My Life Just Got A Bit Fancier

As you know by now, I've been keeping something from you.

You wanna know what slows me down?  Blog pictures.  I haven't yet found a great editing routine that works for me, but I'll keep at it!

So here's the something:

 (And in case you were wondering about me, I do let sleeping dogs lie.)

Let me just start out by saying that I scored this beauty at the Restore for a whopping $4.  Yeah...seriously.  I found it soon after I walked in and clutched it with white knuckles until I was done browsing the rest of the store.  Just be patient and keep going back to places and searching.  I promise you will eventually get lucky with lighting, especially if you're looking beyond appearances and willing to put in a little elbow grease.

But here's how it all had to start out:

First things first, I used blue painters tape to cover the tops of the "candles" where the bulbs would screw in.  Don't want to get paint in there!

Then I proceeded with a spray painted coat of Rustoleum's gray primer and three coats of their hammered copper.

When I got ready to wire this baby to the ceiling is when I realized that I had to rewire the base (not each of the individual arms, thank goodness) because the chain/cord wasn't quite long enough to be swagged over my table.

I wanted it to have enough slack to swag over and hang down about 30-32" from the table top (as is standard, according to my Google research.)  I went to Home Depot and picked up about 5 feet of black chain and standard lamp cord, both of which they sell in bulk from huge rolls of the stuff.  The lamp cord was, I believe, 18 gauge and brown in color.

For some insight into how tedious this was here are the pictures I took along the way to make sure I put it back together properly!

Once I got it all put back together with brand new wire and chain, Shaun helped me wire and mount it to the ceiling.  He really is a lovely man when he tries.  All that was left then was screwing in the ceiling hook so that it could be swagged over the table...

You guys, I have gotten to type 'swag' so many times in this post.  Success.

And yeah, then it stayed hanging in the middle of the room for a full week while Shaun "rested his arms."

But now it looks like this!

Perfection.  :)