This is a quick and simple upgrade! Bring old house character into your home with budget schoolhouse lighting. Most of these fixtures cost $50 or less. Wild!
The old modern, broken track lighting.
Once upon a time we moved into this builder-grade, beige foreclosure and decided to put our own little stamp on it. I knew right away that I wanted to swap out the lighting in nearly every area of our home. Really, I wanted to replace all of it! Five years later I’ve taken out a few fixtures, like the ones in our kitchen, which you can see here.
Since we’re on a budget, the process has been slow. And that’s OK. A little here and a little there adds up over time. I’m happy with our small changes along the way.
When we moved in, we had the dreaded “boob” lights in our two hallways. You know what I mean, right?
Yep, that’s the one! There’s nothing actually wrong with this style of flush-mount lighting. It just isn’t my favorite.
RELATED: Budget Farmhouse Lighting
Back in 2012, I took out the “boob” light and transformed this hallway with some IKEA Ribba frames and a track lighting system. I was still finding my style and didn’t quite know how to bring what I loved from the store shelves into my home.
I still like the frames, and they’re still there today, but the track light was a different story altogether.
As with most IKEA light fixtures, the bulbs aren’t standard and have to be bought at IKEA. We don’t have one nearby, which makes things a bit of a hassle. While replacing the bulbs nearly 3 years ago, my husband accidentally unscrewed the middle one completely, and it hasn’t worked since.
When the other two bulbs burned out, I didn’t replace them, and I haven’t had a working light in this hallway for a few months now. Womp. Womp. Such a sad, dark hallway.
I also didn’t love the modern look of the track light. It wasn’t my style and wasn’t working, so it had to go! I wanted something with a little more “old house charm,” if you will.
This popular farmhouse or schoolhouse style brings a character and charm to a home that a modern track light or “boob” light just can’t match.
Enter this affordable schoolhouse light I found on Amazon. How cute is this?
Here’s how it looks in the updated hallway.
Don’t mind the white ring around the flush mount on the ceiling. It was the old color of the ceiling, and I grabbed the closest white I could find to make it a bit better! It’s the wrong sheen, but it’ll do until I repaint my ceilings someday.
I love how this inexpensive light adds so much character to my home, which was built in the last decade. I was worried the single bulb wouldn’t be enough light for this space, but it’s perfect! It gives plenty of light at night.
Affordable Schoolhouse Lighting
I rounded up my favorite affordable schoolhouse lights for you to shop on your own. They’re so cheap and super easy to install!
I’m going to grab another one this week for my second hallway light, which still has the dreaded light that looks like a lady’s chest. The one in the middle is the one I bought (grab it here), and I’ve linked the rest below:
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
I plan to buy a matching schoolhouse light for my other hallway very soon. At the under-$30 price point, I could just go ahead and order it right now. We’re going to de-boob the lighting situation in my house if it’s the last thing I do this summer!
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