You’ve now seen the first two installments of our chandelier makeover. First, we painted the dingy brass.

Then, Hubs had to add a junction box.

We also had to shorten the chain since it was on a lot longer in the living room where my parents had it. Hubs used his wire strippers to do this.

Finally, we were ready to hang it. This project had actually been a pretty frustrating process up until this point. I’m sure some people would say it wasn’t worth it, and that’s fine, because it’s true that we could have went to the store and bought a cheap light fixture to just hang up, but this one just has more character. And I got to save the light that was in my parents’ living room when I was growing up. Still, it was heavy and awkward to work with.

Make sure to be careful during this step. And always turn the power off!

So, after the junction box was securely, up, we realized we were going to need to add a ceiling medallion to cover the hole. The popcorn ceiling mess created some rough edges that showed a little around the base of the junction box and light. 

So, we picked up one of these from Home Depot. A pretty cheap fix.

We considered painting it blue to match the light, but decided the white was maybe a little classier. We can always paint it later if we change our minds though, right?

Then, it was a simple, yet difficult (this light is heavy!) process of screwing the chandelier into the ceiling.

We had to do a bit of finessing to get it to hang more level because the light is old and bit off balance. We tried all sorts of ideas to weight one side but couldn’t find a way to do it without the weights showing or causing a fire hazard. See, no room in there…

So, we switched all the globes around a few times, and used two types of light bulbs (those new, curly-q bulbs are heavier than traditional ones) and we finally got it about right. Close enough, at least. Oh, and one of the bulbs burned out right as we got finished…just another step in the process that fought back…

Oh, and we scratched the door when we were working that night when we clamped the clamp light onto it. So we had to touch up the paint…

By this point, we thought we’d never get finished, but here’s how it finally turned out.

I love the touch of fun it adds to the room.

Not that the room isn’t already kind of bright and fun. But a bright-colored chandelier just adds a bit extra whimsy, no? And it has way, way more personality than we had in there before.

We’d love to hear of a way you’ve added some bright colors or personality to a room. How do you feel about painted chandeliers? Have you ever hung a light that refused to hang evenly? Tell us more!