, & not unique.
New kitchen pendants = unique, vintage, industrial, one-of-a-kind, beautiful!!!
I had no idea this project would get finished as quickly as it did. I bought these pendants on a Friday afternoon, from a vintage boutique in town and had them up on a Monday afternoon.
I found the perfect mount and cord at Lowes. They can be found online here. They were $18.99 originally, but were on sale for $16.99. They were perfect; bronzed, aged looking, and had a cord to hang the pendant on.
Next, came the tough part – putting them up! Bah – electrical work and tools! I wanted to make sure I did it the safest way possible – so I shut off the breaker for the kitchen electric in the fuse box. Let’s be honest – Ace was the only one home with me, and he can’t save me if I were to get electrocuted!
The directions to hang the pendant were extremely easy to follow. I had to unscrew the existing pendant hardware, which wasn’t hard. Then, I followed the instructions which came with my new mounting kit.
First, there was a mounting bracket that needed to be hung. Then, I measured the cord length, so that it was consistent with what was there previously. Next, I attached the appropriate wiring – white to white, black to black, ground to ground, and used wire connectors (came with mounting kit/pendant).
Here is the first light up and ready to go!
It looked kind of goofy when there was only the one pendant. I knew I had to get them all up to decide if I liked them.
It didn’t take long. I had a system in place – for the last two, I removed the hardware at the same time and attached the new mounting brackets. Next, I put up the pendant I KNEW would be just as easy!
My first big bump in the road came with my last pendant. It was my favorite one – the shape was amazing & the color was perfect! Unfortunately, the problem was the actual light shade’s opening was too big for the mount and cord kit. The actual light socket would just slip right out if it was placed inside.
I knew I had to be creative. I wanted these lights up! So guess what the magical fix was? Electrical tape! My dad stopped over as I was working to ensure I was in fact wiring these lights the right way. He had the idea of electrical tape.
We made a barrier on the top of the pendant so that it would catch when the light socket was pulled to the top. My first worry was, what if it heats up after being on all night? Won’t it melt? The answer – nope! As my dad reminded me – it’s electrical tape! These types of jobs are exactly what it is designed to be used for!
So, after this hiccup was taken care of – it was complete!! I couldn’t be happier with the results! I want somewhat of an ‘industrial‘ look in my kitchen, and these are definitely the first step of getting there!