Light Fixture Fetish, Part 2 — Anyone want a set of sconces?

As much as I've tried, I don't like the sconces we have in the bathroom. Like 95% of the fixtures that were still in place when we moved in, they're probably original to the house. However, even if I get the paint stripped off them, I just don't think they'll wow me. Nothing wrong with them, they just don't fit our vision for the bathroom and we'll be going with a different, although still vintage, pair.

Here is one in place beside the half-stripped medicine cabinet.

And so, after a fair bit of searching, we came across this vintage pair of porcelain bathroom sconces in excellent condition. They still have the porcelain pulls and three-prong grounded receptacles. (I didn't know it, but the earliest such receptacles date to the 1920s.) We won't use these receptacles, but they do look neat.

Don't worry, I won't throw out the old sconces, because they are vintage and worth saving. Like I said, they do need to be stripped. Also, one is missing its switch (easily remedied) and both need to be rewired, but if there are any among you who would like to give them a new home, let me know. We'll be rewiring the bathroom circuit in the next month, and installing the porcelain sconces then. We'll store the old set until finding someone to take them off our hands.

So, if you'd like the pair of sconces with the shades, just drop me a note in the comments or e-mail me at editor(a)compassrose.com with your contact info.

Art Deco Gustave Villaret Sconces -- Mine!

I think I have some sort of cosmic connection to Gustave Villaret, a 1920s era designer. After my great disappointment at not having won the sconces by Villaret a few weeks back, I feared we would never find another set. But on a whim, I decided to surf eBay a few nights ago, and the very first set that came up under my search term "art deco sconces" was this pair:

Not the same set, but there is no mistaking the designer. Now, I am always searching for light fixtures from this series, and they are very rare. To find two sets in the same month, rare indeed. This time, I was the only bidder, so we got them. And they'll go in my mom's sewing room. To see the others we have from this series, go here, here, here, or here.

I think that will be it for this series, there's no other place to put any more!

A Medieval Knight, a Horse, and a Dragon -- Our Latest Sconce Stripping Project

The last pair of original sconces that needed to be stripped and refinished at The Box House came from my mom's room. We think, because they sort of match the medieval theme of the living room electric fireplace, they originally came from there. Our guess is that they migrated to the bedroom when a previous owner removed the sconces and plastered over the electric boxes. But we'll never know for sure. What we do know is that it was a crime to have painted over them. Seriously, how ugly is this?

When we removed them from the wall, we revealed evidence of  half a dozen layers of paint, from mint green, tan, and chocolate brown to plain-old white. It's hard to imagine this room was painted dark brown, as it's at the back of the house, and quite dark to begin with, as the windows face north and there is only a five-foot gap between buildings. Talk about living in a cave. (Mom says she's come full circle—her childhood bedroom was mint green and chocolate brown.)

This was my most difficult paint stripping project to date. There were some absolutely beastly layers on here, including some kind of thick enamel paint that laughed at my attempts to remove it with the heavy-duty nasty stuff. Five strip-and-rinse cycles overall.

Here it is partway through the process; you can see traces of the red and blue polychrome and the emerging detail. And lots of horrible mint green.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the finished sconce and the one that still needs to be stripped. Can you believe the difference? We decided not to re-polychrome them, at least for now. Mom's room is being painted lilac, and she wanted solid-colored light fixtures. I am, however, using two different shades of gold. It's kinda hard to tell from this picture, but there is a more coppery color in the background behind the knight, which makes him pop out. (Update: Ted just informed me that these were the pictures I took before I finished with the two-tone gold treatment, so don't strain your eyes trying to see the difference. The coppery gold is only on the crown in these pictures.)

The sconce even looks smaller without all the extra paint.

The (most-recent) previous owners' granddaughter told me the sconces had been covered in paint for as long as she could remember. The family had bought The Box House in the early sixties, so the rich detail of the metalwork has been hidden away for longer than I've been alive.

I absolutely love the dragon, and the little knight at the bottom supporting it all. I can't wait to finish painting Mom's room and get these back up on the wall.

Arrrghhh! I've Been Outbid on the Gustave E. Villaret Deco Sconces

I've been watching this set of sconces on eBay all week, and didn't put my bid in until the last seven seconds; I was outbid in the last four. Grrrr. I'm super bummed, as these 1929 fixtures were from the same series as our dining room chandelier.

So...if anyone has this same set of sconces, let me know your price. They were designed by Gustave E. Villaret of Leonia, New Jersey, for the Metropolitan-Columbia Manufacturing Company. The patent on the back reads: DESIGN PAT 78678. Actually, if you have any other light fixtures from this same series, let me know. I'd definitely be interested. The ones we already have are:

The Chandelier

Our Living Room Sconces (shown with arm from our chandelier for comparison).

Phooey. I'm so bummed.

