Let there be light!

I have this thing with mason jars. I love them. A lot. My brother in-law John is a recycle truck man...driver? Anyway, he is always giving his family and friends good finds and for me, it's cool glass bottles and jars. I have quite the collection these days.

Back to the light...Ever since we moved into our 1960 house, I have been giving the fluorescent light in the kitchen the stink eye. I hate that thing. I found an example of a light fixture that had been made with mason jars on a blog a long time ago. They were making a knock off of a pottery barn light that looked like this.I really wish I could find my inspiration pic again, but now it exists only in my memory:( Anyway, I was in love and have been thinking about it ever since. However, our poor house was not blessed with tall ceilings and the hanging lights just wouldn't work. Brett and I came up with a design of our own and my uber handy husband created this.

 He built the box from old subfloor wood found under our house. He sanded it down with an angle grinder and stained it to match everything else in our house that we stain. I think it's called walnut something...Then we hung it just a few inches down from the ceiling with a chain on both ends. I love that is has added dimension without being too low for my 6'3'' man to walk under.

I definitely gave him the side eye when he said he wanted to mix clear jars with blue ones, but I gotta say, I'm kinda lovin' it.

And because I totally forgot to take before pics or during pics for that matter, here is one from the real estate listing from when we bought our house. The kitchen is one of the only rooms in the house that looks suprisingly similar to when we moved in. So here is the before, in all it's florescent glory.