Happy Wednesday, friends! As you know by now we are in the process of selling our home. So, this post is all about switching out light fixtures prior to a move. Come see how to duplicate the look of an existing fixture with something comparable to the original….
Every time we sell one of our homes the topic of exclusions always comes up. Naturally! Technically anything permanently attached is considered a part of the home. All hardwired lighting is considered attached and assumed to remain with the property unless specifically stated otherwise in a contract. Therefore, if you intend to take some of your fixtures with you when you move, it’s wise to switch them out prior to listing your home. If you don’t, it can become a point of contentious negotiations.
Everyone that sees one of our houses always comments on our chandeliers. I tend to have one in every room, bathroom and closet. And because I have a chandelier fetish, I make it my life’s mission to find unique and beautiful fixtures for a great price. Mostly no one can guess how little I paid for them. Plus, if you’ve ever experienced builder grade lights, you know what I mean. And who wants that? So, when we sell a house, I try to take them down before a potential buyer can see them. Because they will want them. Every time. I know this because we have sold 7 houses so far.
But, since the chandeliers I have look nice in their respective spots, I try to duplicate the look and feel of each one as I replace it. For instance, our powder room. I have this beautiful petite chandelier that I drag around from house to house. I paid only $40 about 20 years ago, but I’ve never seen another just like it, and to replace it with another antique crystal chandelier would be a few hundred dollars. No thank you. But isn’t it precious?
So, with this beauty in mind I challenged myself to try and duplicate it without breaking the bank. So, I found this one at Lowe’s for about $70. (I’d like to point out it is already more expensive than mine.) But, it has a similar shape and already comes with nice crystals. It is by Portfolio and measures 12.8 inches tall and 12.48 inches wide.
However, this fixture has a brushed nickel finish and mine is gold. The other accents in the powder room are gold such as the ornate mirror, (which we are leaving behind) and wall sconce and antique faucet. (also being left behind) So I feel like this one should be gold too. This is the light straight out of the box in all of its shiny silver glory…
The chandelier is a semi flush mount, which I needed, and came with nice quality glass crystals. That is usually a sign of a nicer fixture if it has real glass prisms instead of acrylic. It also comes with a small faceted crystal ball on the end similar to mine.
I decided to use Rub’nBuff in antique gold to facilitate this makeover. I had a small tube on hand and it’s easy to work with. The instructions say to use your finger to rub it on, but I’ve done that before and had gold fingernails for a week. This time I wore thin latex gloves. Good decision! It’s hard to see in this picture but on the right is where I started with the rub’n buff. It goes on easily and dries quickly too. Just make sure you wipe off any clumps of gold as you go.
I turned the fixture upside down and made sure to cover every inch of the nickel finish. It already looks like a higher end light fixture! Notice I taped up the crystal ball on the bottom of the fixture so I didn’t get gold on it by accident. The entire process took about 20 minutes.
The chandelier came with 9 beautiful, sparkly crystals but I thought adding some glass bead crystal garland would add a nice pizazz to the piece and make it seem more substantial like my original. I have about a foot in my stash left from another project and tried it on for size.
Doesn’t the bead garland add a nice touch? I don’t have quite enough to finish the bottom hooks and now that I see how much prettier it looks with the garland, I want to add more to the top hooks.
I have some octagonal glass bead garland similar to this on order and it should be here any day. I always use real glass crystals instead of plastic or acrylic. Something about plastic crystals hurts my feelings.
Once the new garland comes in I’ll attach the crystals and the garland to the existing holes and hooks in order to secure them in place. The garland I like to use has little rings that are light weight and pliable making them easy to manipulate. I order my garland on eBay. For $6.34 you can get 3.3 feet of garland plus free shipping. The beads are real glass and measure about 14 mm or .551″ each. I think this is quite a bargain!
The size and scale of both fixtures are identical. I think once I add the rest of the garland and crystals the new chandelier will look lovely in the powder room! And now it is truly a one of a kind piece! Just for comparison, the existing light is on the left and the newly made over chandelier is on the right:
And here is what the light looked like before on the left and the make over on the right. Isn’t paint the ultimate make over secret? Well, and crystals.
One down, four to go! What do you think of my mini chandelier make-over? For relatively little time and money I made this store bought fixture into a faux antique chandelier! Also, because it is new, there is no need to worry about old wiring, etc. A total win/win!
Thank you for stopping by today and supporting my blog! It means so much to me! Let’s talk soon? xoxo Dell