The Lights!

I’ve told the story of my birthday lunch turning into a surprise tour of one of my childhood homes in a few places, so I’ll link the short version HERE and spare the rest of you.

Well, now I have a set of 1920s vintage light fixtures that I want to hang in my home. They require re-wiring, repainting, and careful cleaning. Get ready for some wannabe Bob Villa action my friends…

You can see the tasteful, modern fixture the interior designer selected where one of these lights had hung for nearly 100 years:

It wasn’t this tidy when I was a kid

For reasons that escape me entirely, someone had re-painted the fixtures SILVER, the candle-wax sleeves black, and little red highlights. A look that says “colorblindness is a handicap.”

To add to the project they were not painted consistently and they have not been rewired at any time in the past century.

Disassembly took about 20 minutes. Cleaning and masking for paint was another hour.

The paint, Rust-Oleum’s “Oil Rubbed Bronze,” went on over five or six very, very light passes. This was a three-day process. As fine as the texture came out in person it looks very matte no matter how I photograph it. There’s an iridescence I haven’t yet captured in a photo.

Rewiring SUCKED. My hands still hurt. Bonus fun: I had to use 14 gauge solid-core because lamp wire will NOT fit in the conduit. These will only ever use LED bulbs, so I’m not worried about the substitution, but there was a minute where I seriously thought about stress-testing stereo wire for fixtures two & three.

I still need to repaint the candlewax sleeves (going with an almond/eggshell/off-white) and pick up the candle-flame style bulbs, but I couldn’t wait to test the wiring once reassembly was complete.

Once I have all three done & hung I’ll probably share those photos, too…but I’m feeling good about what got done today.

Now I’m off to build a quilt rack, because when Mrs. Teresi found out what I spent on tools last year I found out I would be required to actually use them.

Happy Sunday.