Its Up! Its Good!

I got the 2 chandeliers hung in the parlors today. It is hard to believe that has been more than 4 years in the making. They will be coming back down, because the room needs a lot of work. Also, there will be plaster medallions up there someday. For now, though, I have more light, along with some pretty stylish 100+ year old chandeliers to look at.

Rewiring the second one did not go as smoothly as the first. I had one of the old wires break as I was trying to use it to pull the new wire through. I had to get the old wire back in the arm, which was not easy, and then re-solder and pull it through again.

Then, once I got it mostly assembled I realized I put the center ring that the arms attach to upside down. Not the end of the world, but a bit of a pain. The last problem is that two of the sockets – one on each chandelier – are missing the pull chains. I didn’t want to put shiny new brass chains on, because it wouldn’t look right. Instead, I tried to figure out which was the on position – not as easy as you think – and just leave the sockets turned on. The fixtures are operated by a wall switch, so its not like I’m ever going to use the pull chains anyway.

Well, I had a 50/50 shot of getting it right, and wouldn’t you know I got it wrong. Now one socket on each chandelier is in the off position and there’s no pull-chain to turn it on. Like I said, there coming down anyway, so I’ll worry about this later.




This is what I’ve been using for light for the last 5 years. You can see where the old medallion was. It was viciously ripped off the ceiling at some point. There is also a black ink line showing where the new medallion will go. I thought I was going to need to open up the ceiling to rewire, so I drew the outline of the new medallion up there in hopes that any damage I made would be covered by the medallion. As it turned out I was able to rewire from above.

The brown circles are remnants of adhesive from those asbestos laden, 12X12 ceiling tiles that were glued to the ceiling. That stuff was nasty. Most of it was stuck to wallpaper, which I later stripped off. Some of it was stuck to the plaster and I had to use a heat gun to get it off. It was the most hideously smelling stuff you can possibly imagine. It took weeks to clear the smell out of the house.



Here’s where I’m at now. This is the front parlor…



And this is the back parlor. The house is looking less and less like a feculent hell-hole all the time.



As I said, I’m missing a couple of pull chains. The one above is an original. Note the little brass acorn at the bottom. Those Victorians just thought of everything, didn’t they. You can see why I didn’t want a crappy, shiny new brass chain up there. Of course, now the hunt is on for antique chains will little brass acorns on them. I have the feeling it is going to be a long hunt.



This is the last remaining original medallion in the house. This is in the foyer.





The three above are for the parlors and dining room. They’ve been in the attic for forever and a day. They are real medallions, in that they are made of real plaster, but they are not real, in that they are reproductions. However, they are real reproductions of real plaster medallions. Two I bought from friends locally, another I bought at Ohmega Salvage, in the bay area.

Getting the fixtures up in the parlors is exciting, but the best part is, this means I'm over the lighting hump. I have now rewired and installed 11 antique light fixtures in the house. There are only 9 more to go, which means I'm more than half way finished. Woo! Hoo!