the chandelier story

Interesting little story I have to share about an old chandelier.  

I can't begin to tell you how much stuff I have at my house.  I inherited a ton of stuff from my parents and grandmother.  For those of you who have lost parents, it often hard to get rid of stuff you inherited.  So, I've hung on to a lot of it; so much of it that I often forget what I have.  I think I've mentioned before that as my pal, Jennie, and I go junking, I often see things and say "I think I have one of those" and Jennie replies, "of course you do."

So, Jennie is redoing her master bath.  She really needed to....let's just say there was golden color wallpaper and border that was, well, no nice way to say it, the color of, um, shhhh...pee (it came with the house).   Jennie lives in a huge house in one of the nicest neighborhoods so the bathroom makeover was a must.  She tells me she would love to find a vintage chandelier to hang over the bathtub.  

"I think I have one of those."

"Of course you do."

It's amazing how you view things as a child.  I remember going with my parents to an estate sale when I was a kid.  They bought a chandelier.  It hung in our formal living room (you know, the room nobody goes in).  I remember it being huge, lots of crystals, gawdy.  I remember it being so 70's (which is the decade we bought it from the estate sale.)  Hey Jennie, you're welcome to use it but I don't think you'll like it.  So we haul it down from our attic.

Here is the huge gawdy 70's chandelier:

hmmmm, not as 1970's as I remember; maybe a little older than that

but it's missing crystals and it is DIRTY, gross dirty.

here are the crystals that have fallen off; yep, there supposed to be clear.

ugh!

So, we hang it up and take a pic to send to Jennie because after she sees it, 

we'll be able to throw it back in the attic. No way she'll want that. 

You know, it's really not that huge like I remember.

What?  She wants it?  Is she crazy? Ok, you can have it. 

Come and get it.  

She does.  She takes it home and washes it.  She takes every crystal off

and washes them in the dishwasher.  She darkens the brassy finish just a bit and painstakingly 

hangs each of those crystals back on.  

OMG...wait for it....

it's beautiful!

and so is her new master bath (love those curtains!). The walls are a solid color

but you can see the pattern the chandelier creates on them.

It cleaned up pretty well, don't you think?

I'm linking up to a few special linky parties in my list above or down below on the right.