January 12, 2015
When we built this home, I was sick of seeing antiqued door knobs, chandeliers and almond appliances. We chose shiny brass instead and white appliances, which I have been gradually changing after living here for a few years.
We have the stainless appliances now and I love them. Most of our light fixtures have been changed to bronze. The chandelier in the dining room stuck out like a sore thumb. The new crystal chandelier I wanted was way out of my budget at the moment.
Pinterest again – a multitude of people had been spray painting their chandeliers, white, pink, red, green and every other color one might imagine. Having seen a bronze spray paint at the local Lowe’s, a new plan came into being.
My husband, Dave, has been working with electric for almost 40 years, so he took the fixture down for me and I disassembled it. (I don’t have the knowledge to do electric and don’t like the idea of being electrocuted.) At this point I drilled tiny holes in the plates under the candles and in the plate above the chandelier at the bottom of the chain, to accomodate fishing line, which I later strung with crystal beads from the fabric store, and some antique crystals, which I had picked up from an antique store a long time ago. Then I taped off the parts I did not want painted and sprayed several light coats of paint, until the desired look was achieved. I let it completely dry, reassembled, and then Dave hung it for me.
Before he hung it up, you will notice there is a medallion on the ceiling now. I had purchased that plain white medallion years ago and it had been stowed away in the basement. Since the chandelier was down, it was prime time to paint that, too. My acrylic paints were put to use on that and then I antiqued and painted a couple of coats of water based polyurethane on it. Then it was attached to the ceiling before the chandelier.
After the chandelier was up, the original candle covers looked pretty lame. I wanted to beef them up a bit, so I decided to cover them with a larger pvc pipe sleeve. My son Jon-Michael, helped me come up with a size which slipped over the original cover, cut the pipe to size for me, and I covered the old ones with the new. Such a simple adjustment makes a huge difference!
At the top of the sleeves, I glued a border of decorative trim, which I found in the jewelry section at the fabric store. Since it had the dark metal around the crystals, it repeated the bronze color of the chandelier.
Of course, the last thing to do was string the beads and turn on the light. I love the patterns of light reflected from the crystals onto the ceiling and walls! It’s amazing what a little paint and beads can do…
P.S. You may notice a pencil line around the medallion, I am in the process of making a stencil to extend the medallion. I feel it is too small.
