Acero by Minka Aire. I'm a Fan.

I've been putting this post off for twelve days, because Nashville has been so dark and sad that I couldn't get a good picture of the room until yesterday. #bloggerproblems But hey, guess what? The big, dark, banana leaf ceiling fan is gone! Woo-hoo!! At Christmas, Keith gave me a beautiful, sleek silver ceiling fan that I'd been eyeing for months.

He wrapped all the pieces in separate boxes, and when we opened presents under the tree it took a minute for me to realize exactly what I was opening. When it dawned on me, I was ecstatic. "Oh boy, a downrod!" *tearing more paper* "Oh honey, you got me a motor!" Maybe you had to be there, but it was really funny.
Here's an old picture to remind you how the previous ceiling fan looked. Sorry, I always tried to crop the old fan out of photos, so I don't have a lot of pictures of it! Obviously, this is a really old pic, from before we moved the furniture into the room. But you can see that the brass motor and tropical style of the old fan just didn't work for us. That fan looked big and heavy, and it called a lot of attention to itself. I couldn't wait to get rid of it, because I wanted the attention to be on the art over the fireplace, not on the fan.

I don't like the look of most ceiling fans. But in Tennessee, a good fan is practically a necessity. So I spent weeks looking for a fan I liked, and this one is my favorite. It's the Acero model by Minka Aire. Acero has a simple shape that doesn't call a lot of attention to the fan. With just 3 blades, it doesn't take up a lot of visual space. The nickel finish matches the other metal in the room, and it blends into our white ceiling better than dark wooden fans. And the light kit (usually the ugliest part of a fan!) is flat and barely visible. Best of all, I love the cage around the motor because it reminds me of pretty vintage table top fans. One last thing: The Acero fan is sold at Restoration Hardware, but don't buy it from them--they overcharge by more than $100!

So far, we love it. It's practically silent, and blades move air well. We've been using it every day because it reverses to push warm air down in the winter. It has a nice bright white light with a built-in dimmer, and the wall panel is fancy schmancy. Unfortunately, the old wall panel had two switches. One controlled the fan blades, and one was for the (nonexistent) fan lights. So if you found this post because you're looking for info about this fan, keep in mind that you may need to replace your switchplate cover.

We need to get a 2-gang switchplate with one blank side, like this.

From KyleSwitchplates.com
It feels great to cross the fan off of the to-do list. I'm one step closer to the plan I put together for this room waaaay back in August. Here was the original mood board. All that remains are the curtains and sectional! But first, we'll probably put up a picture rail behind Keith's desk. But more about that later!