Nothing New, but if I don't find the perfect sconce, I'm going to implode

Solving sconce struggles and the best $30 sconce to ever exist.

Picture this:

It’s 3 a.m. You’re on page 64 of an Etsy search for just, like, “sconce.” Your laptop is overheating and your hair is blowing gently from the dust build up in your CPU fan. Gorgeous. Your vision starts softening around the edges. But you know—deep in your bones—that page 65 must hold the one. The perfect sconce. Your soulmate in sconce form. And even better, it’ll be under budget.

This is what medical professionals call delusion. This is unfortunately just the beginning of a long night.

3:47: You’ve convinced yourself that the right sconce will change your entire life . Your apartment will suddenly, totally, make sense. You’ll start hosting dinner parties. You’ll even start working out again. Your ex will see your Etsy treasure on Instagram and wonder how he could have ever let someone like you go with a sconce like that. You’ll become someone who wakes up at sunrise and drinks warm lemon water. This sconce will heal you.

4:12: you’re not even looking at sconces anymore. You’re on a niche Czech lighting dealer’s blog from 2007, trying to understand if "plissé" is a finish or a fabrication. You're Googling "can I cast brass at home?" and also like “how does electricity work anyways?”

4:53: No offense, but you are desperate. You’ve strayed so far from the plot that you don’t even know what problem to solve anymore. You start bargaining with yourself. Maybe you don’t even need a sconce. Maybe it should be a pendant? Fuck it, maybe you make your own light. Is light even real? Maybe light is a social construct, a figment of your imagination. Maybe we don’t even exist.

5 a.m: You haven't blinked in forty minutes. You’re on the floor surrounded by open tabs, old coffee, and doubt. It’s now officially late enough to be considered early again.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but in the words of Taylor Armstrong, “Baby, there is no sconce.”

Save yourself the 5 AM Etsy spiral. These are the sconces I reach for when I need one now. Subscribe to Nothing New for more late-night design shortcuts and actually good recs.