Let There Be Light!

We bought our house ten years ago. I can hardly believe it's been that long, but I've got an aging dog and a kid out of college that assure me the passage of time continues despite my disbelief. Ten years ago we stepped into the place as brand new homeowners and looked around us. "First thing we do is paint," Dave said.

As my eyes scanned the blue tropical seascape mural painted from floor to ceiling of the dining room, I nodded in agreement. "And a new light fixture," I added.

So we went to the DIY home store and bought gallons of paint and got to work. But we could not agree on a new light. Everything was ugly, expensive, or similar to the boring round medallion we already had.

And ten years passed.

Then one day, when we were looking for electrical wire at a second-use warehouse, we saw it. Each of us shot out an arm, pointing. "THAT." Dave says I pushed a woman out of the way to grab it, but I'm sure I was never so rude.

It had been spray painted black and silver, but I knew with a little freshening up, it would be just the thing. And we were right. All it took was a black basecoat, a touch of brown spraypaint here and there to "age" it, and some of my "secret ingredient"-- Rub-n-Buff, and we have an awesome new victorian/steampunk/gothic/what-have-you chandelier -- see?

It came with tiny paper lampshades for each arm, but we found that we liked it better without those. It's much brighter, too. The LED bulbs mean we'll never have to replace them for, like, 20 years.  There are tiny holes on the top branches where prisms used to hang, so I'm keeping my eye out to see if I can find some replacements. No rush. We've been thinking strings of colored glass would look good too. Maybe in another ten years.