As part of the “Do it Yourself” series here at Harmony & Canvas, we pride ourselves in using what God has given us wisely. In fact, most days it’s a pleasure to challenge ourselves and see just what we can come up with that looks like it cost a lot but really didn’t (shhh!).
Most large cities and communities have some sort of “building supply bargain house” where one can traipse in and find themselves in a conundrum: too many building supplies, and a limited amount of time. Real first-world problems eh? So, what we like to do is focus on our strengths (what we’re good at) and keep an ever-rotating and updated list of “What we like” (styles of decorating, individual items, favorite colors) and “What we can’t live without” (our “must have” list of items that bring us joy to create and to have in our homes.
Being that we really like lighting fixtures, we ended up at the aforementioned “building supply bargain house” in our area, and found a wonderful heavy-metal (not to be confused with the genre of music) chandelier. It was hard-wired (needing a junction box to be mounted on it’s eventual ceiling) so we decided to modify the wiring to make it a plug-in. There are many tutorials on both Youtube and online but the electrical supply expert at your local hardware store will work in a pinch.
If you do find a fixture you have to rewire, keep in mind that it’s much easier (and more durable) to purchase an extension cord from your local discount store and strip off the female end, freeing the wiring up to be attached to your light fixture than it is to buy the cord by the foot at the hardware store, which requires that you be creative in shoving all the wiring into a new plug that you need to purchase separately.
Ours was already painted the color we wanted when we found it (for 15 dollars!) so we removed the ceiling medallion and completed the wiring to make it suitable to be plugged in.
Then we noticed something: it didn’t have any baubles on it! And it was still a gorgeous piece (reminds one of us of deer antlers…). This coincided with one of our trips to the local thrift/consignment store and we picked up what used to be a Ross Dress for Less candle holder (Original tag still on it: $11.99).
Using great care and a couple of different needle-nosed tipped pliers, we separated the baubles/crystals from the rings on one end and separated them again to get two separate strands of crystals from each original strand of the candle holder.
Pictured here are some jump rings, but you can use thread or beading wire too if you prefer. It’s easier if your chandelier already has pre-drilled holes, which most do to accommodate crystals and such. It is also helpful to have the ceiling fixture on a lower surface but since we’d already mounted ours, we decided to adorn it in-place.
Use good-quality masking tape and temporarily affix each of the series of crystals to its respective “branch” of the chandelier while you use your wire/string to attach each section to its respective place on the chandelier. Carefully remove the tape and wham-o. There you go.
Ours looks like it could use some more crystals and since we have far more than we used, it will indeed get an upgrade sometime when one of us runs out of other projects (so, maybe next June?).
Hope you are all well and feeling as blessed as we are. We are ever so grateful to have you in our midst and to be called children of God. That makes us brothers and sisters, right? Take care.
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