Our Ibiza, Chapter 16: So Many Bad Light Fixtures, So Little Time

The decisions for the house are coming fast and furious, and this week it's been all about lighting. My contractor sent me to a local lighting showroom that he uses and I'll be honest, I was not very optimistic. Where I live the curvier, browner, and uglier, the better, so I was expecting whole lot of ugly, and I was not disappointed. I just have to ask the universe WHY are there so many bad light fixtures in the world? WHY? Let me give you some examples:

This one has that BAD smoked brown glass from the seventies that everyone tried desperately to get rid of in the 80's, all for the low, low, price of $262.50. Why?

Kinda pineappley, kinda curvy, kinda ugly and kinda $382.00. Why?

I think my Grandma had this one in her house. And I'm sure that she didn't pay $972.50 for it. I don't care if it's crystal, it's hideous! Why?

And the Grand Daddy of them all. So, so, so bad. And it cost $3,278.50. That's almost the same price as my coveted Droog design 85 Lamp Chandelier. Why, Why, Why?

I mean, who buys this stuff? I decided the other day that there are about 1,000 ugly light fixtures for each good one in the world. I also decided that if I really want to make my millions I need to start my own company that designs only tasteful, simple light fixtures. In all that spare time I have.

There were some "modern" ones available as well, but they were all more "contemporary" in my book. Steve and I have a term to describe the difference: "Is it cool or so very San Francisco Design"? The light fixtures I saw unfortunately fall into the latter category. Oh, okay, here's one more example:

You see what I mean? As a rule of thumb, modern light fixtures should never include curly ques. If you dropped the pig tails it wouldn't be half bad. And I found this true of so many of the "modern" fixtures. They were almost good.

Well, you probably won't be surprised to hear that I didn't buy anything, but got my flush mount fixtures, sconces, and bathroom lighting from IKEA. And all of it, for the whole house, cost 1/3 less than one of the grandma flush mounts. And the best part is that these light fixtures don't make me queasy. What would I do without IKEA? I shudder to think.