Sharing the Joy......

So, my friends Jim and Scott have the coolest house, filled with lots of great art, as well as funky furniture and a wall palette to match. Years ago, I just about fainted when I saw their new chandelier... I confess... I coveted it, and told them so. Well, low and behold, last year, on the day of our wedding, they came to the reception bearing a large box, warning that the contents could provoke marital strife, as it had done in their household.

Imagine how thrilled I was when we opened the box, and there was the chandelier. Kevin could not believe his eyes when he saw it. I honestly don't think he believed that such an outrageously gaudy thing could possibly exist in the world, but there it was, in our house, begging to be hung in a special place. For a year now, we have been discussing, half jokingly, which room would be most suitable. It could have been hung in a number of places, but then you would have to decorate the room around it, because that is the kind of object we are dealing with, but honestly, I was thinking that his stomach would never quite be up to it, and it was doomed to shimmer in a box in the garage for an indefinite period.

Yesterday, he called me downstairs, and there it was, hanging from the ceiling in the dining room:




Have you seen the movie "A Christmas Story"? Remember how Ralph's Dad felt about his Fishnet stocking-ed lamp? That's how I feel about this chandelier... it's indescribably gorgeous. I have gone into the dining room no less than ten times in the past 24 hours just to turn on the lights and look at the chandelier, because it makes me so happy.

Maybe it's because this incredibly bland house is starting to feel like "home". Maybe it is because my husband must really love me to hang that chandelier. But I think it is the power of pure, unadulterated beauty.