4 Step Chandelier Upgrade

First of all, HAPPY EASTER! Your Easter gift from us? A DIY fairy tale!

Once upon a time, we bought a house and wanted to decorate it and make it our own without spending a lot of money. So we used what we had and made due. This is a tale of such adventures…

Remember the Kitchen Reno? We loved the end result. And then came adding the cozy factor. We loved that too. And adding function and decor in one project? Just call us lovesick. The one thing in our kitchen that we DID NOT love was… the red chandelier. Need a close up? Here she is again (sorry for the blur)… However, as the prologue of this story states, we were not into the whole “spending money to get a new one” fad, so we put Plan B into action. Use what you have and make it work!

You may have a similar situation in your house/apartment/fill in the blank… Something that you don’t love, but can’t spend money to replace. I feel you- and that’s why we’re here. Welcome to the 4 Step Chandelier Upgrade 🙂

At first, I wasn’t sure where to go with this. Paint it all black? We don’t really have much black in our kitchen apart from appliances. Go white? I didn’t feel like painting the chain white and wasn’t sure if having a white chandelier with a black chain would go against the theme of our kitchen. In the end, I decided to use some leftover teal (surprised? you shouldn’t be…) we had from the 2nd Bedroom. My hope was that it would play nicely with all of the other blues in the room…

If you’re looking into a similar project, here are the easy steps I took to get the final product:

Step 1: Sand existing chandelier (if necessary). The middle of our chandelier is made of wood, so I gave it a quick sand to rough it up enough for the paint to stick.

Step 2: Clean all parts. This is important. As with most chandeliers, ours is a dust catcher. I cleaned it off with a wet paper towel and let it dry before starting to paint. The last thing you want is dust particles in your paint job!

Step 3: Paint! For this project, I started out just painting the main part of the chandelier- the middle.

I left the “arms” black for about a week, just to see how it would look.

In the end, painting the entire piece made it look more cohesive and modern, rather than leaving it half painted.

Step 4: Add shades. If you want. For awhile, our chandelier was teal with no shades (the previous ones were red and filled with dust and soot, so we threw them out). I figured that if I came across some cheap ones somewhere, maybe we’d go for the shaded look. Lo and behold, The Goodwill pulls through! I was able to find a set of six white shades that fit perfectly- I even have one to spare, should any of them need to be replaced. Hooray!

Here is how she’s lookin’ today!

The color ended up being a great fit for the kitchen and ties in well with all of our other blue/teal decorations. We like that the chandelier feels fresh and light and attracts your eye to it in a good way, without being a dark, looming presence against the lighter walls and ceiling. All in all- a DIY win. Score one for the “let’s make it work” team!

Super easy, super cheap, super big impact. Love it when that happens!

That’s… “the fun of it”!

-Leslie