White Milk to Golden Globe Glow

Anyone that knows Matt and me knows we are obsessed with HGTV... seriously our DVR is filled with 95% DIY/HGTV shows...  One of our favorite shows was Flipping the Block and we immediately fell in love with John and Whitney Spinks from the black team.  

We have since followed John and Whitney's business 27 South Design on all social media platforms and entered one of their giveaways for a West Elm Globe Pendant light fixture - AND WON!  

I couldn't have been more excited and surprised!  If you follow our blog, you may remember that we aren't huge fans of our light fixtures in our house from These Little Lights of Mine, I'm Gonna Let Them Shine (for now...), so I immediately knew which light I wanted to switch out for this gorgeous West Elm light.  This milk glass had to go.  What can I say about this light fixture... it blocked the window light, it hit people's heads when washing their hands at the sink, did not fit the space, and was overall not our favorite thing to look at.

I realize our kitchen needs an entire face lift, so just ignore the green/black tile counter-top and back-splash, please , while we walk through the steps of how to change out a light fixture.

1st step: Turn off the power from the electrical panel! We always double check using a hot pen (Non-Contact Voltage Tester) to make sure the power is successfully off (electrical panels are not always labeled correctly).

2nd step:  Disassemble the old light fixture.  We first removed the glass globe/bulb by carefully releasing the set screws holding the milk glass monstrosity in place.  Seriously that milk glass is as big as Matt!  The 3 set screws are circled below in the right picture.

3rd step: Unscrew the light fixture canopy/base from the ceiling.

4th step:  Remove the 3 wire nuts for the hot (black), neutral (white), and ground (green) wires.

5th step:  Install new mounting bracket (since the one that came with the light fixture is beef-ier than the old mount).  However, when we went to install the new bracket the holes were too wide for the current electrical box.  So... we have additional steps to retrofit the new mount!

6th step:  Create new holes.  We used our Dewalt hammer drill and my grandfather's amazing work bench with a clamp which we inherited.  The picture on the right shows the new longer bracket (left) with drilled inner holes that match up with the old bracket (right).

Just for a visual here is a short video of Matt creating one of the new holes.

7th step: Center the bracket on the electrical box during installation.

8th step:  Shorten the pendant cord.  Why do they make them so ridiculously long!?  We shortened the black cord down to ~18".  The best way to choose the length is to hold it in the place where you want the light to hang.

 9th step: Strip the wires for connection in the electrical box.

10th step: Connect the 3 wires with the wire nuts taken out in step 3.  Black to black (hot), white to white (neutral), and green to green (ground).

11th step: Screw new canopy/base in place.

12th step: Install light bulb and new glass pendant (exact steps vary by light fixture).  We bought a vintage style light bulb from Lowe's that puts the perfect amount of mood lighting in our kitchen!

13th step: Enjoy!

1 out of 100 problems in our kitchen fixed :)  Slowly but surely we will make this a dreamy kitchen!

We are extremely grateful to John and Whitney for this giveaway and they have a new show Florida Flippers airing this Sunday - so everyone watch it!!!  

John and Whitney inspired us to apply for the second season of Flipping the Block which turned into Beach Flip which airs July 5th.  We went to NYC to audition as finalists, but sadly we weren't chosen to be on the show.  Super sad for us, but I still can't wait to watch the show!!!  Watch our audition here: