16 April, 2009

Chandelier Installation, WD40, and Plaster Color Selection

Oooh...our postal carrier brought us a box yesterday. What could be inside?


The dining room chandelier. Yay! In my hand I'm holding up one of the arms from the chandelier beside one of the sconces we installed a few weeks ago. We couldn't find a patent date on the chandelier, but it's obvious they are from the same line. The sconces themselves are marked 1926. The chandelier came from New Jersey, the sconces from, I think, a seller in Michigan. But we joked around that these were probably the original fixtures to our house come home again.


Unfortunately, the chandelier is not brass and copper, as the seller said. It's brass with copper-painted accents and steel. Know how we know it's steel? Because of all the rust. When we unwrapped it, we were surprised to see tons of rust flecks everywhere. When Ted disassembled the chandelier to rewire it, we saw why.

The base is made of painted steel, and it looks like water had at some point leaked from whatever ceiling it was hanging from, through the fixture, and collected in the base.

I grumbled a bit to the seller who did, to be fair, offer to take the chandelier back for a refund. But it matched our sconces exactly, so I wasn't willing to give it up. However, if a seller says it's made of brass, I don't want to find out it's really rusty steel.

We did what we could to halt the rust. Big fans of WD40, we soaked rags with it and wiped out all the interior rust, being careful not to let it flow onto the exterior finish. It worked pretty well.

We ended up wiping down most of the interior screws and anchoring bits as well, ridding them of rust and adding a protective layer of WD40.

Then Ted replaced the blah and boring lamp cord with bronze cloth-covered cord, at least for the cords that were showing. I think you can see a bit of it in the photo below. The rest of the cord had been replaced recently, and was in good shape, so we left it.

Then we hung it up, stuck in some bulbs, and went outside to admire it from the street. (You can see detailed pics of the chandelier at this previous post.)

The kittens seemed pretty impressed, too.

Or maybe it was just the lady bug crawling across it.

We're nearly done with what we plan for the dining room. Mom and I went to The Home Depot today to pick up some Behr Venetian Plaster for the walls. I'll do a how-to on Venetian Plaster next week, but here's a sneak peek at the color.

Yummy, no?

8 comments:

OnlineHandyman said...

Nice work and I am glad that the rust didn't ruin it for you. You cleaned it up very well and it looks great! I wonder how many people know about how good WD 40 is with rust.

Karen Anne said...

Isn't it great to finish a really nice improvement?

I had no idea WD40 worked on rust, that's a very useful tip.

min hus said...

I love how your crack inspection team made sure that package was safe to open. :)

And my those kittens have grown!! They're still so cute tho.

modernemama said...

Hope you don't come in one day to find kitty swinging from the chandelier, it's too gorgeous (and so are the kitties)

Joanne said...

OnlineHandyman--The previous owners left behind some WD40, and we seemed to accumulate several bottles of our own. We use it on everything.

Karen Anne--It's great how one simple thing can change how you feel about the room, and forget for just a moment all the other projects that still need to be finished. Or started.

Min Hus--Nothing can come into the house without a thorough sniffing.

modernemama--I think it could take the weight of one hefty Maine Coon, but I'd rather not risk it!

Jen said...

Look at all your cute critters.

The chandlier is lovely.

Can't wait to see more of the plaster.

Anonymous said...
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Cursos De Iniciacion Al Pan Para Ninos said...

Thaanks great blog post