There's Gold in Them Thar...Rooms

I am soooo pleased with how the stripped and refinished sconces turned out for the tenant unit. They look great against the blue Venetian Plaster walls.

They look so good, in fact, that I decided to strip and refinish the matching set in another of the bedrooms in the tenants' unit.

In the process, I found a paint even more dreadful than the dreaded fleshy peach--the innocent baby blue. So far, it's taken four stripping cycles to remove it--each time leaving the stripper on for 10 times longer than the directions call for.

This does not bode well for the task ahead--removing the same blue paint from all the trim in my bedroom. It seems the previous owners worked with monochromatic color themes: everything blue, everything peach, everything white. Whenever we discover one color of paint, there's a 100 percent certainty we'll find it in every other room.

Slowly, slowly the stripper worked its way through the paint, while I puttered in the garden.

This set was originally gold, without any polychrome, so I refinished them in gold again, although I chose a reddish-gold instead of a yellow-gold. I drybrushed on a base coat using a product called Rich Gold from Sophisticated Finishes, and then did a top coat of an antiquing liquid from the same line called Black Tint. It's hard to tell in this photo, which was taken at 2 o'clock in the morning, but the finish looks appropriately old, and matches the gold finish on our 85-year-old electric fireplace--a close enough match that most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between vintage and new finsh. I'll try to get a better picture in the daytime, as we finish up with the last few projects on the tenants' unit.

(Special thanks to Ted for rewiring all of these fixtures!)

Stripping for the Tenants

I tried, honestly I did, to strip the sconces with an environmentally friendly product.

Truth be told, I hadn't even planned on stripping these quite yet. They belong in one of the bedrooms of the tenants' unit, and I thought they could wait.

But after seeing them against the freshly plastered blue wall, I couldn't stand how ugly they looked. It bothers me when people don't remove switch plates, socket covers, and the like when repainting. This is always the result: a fixture with three or four coats of thick paint on it. It was obvious these were lovely at one time, but the paint had obscured all the details.

And so, despite the fact that we have a to-do list as long as my arm, I threw one more project in the mix. I first tried to remove the paint with Franmar's SoyGel, a product I've had mixed results with. It did well on the first layer of off white, and the underlying rancid butter yellow. But then I came across the dreaded peach enamel.

At one time, everything in the house was painted a gawd-awful peach. Long ago, long before Crayola came out with its Multicultural Crayon set, they had a crayon named "flesh."

That's what color I'm talkin' about. Picture it on wood trim, on walls, on light fixtures, on the ceilings. Oh yeah, we've encountered it on everything. Everything I've attempted to strip in The Box House has a coat of this enamel hidden somewhere in the layers. And SoyGel can't cut through, not even if I leave it on way longer than required, not even when I place a sheet of plastic wrap on it and leave it sitting for days. It won't budge. And our Silent Paint Remover? That starts smoking almost immediately when it encounters this paint. I'm not sure what it is, but this paint's evil, and has nearly reduced me to tears many a time.

So for the sconces, I gave up and used the super-toxic-strip-through-anything stripper from Home Depot. And, thank heaven, it worked, because I'm dealing with a tight schedule for this project. But I do feel a little guilty.

The original finish was gold, but we decided silver would look better on the blue wall, so I drybrushed it with American Accents craft and hobby enamel. I'm fairly happy with the results, because all of the rich detail is still visible. If I had more time, I'd try to add a faux antique finish, but we need to get these back up on the wall ASAP.

New Chandelier for the Dining Room, Take 2

Remember the super nifty chandelier I bought on eBay more than a month ago?

The seller, who lives up in Canada, packed it really, really well. Better than most things I receive in the mail. The five shades were individually wrapped in specially fashioned cardboard containers, and the frame was double-boxed and packed so full with peanuts it would not shift in the slightest. The seller said it took her forever, but she was confident it would get to our house safely.

And yet, Fed Ex somehow managed to break it.

Part of the frame just snapped in two pieces.

It doesn't really look that bad, just a tiny little break. But the broken bit has a screw that attaches this arm to another part of the frame. Still, it's a clean break, and we figured we could probably glue it together. But because it is a 85-year-old light fixture, we decided to check in with some experts first. We first took the light to Marshall Electric Supply, Inc. (7400 N. Western, Chicago), an awesome place for hard-to-find electric supplies...

...and then on over to A Lamp & Fixture (3181 N Elston Ave), which specializes in vintage light repairs.

At both places we were told that because the frame is made of pot metal, it's essentially unrepairable. Neither would touch it. The pot metal could not be soldered because of its low melting point, and neither epoxy nor glue could be trusted to hold, not even the epoxies supposedly meant for pot metal. I Googled this afterward, because I'm stubborn, and found site after site and forum after forum that pretty much said the same thing. Unrepairable.

