Author: Spring
When we moved into our house, one thing I was excited about was having a dining room for entertaining. Not only did we have some trendy dining room furniture, but I also had the perfect chandelier. My parents had been “borrowing” this particular chandelier for a few years because I didn’t have a place for it in the rentals. They enjoyed using it, though, because it was a perfect conversation piece and ice-breaker when they were entertaining. You see, this particular light is special to me. Very special. I won it on The Price Is Right. It was the item I bid on in order to get on stage with Bob Barker. Mine was the closest bid. It was so exciting! I also won a new car and $3,000.00, but that is not what this blog entry is about.
Let’s put The Price Is RIght behind us and fast forward to moving into our house. It had an old dirty looking chandelier in the dining room, and to make matters worse, there was no electrical wiring connected to it. Candles were its light source. Since this is an old house, there are some quirks, and not having an overhead light in the dining room is one of them. Yes, we can hire an electrician to do the wiring, but we have so many other priorities that outrank wiring the dining room right now. Therefore, we developed a Plan B. You know the saying, “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade” , don’t you? That is exactly what we did.
This is the way our dining room light looked when we bought the house.
Here is another view. You can see the original dining room color which we will write about in another post.
Since we didn’t have wiring, we couldn’t use the chandelier that I won. So, we decided to make the best of the light that came with our house. First, we took it down, disassembled it and cleaned it. We also scraped the pink candle wax off of it. Already it was looking better. Then we bought a can of black Rustoleum spray paint and gave it and the chain holding it several light coats until all of the surface was covered. Finally, we bought some fresh green candles that match the new paint color.
The after shot shows how effective some cleaning and some spray paint can be to spruce up a dirty light.
Volia! Here is the after and much improved version. Now we have light in our dining room, and it is fun eating by candlelight. We do have a floor lamp across the room and a lamp on the buffet (a future blog) to help out. So, until we get electricity in the ceiling, my Price Is Right chandelier will have to wait. (Before my parents sold their house, they removed my prize chandelier from their dining room and are storing it for us until we can use it.) The silver lining is at least I won a car and cash that I didn’t have to wait for!!!!
Cheers!
Images of Price Is Right logo and Dodge Neon from google images. I was not paid by Rustoleum to mention their product.
Linking to www.savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com Boring to Beautiful party.
Linking to www.thehouseintheroses.blogspot.com
