craftgrrl | Of wire & whimsy

So, I got this chandelier at a recycling junkyard about 5 years ago with the intent of putting it in my bedroom and hanging crystals off it.

It originally was for use with electricity. But I pulled out all the faux electric candles to put in real candles, and drilled the brass plate things below them to hang wire wrapped clear marbles from.

Well, the wire wrapping of the marbles took far longer to make than was reasonable, and with only marginal results. And the candles didn't sit right in the candle cups as they have about twice the diameter of a regular candle holder.

So the chandelier went into storage to be forgotten about until a couple weeks ago.

I unpacked it, pulled off my attempts at 'crystals' and reaccessed what I had.

I then went through my jewelry making box and took all the little flotsamy bits left over from other projects, old mystery keys, leftover bits taken off other jewelry, misc stuff I more than likely would never use, and even some wire wrapped river glass leftover from an attempt at a suncatcher over 10 years ago and put them onto the chandelier. It actually took more 'stuff' than I thought it would and I was scrambling to find misc bits to fill in the last gaps.

Then I went looking for candles.

I normally remelt my own from leftover scraps so was quite dismayed to find that even the 'discount' stores were charging exorbitant amounts for thickish white tapers.

So I decided to undo the 'low teching' of the lamp I did several years ago and rewire it.

Fortunately I didn't pull the wire out of the arms or I would have just made candles out of Sculpy....

So $20.00 later, 2 trips to hardware stores where I had to restrain myself from saying anything tart to the aggressively 'helpful' employee at the first place who just stared at me blankly, then started pointing at random stuff on the shelf asking 'Is this it? Is this it?' Including pointing to a ceiling hook and mollybolt kit when I carefully, and repeatedly told him:
"Chandelier replacement light socket. Candelabra light socket replacement kit. The light sockets that go under the plastic candle sleeve on a chandelier. A thin light socket for chandeliers that goes under a plastic sleeve that has a bulb socket on the top, two metal brackets, and a screw in the bottom, etc etc etc"
(I ended up finding all that I needed unassisted at the second hardware store. They even had 4 different socket lengths to choose from.)

*I already had the spool of wire*

And then in progress on my kitchen floor

I had to screw off the whole arm, and then remove the threading so I could inch the wire further up to the ends with enough room for stripping and threading onto the replacement sockets.
Took longer than anticipated. Mainly playing with stuck bolts in hard to reach areas.
I'd estimate about 2-4 hours.

*Had I known I would be rewiring this I would have put on all the 'stuff' afterwards as it made an ungodly clanking wracket the whole time I was working on it.*

I also needed to replace the main power wire. Which I put a plain plug onto the end of
so I can take it with me when I move, also the ceiling isn't wired for power. I can always switch it out if need be.