Technically, we could still hang it up and the other four arms of the frame would probably keep the light stable. But we didn't necessarily want to risk that, and having exhausted the options for repair, we decided to go ahead and put in the claim with Fed Ex for either full compensation, or partial compensation so we could keep the shades, which are lovely, and find another frame. I was glad we spent the extra couple bucks for insurance. One way or the other, Fed Ex would have to pay us something for breaking and devaluing the chandelier. This is where it got to be a pain in the butt.

The seller was, at this point, vacationing in Mexico so told me to go ahead and start the claim process. I did so through the Fed Ex web site, where it asked if I was the buyer or seller, and then had me upload photos and supporting documents. I then talked with a service rep over the phone and was told that someone would come by to look at it, but nobody ever showed.

The seller got back from vacation and tried from her end; after a great deal of hassle in which Fed Ex couldn't find the original claim, she finally arranged for them to come get the light for evaluation. Because it's an antique, they wanted to take it to their expert for an opinion. The receipts for what I paid, before and after photos, and evidence of what similar ones are worth, was not enough for them.

Still, nobody showed up. In the mean time, I got a letter from Fed Ex denying the claim because I was the buyer, not the seller. I was to start the whole process again through the seller, and Fed Ex would deal with the seller only. (Then why allow me, the buyer, to start the claim? I don't know.) This, in spite of the fact that the seller was now dealing with them directly.

The seller spent the next two weeks leaving messages higher and higher up the Fed Ex chain, and nobody ever returned her calls. Finally, completely frustrated herself, she had me pack up the whole thing and ship it back to her where she's going to take it to Fed Ex in person and show them the damage. She's already refunded me for the chandelier and for shipping both ways, but I worry what Fed Ex will say to her now that she has the chandelier back in her possession. I wish her luck. It's been over a month that we've been trying to get this settled, and I'm just glad that, from our perspective, it's over with.

Lesson: Always buy insurance when you buy big-ticket eBay items. One way or the other, the seller will have to find a way to compensate you.

Although bummed, I went back on eBay to see what else was out there. I wasn't feeling particularly hopeful, because through some sort of fluke in the first place our winning bid had been roughly half of what similar chandeliers generally go for; we were shocked at the time, and so excited that an original slip shade chandelier was within our price range.

So, I spent half an hour scrolling through auction listings for art deco chandeliers, and couldn't find anything suitable and affordable.

But guess what? Tucked amongst the other listings I actually spotted one for a 1920s chandelier to match the sconces (circa 1926) we just installed in the living room.

The Sconces:


The Chandelier:

I know, I know; it's a completely different direction from the slip shade chandelier we wanted.

It had a "Buy it Now" option for a little bit more than what we paid for the slip shade, and I went tearing upstairs, shouting for Mom and Ted, to take a look because I simply couldn't believe it.

Although there are some variations, it's obvious this is made by the same manufacturer. The ridges, the flowers, the arrow head designs, the fans. Both the sconces and chandelier have 'em.

And, unlike the slip shade light, this chandelier is made of copper and brass. We utilized the "make an offer" feature of eBay, and waited on pins and needles for all of two minutes before the seller got back to us with a yes.

What are the odds of finding this, do you think? It Fed Ex hadn't been such a pain to deal with and paid out the claim in a timely manner, we never would have seen this. It's fate. This chandelier was meant to be ours.

I still want to fit slip shade lights somewhere in The Box House, maybe the bedrooms. But for that, there is no rush. We already way blew the budget for the month on light fixtures. So no more chandelier shopping for me.

Unless I see a really cool one on eBay, that is.

Fan and Antique Art Deco Sconce Lights Finally Installed

Well, the rewiring of the living room took longer than planned--doesn't everything?--but we now have a new fan, antique sconces, and a new push button switch to match the one Ted installed in the dining room.

With the discovery that there were once sconces above our fireplace, we were quite excited to find vintage replacements on eBay. The patent date on the back of these says 1926, one of the three possible dates our house was built (1925 and 1928 being the other dates we've seen). Perfect.

Ted rewired the sconces and installed them last night. (If you're in the Chicago area, Marshall Electric offers some great deals on supplies.) I wanted to use flicker bulbs, but they really didn't produce enough light. Instead, we're using 40 watt (at least I think they're 40 watt) amber bulbs.

The effect is really cool.

The pattern on the surface of the bulbs creates wavy patterns on the walls and ceiling. It kind of reminds me of vintage theatre lighting:

And when you switch on the light of the new overhead fan, the whole room takes on a soft, cozy glow. Even though it was nearly 2 o'clock in the morning when we finished, we had to run outside to see how it looked from the street.

We had discovered that in the forties, a previous owner had removed whatever fixture was on the ceiling and capped it over, removed the sconce lights and plastered over the wall, and removed the only light switch in the room and plastered that over, too. That left only four--or is it five?--floor-level receptacles for plug-in lamps. For the life of me, I can't figure out what their motivation was. It looks so much better now.