A Decorating Circus

For a while, I've been swooning over the mason jar chandeliers I see all over the internet.  The enormous fixtures are neat but I love the simple pendant clusters the most.

Etsy: BootsNGus

Unfortunately, all the chandeliers I have seen are way out of my price range. Fearlessly, I took that as as sign that I needed to make my own.  I decided on three jars and hanging lamp cords.  A little bit of elbow grease and I had a light fixture I love!

For a while, my new mason jar pendant chandelier sat in a box in my closet.  I just had nowhere to put it.  When I moved into Apartment 1925, I immediately knew that I wanted to hang it above my dining table.  Easier said than done, apparently.

There were already a couple hooks in my ceiling so we decided just to reposition one.  The trouble started when I climbed up on my step ladder.  It's a bit taller than a dining chair so I thought I would be able to reach the ceiling with ease.  What I hadn't counted on was the fact that the ceilings in Apartment 1925 are quite tall.  Tall enough that I could touch the ceiling with my fingertips but there was no way I would be able to get my hand high enough to screw a hook into the ceiling.

This was an interesting problem for me.  I'm fairly tall and rarely have difficulty reaching anything.  My mom was visiting and for a moment we were both at a loss.  All the usual alternative were no-gos -- no access to a taller step ladder; no tall friends or acquaintances in my new city.  All I had was a mason jar chandelier that I dearly wanted to hang from the ceiling.

Then I had an idea.  A brilliant idea, if I do say so myself.  I sprang to the closet and pulled out a pair of my summer wedges.  They're cute and fabulous but, most importantly in this situation, they have a five inch heel.  And being wedges, I thought they would be fairly stable.

So I strapped on my shoes and gingerly climbed the step ladder.  With my mom grabbing my belt loops to stabilize me, I was able to reach the ceiling and begin screwing the hook in.  Did you know that the ceilings of Apartment 1925 are super tough?  Even with the shoes allowing me to get the proper leverage, it was still very difficult.  When my arm got tired, my mom even took a turn with the wedges and screwed it in a bit more.  The whole process was ridiculous!  Half the time we were both laughing so hard that nothing was getting accomplished.

Finally, we decided the hook was secure enough.  I looped the cords over it and lowered the jars to the point we had already determined before moving the table.  I swagged the cords over to the hook that was (thankfully!) already in the ceiling by the window.

Then I ran the cords down the wall, up against the window frame.  I used a series of small nails to wedge the cords between the nails and the window frame.  Into the power strip and ta-da!

Isn't it gorgeous?!