Another project finished!

One of the many projects I've been working on this summer is a chandelier for the living room. As with most of the furniture in the room, this chandelier is an antique that has been in the family a long time. It belonged to my dad's great uncle, then to my dad, and now to me!

I have so many fond memories of it hanging over our dining room table when I was young. It was brass, and when I got it home it did not look as pretty as I remember it. But I was confident that I could clean it up, paint it an antique bronze color, and it would look gorgeous.


When I first started the project, I naively hoped to have it finished within a week. It turns out that cleaning, taking off all the crystals, sanding, priming, painting, waiting 2 days for the paint to dry, painting another coat, waiting, touch-up painting, waiting, more touch-ups, waiting, reapplying the crystals, and figuring out how to hang it takes a little longer than a week! I have never re-finished anything, so I was hoping I was doing it right.

My brother, Jacob, was visiting yesterday and started to figure out how to hang it. But he ran out of time and didn't really make visible progress (although we figured out some of the logistics of everything -- thanks, Jacob!). Today Ryan started to work on it, but was running into problems of how to support it enough in the ceiling -- the chandelier is HEAVY. I left to run a few errands for the evening. When I came home, the kids were in bed and . . . SURPRISE: the chandelier was hanging beautifully in the living room!

These pictures don't come close to showing how beautiful it looks. The crystals (there are over 45) sparkle so much!