Our Light Bulb Moment! Where it all began

Ever feel like you're never actually going to like any job you have? Of course, it's only a means to an end, most people don't like their jobs anyway ... at least that's what we tell ourselves to make us feel better about never liking our job! Rewind 6 years ago and my husband and I were no different; we worked and made money...yay us. At the time we had bought our first house together and my hubby (the genius carpenter of the century as he will come to be known) was remodeling from the ground up. As stressful as it was, there was a TON of excitement that came along with it. However, my design strategy looks more like, "Suuuure, that will work, I guess?" after shopping for two hours and deciding I NEED to eat something right now, so the last thing I saw is what I buy. Hubby, on the other hand, has a clear idea of what he wants things to look like as a whole and is VERY good at making sure the small details all come together to make that vision happen. How he has come to this ridiculous talent, I couldn't say, but it was clear about 2 minutes into our renovation that I just needed to hand over the decision making to him and sit back to watch our dream home come together. After several months of the big decisions (what walls to leave standing and which to knock down) we got to the nitty gritty stuff that can really pull together the house and make it our home. Cue the light fixture dilemma of 2014! He was obsessed with getting the right lights for our home picked out and just could not find what he saw in his mind's eye. And when he did find some he was drawn to, no surprises here, it was at least three thousand dollars! After way too many hours on the wide world web, hubby just started sketching, to at least show me what he wanted to see in our dining room space. When I saw his idea on paper I was in love so, brilliant as we are, we went back to searching online for many more hours (the genius part hadn't kicked in yet) and we just kept hoping to find what we wanted for a reasonable price. NO such luck! But now that we knew what we wanted there was no going back. Finally, hubby remembered he is a carpenter by trade and has been for 15 years! So he took to the basement and started working on our finishing touch to the gorgeous space he had already created. It was built, stained, assembled and hung within a couple of days. Our chandelier search was finally over and they all lived happily ever after, the end. Just kidding! Obviously, we had to show our new beautiful baby off to our friends and hosted a few dinner parties to celebrate the completion of our home. Without even mentioning the light, it became the focal point of conversation as soon as someone walked into our dining room. "How cool is that?!" I thought, "I'm not the only one who thinks hubby is the genius carpenter of the century!" This went on for a while before we finally realized that we are not the ONLY ones searching for a really cool chandelier and couldn't find one for under $3K, go figure! We very tentatively decided to try putting our own creation online to see if anyone else loved the refined rustic look as much as we do. MIRACLES OF ALL MIRACLES, YOU DO! We honestly could not believe that so many people related with our struggle and reached out to us to have a custom light made of their own. SO here we are with a job we actually love doing for a people who are in the exact same boat we were in and shocked (lighting pun intended) that we have come this far. Obviously, we want more of a good thing, so what are your struggles in your home design? What space in your home can you just not find that perfect last piece of the puzzle to pull the room together?? Please comment, share and subscribe so we can keep brainstorming, creating and being part of your story on how your house became home!