I Need Some Swag...

...lamps.

For you kids, a swag lamp hangs on a chain from a ceiling hook (or two or three if you have a long chain). The really fancy ones have velvet covered shades, and beaded trim. Our place has virtually no overhead light save for the kitchens, hallways, and bath-but the hooks are still in the bedroom, dining room, and everywhere else. It looks like the previous inhabitants used the three hook kind, which would have been pretty elegant in the early 70's.

I'm envisioning a matching set to hang over our nightstands in the master bedroom. My parents had brown and navy striped shades (in velvet, of course) which matched the bedspread. I busted the blue raw silk and gold embroidered bedspread out of mothballs, and cleaned it. I can understand why my mother eventually moved on to covered duvets-the bedspread weighs a ton. It looks nice though, on the king sized sleigh bed even if the skirting at the bottom is lost. That thing has to be over fifty years old. So of course, I need matching swag lamps. Yes, I need them. I don't ask for much, but I'm holding firm on this.

In the absence of swag lamps (oh Etsy, why don't you have what I want, when I want it?) I ran over to Big Lots, and bought a $16.00 torch lamp that seems to do the trick. If you touch the shade, you can tell it is plastic, not glass, but in the corner of the room it blends right in.

For the dining room, I think I want some sort of painted wrought iron thing with flowers, or whatnot. If it has the fake candles that you screw teardrop shaped bulbs into, all the better. In reality, I'll probably go back to Big Lots and buy another torch. And more potato chips, because you don't go to Big Lots and leave without a few bags of potato chips. I don't make the rules.