When two become one

So for a while now I have wanted to replace the can light over our kitchen sink with a pendant, and the hubs agreed with me. Then came the hard part - finding a pendant that I liked. I don't know when I started looking, but I do know that I've been looking for forever!

Last week I thought I had a eureka moment which the trip to Ikea could alleviate, but Ikea was out of a key ingredient. The shade. Grumble. But wait! There's more! A second light bulb went off so I found a pendant with a glass shade, and it was $16! Then I went to Home Depot. I know its shocking. I very rarely ever go to Home Depot because there's not one really convenient to Gainesville. Not when Lowe's is 5 minutes up the road, but I happened to find myself at Home Depot with Mom and the boys, and low and behold guess what diamond popped out. This one!!!!

So perfect for the kitchen! It matches perfectly with the wagon wheel light we have over the kitchen table. Except that our kitchen is chock full of can lights. 6" can lights. Egh. Drywall and patching. Double egh. We're hosting a  party on Saturday....I got told it'd be done by then. Then he realized how much work was involved. Enter google and a search for can light conversion kits. They make them! See - 

But wait......I already bought the other pendant. That's ok we're going to go all Frankenstein on this and the  other pendant and create magic! I say we, but its more like the royal 'we' because Stephen actually did most of the work. He's so amazing, but please don't tell him I said that. It might go to his head. ;-) 

I do not recommend doing this surgery if you do not possess the necessary skills and understanding of electricity and wiring. Our ideal game plan was simply moving the wires from one socket to another, but unfortunately real life is never that simple. Nuts and collars broke and we had to pull our our thinking caps. 

 Here are all the parts from both lights. I was not liking the idea of having the wire exposed so we needed to figure out the best/safest way to get what we wanted and make it work with the conversion kit. Luckily all of the threads on each of the kits were the same so we were in luck there, however we were not lucky in the fact  that on each of the sockets the wires were basically eyeletted in place. Like how I created a word there? Yea, me too.  :) This unfortunate development meant that we'd have to splice the wires. Grumble. We decided that since the conversion kit came with its wires heavily insulated that we'd run them down the tubes and then splice them together above the socket  housing, where they should be the most protected. So that's exactly what we did.

It took some a lot of finagling to get everything just so, but in the end we accomplished it! So what do you guys think? Isn't it lovely? Oh and I completely forgot to take a before picture. :-( sorry.

 Oh and I apologize for the less than glamorous photos, but these are from the cell phone. :( I'll have to take nicer ones when I show off the lovely that my grandmother is bringing me this weekend! So excited! Have a great day guys!