The dining room light fixture in the house is a brass chandelier.
The contractor who did the popcorn ceiling removal took down all the light fixtures and didn’t replace them because the ceiling paint was wet when they left. Colin has been going room by room and putting them back up, but when we got close to the chandelier, we realized how dirty and tarnished it is.
The brass or metal covering was covered in dust but was also pretty tarnished to the point where I couldn’t exactly tell what color it was. I also couldn’t tell whether it had been aged intentionally or if the patina that gave it such a “shabby chic” look was natural from time. It has about 100 acrylic “crystals,” and those were also very dirty.
After a pretty extensive Google search, I think this chandelier is
-from the 1960s
-gilt, not solid brass
-Floral style, maybe Italian?
I don’t particularly like it, and I would prefer a light that is mid century modern and more simple. Here are some I liked:
Even though I was 80% sure I didn’t want the chandelier, I couldn’t resist this cleaning project. In retrospect, there are far more urgent things I should have been doing with my time, but it felt important that day.
First I started with a multipurpose cleaner and a sponge. I didn’t want to remove all the acrylic crystals but they were very irritating to work around and keep track of which ones I had cleaned. I didn’t want to scrub the metal too hard at first, but the scrubbing was rewarded with a shinier and shinier metal the harder I scrubbed, so I kept going. The metal definitely wasn’t smooth, it was pretty rough and the leaf decorations were really tiny. I didn’t want to damage the finish but the chandelier is so old I just couldn’t tell how shiny it was supposed to be.
This was such slow going that I ended up taking off all the crystals and putting the chandelier on a table on a piece of plastic because it was getting water everywhere. I moved to a bucket with water and a salt/vinegar paste and just tried to work quickly. The paste worked really well to make it shiny quickly. I needed a Q tip to get inside the leaf shapes that hold the candle shaped lights.
I cleaned all the crystals with a sponge and some all purpose cleaner. I was rewarded with some really clear, shiny acrylic crystals.
When I was thinking I might be done, I kept spotting a leaf that was still dusty or the side of an arm that needed scrubbing. However, I called it a day and I think it looks pretty good for now.
