Cheap Light Fix

I've already posted about this in my Peevish Pen blog, but thought it was appropriately frugal for here, too, so I'm reposting:

The light fixture in the family room died the other day. None of its ugly florescent tubes would come on. The plastic that used to cover the tubes had succumbed to crumbling last year, and we'd never gotten around to replacing it. Electrical engineer hubby put up a temporary fix while I checked prices of replacement fixtures. The temporary fix was functional but not a thing of beauty.

For the new fixture, I wanted a country look—but country looks cost big bucks. Meanwhile, I remembered seeing a picture of a chandelier that someone had spray-painted and made into a candlebra. We had a couple of vintage mid-70s chandeliers lying around somewhere. 

This truly ugly chandelier used to hang in the dining room before we upgraded. I don't think I'll ever use it again. I figured I had nothing to lose if I spray-painted it. First, I wrapped and taped the parts I didn't want to paint:

I had a full can of blue—my favorite shade of blue. Let's see what happens. . . . 

I needed to turn it over to paint the underside, and I happened to have an ugly silver-painted flowerpot that would hold the chandelier while getting itself painted at the same time.

Finally it was dry enough for hubby to hang. But we needed to check to see if it would work before we added all the bulbs and globes. 

Yes, it works!

After adding bulbs and vintage 70s globes, we now have this:

And all it cost me was a can of spray paint that I already had.

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