Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Chandelier

A while back, I got it into my head that I would like a chandelier (because I'm weird). So I started looking in thrift stores, flea markets, etc. Everything I found had to be hard-wired into the ceiling, and visions of me frying myself while trying to monkey with electrical wiring made me look into the plug-in type, all of which were either ugly or too expensive. Then one day I was at the local CrapMart and found a chandelier on sale for seven bucks!

Now, this seven dollar job had to be hard-wired too, but by this time I was thinking that maybe I didn't actually need the light from the chandelier (my apartment is always lit up like a runway at O'Hare from the existing lighting because my eyesight is going to crap as I get older), but rather what I was interested in was the shape and the idea of a chandelier (I can talk myself into anything.).

As an aside, these CrapMart chandeliers were in an aisle marked as "college dorm furnishings". Which made me wonder why on earth you would send a kid off to a college dorm with a chandelier that had to be hard wired into a ceiling.

So anyway, I bought the CrapMart chandelier and went to work. Here's the before (the prisms were still wrapped in plastic):



And here's the after:



I painted it, bought new prisms on e-bay, added on some glass fish I already had, and plopped a parrot in the middle. The colors are a little too nursery-room for me, and I'm looking for something other than a beanie-baby parrot for the centerpiece, and the whole thing needs some tweaking to make it more interesting/less babyish. Any ideas? (Other than throwing the whole thing off the back porch, that is.)

5 comments:

bridgett said...

Check and see if your area has any historic preservation groups. Albany and Troy both have warehouses of spare stuff that they've pulled out of old houses and there's also gorgeously weird chandeliers available from the 1910s and 1920s for cheap.

Have you found a place for the Head of Ted?

rockygrace said...

Yes, the local preservation group sells stuff they yank from old houses; their sale booth at the flea market usually starts up in late November. Thanks for the idea!

Dead Head Ted is stilling hanging out on top of my bookcase; I've been stalled for an idea for him, too.

My problem is, I start all this stuff, and then can't get it the final little way to "finished"!

rockygrace said...

Ooops, I meant "Dead Ted Head", not "Dead Head Ted".

bridgett said...

Can't get all the way to finished? Just call it "an aesthetic that celebrates the transitory nature of human existence" quit worrying about it.

rockygrace said...

Bridgett, you are really, really good. I am awed.