Say the words ceiling fan and I cringe. They’re big, they’re bulky, and they’re usually hideous. *shudder* Plus, the light they cast is glaring, unflattering and pretty much bunk, especially if it’s the only source of light in a room. Ew. So when I moved into my husband’s house, switching out the ceiling fans was one of the first things we did. We went to Home Depot and picked out an attractive fan that we thought would match our new home’s decor. Then we bought three of them and put them up in our living room, office, and bedroom. That was two years ago and, well, things have changed. For one thing, our style has shifted towards a definitively more modern aesthetic. Not that we weren’t going for modern before, we just didn’t know exactly what “modern” was or, for that matter, what our style was. We’ve made many a change in our home over the past two years, as opportunity and budget would allow. We’ve also made many a mistake because of not fully understanding our own tastes. You’d think it would be common sense NOT to try and decorate your house when you don’t know what you like, but alas, we learned by doing. (I don’t necessarily recommend this, however.) Slowly but surely we are making fewer and fewer mistakes while making more assertive design decisions that are relevant and consistent with our sense of style. One such mistake, which we could only see in hindsight, was the purchase of the aforementioned ceiling fans. Don’t get me wrong, the fans would be great in the right context. In fact, they will probably stay in the bedroom and office where they’re…..getting by. But now that the living room opens up into the dining room and kitchen, the lighting/ceiling fixtures from all three “rooms” must work together and that ceiling fan definitely doesn’t work. It’s not even centered! Lame-o. We ripped that thing down months ago and we’ve been living with a few little pokey wires that are hanging down 6″ from the ceiling. Now I just have to decide if I want a ceiling fan w/a light, just a fan, or no fan and a light fixture instead.

Here are a few fans that we like:

And here are some light fixtures that we like:

Here’s a sampling of some of the current lighting in our home and our possible choices for the living room:

Notice that the mention of the practicality of a fan in Florida didn’t come up. Yeah, it would be very practical to have a ceiling fan. Some would say it’s a necessity, and believe me, this past summer we could have really used the extra help in keeping our home cool. Yikes…. But some of those lighting choices above are just too amazing to pass up. I don’t know, I think it could be worth it to endure the larger electric bill in the summer if I could have one of those lights in my LR. Let’s face it, I tend to ere on the side of form over function.