Home Improvements: Part One

Dominatrix equipment?

Symbolic ball and chain, used for marriage ceremony?

Torture device for displaying the removed gonads of monstrous creatures?

Other?

Nope.

Pictured here is the light fixture in my bathroom.

Don't blame me, it was here when we bought the house a few years ago.  We laughed at it then, and we're still laughing at it now, though admittedly a little less loudly.

Each globe hangs directly over a sink. We're lucky enough to have two sinks in our bathroom, one for "us adults," and one for "the kids," who like to decorate the sink and its fixtures with toothpaste and other assorted things I'd rather not attempt to name.  I find the lights are barely functional, and that pruning the eyebrow forest is near impossible.  I've given to completing that task with a hand-held mirror, near a window that lets in bright morning sunshine. 

I personally don't mind a bathroom that shows all the wrinkles, cracks, crevices, lines, blotches, gray hairs, etc. because don't we want to see those things and be able to artfully cover them with make-up, and so forth? I can't cover that which I cannot see.

And I cannot see much with the 1970s ball & chain motif hanging in the bathroom.

My spouse thinks that bathrooms should be bright enough to read in, but dim enough to hide all those things that I need to see in order to hide. 

This makes perfect sense to a woman, so don't ask for further explanation.  It's a female thing.

We did take the first steps in rectifying this lighting issue by heading to a couple of our local home improvement stores.  There are a variety of fixtures available, from track lighting to the more "traditional" vanity lighting and anything in-between. 

I'm lucky enough to be married to a guy who is a great do-it-yourselfer, with occasional help from other guys who have been there/done that 8 million times.  In fact, my spouse is such a good do-it-yourselfer that I often expect the impossible, according to him.

He'd rather not have to rewire the bathroom to accommodate separate lighting over each sink.

I'd rather that he did, though I'm not adverse to track lighting, which could be mounted where the original electrical box is located, in the ceiling.  With track lighting, you could aim the lighting wherever you want it, unlike with "fixed" fixtures.  Although I do wonder what's up with the track lighting that requires halogen lights.  What? I don't want my body's faults to be highlighted quite that much, thank you: I don't need the equivalent of a car's headlights hanging up in my bathroom, no matter how dainty the fixture may be.

I jokingly suggested a classy looking, silver chandelier.  My husband took this suggestion seriously, but worried it wouldn't shed enough light in the bathroom. 

I'm thinking we should just opt for candles, and I'll give up ever being able to see all of my body's flaws.  Lights with a downward facing shade are often remniscent of cheap, 1960s movie spaceships, much like the dining room light in our first house. Can you say, "The Jetsons"? (see above photo for that gorgeous dining room fixture)

It did coordinate nicely with the entryway lights, though (see right).

Now, isn't that truly hideous?  It was a wonderful day, indeed, when those outdated, cigarette-smoke stained, paper-shaded objects hit the road in favor of brighter, updated lighting.

Some day soon, we'll solve the wiring/bathroom lighting problem. We might end up with track lighting, if we can find a suitable style, or we might end up with a re-wired bathroom and lights over each sink.  I suspect that once the project begins, as is inevitable, one thing will lead to another and much of the bathroom will require renovating.  I'll keep you posted, either way.