Chandelier swap is complete

For some reason we still can’t figure out, someone had installed a ceiling fan in our entryway. There’s not one in the living or dining room downstairs, but there was one in the entryway. The only real use I could think of was that it helped circulate air to the upstairs if you run it backwards, but that would only really work if it was upstairs in the hallway.

When we took out the old dining room chandelier and replaced it with the new (free) one that’s much larger, we had the old small (and sort of crap looking) dining room fixture left over to do something with. We wanted to take the ceiling fan out of the entry and Rachel had the idea to swap in the old dining room fixture. We couldn’t use the fan without fixing it anyway, since one of our workers broke a blade off while it was in the basement during drywall installation.

Rachel cleaned up the old fixture as best as she could, taped over the light sockets, and then took it out in the backyard and used a can of “Oil Rubbed Bronze” spray paint to give it a nice new coat of paint. The paint comes out looking black from a distance, but up close it has little metallic flecks in it, and the texture is actually more like a powder coating than spray paint. (Random fact: I worked in a powder coating warehouse for a summer after graduating high school.)

I had to get some mounting hardware from Home Depot to hang the new light in the existing box, which turned out to be even easier than I thought. I basically just needed the hollow, double-sided barrel screw that allows the wires to run through it while holding the light. I’ve got to patch the drywall around the base, since it’s smaller than the old fan cover and it’s a little damaged on one side. Maybe a ceiling medallion around the base? I took out 5-6 links from the chain to get it high enough for the two 6’5″ friends we have, and here’s the finished product. We’re pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Once again, for our two chandelier projects, all we’ve bought is a can of paint. Not bad.

Entryway Before/After (Sep 2010 – March 2011)