When we were going through the design process and picking out fixtures for our new home, there were certain upgrades we agreed wouldn’t be worth our money at that time. Light fixtures were one of those upgrades that we passed on.

We didn’t love the “premium” light fixtures our builder offered, so the standard lighting package included with our floor plan is what we went with, with then intention of swapping out fixtures room by room over time.

That brings us to today: Almost four weeks after closing on our home and I am so excited to show you the first fixtures we replaced!

But first, here’s the before.

I envisioned a kitchen with statement making lights hanging from the ceiling. And you can see that, while the builder-grade lights are pretty, they get lost in the room.

Plus, they’re not at all my style. To me, they make the space feel cold and rigid, and that is not how I want our kitchen to feel since this is the heart of our home, where we spend most of our time as a family.

We (AKA Justin) replaced the modern glass pendants with these unique concrete and natural wood beauties, and I could not be happier with how homey our kitchen feels now.

Yes, concrete can feel homey, and these fixtures really soften this space.

Seriously, look at the difference these make.

When choosing the lights, I wanted something I’d never seen before. I also needed the fixtures to be bold enough to stand out in a mostly white kitchen and even break up some of the stark white.

These concrete pieces from Serena and Lily actually stopped me in my scroll. Luckily, I was able to snag them during the S&L sale.

They make me think of the kitchen in our Kannapolis house and the DIY concrete countertops my dad helped us create.

I guess you could say I’m sentimental and wanted to incorporate part of our first home into this home.

I also just really love the texture that concrete adds to a kitchen.

If you are going through or plan to go through the home build process, I highly suggest thinking ahead about pre-wiring (pre-wire meaning the electrician wires the space but doesn’t install a light or fan and instead caps it off until a fixture is ready to be installed) for lighting and ceiling fans, even if you’re not installing fixtures at the time of construction. This will save you time and money down the road when you’re ready to install lighting in those spaces.

We intended to only pre-wire for pendant lights. However, due to a pricing glitch in the computer, it was cheaper for us to install the glass pendant lights as opposed to only pre-wiring. It doesn’t make sense, right? Anyway, we pre-wired for ceiling fans in our living room and master bedroom, and will install fans on our own later on.

Thanks for hanging out with me and learning about our kitchen pendant lights. I hope you’ll continue to follow along here and on Instagram as we continue to transform our home!

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