Classy Brassy

     Remember when I told you a little about my AMAZING mother, here and here?  Well thanks, YET AGAIN, to her graciousness, the latest addition to our ongoing guest room/home office makeover, was...
 FREE!

     My mom, recently replaced all of her outdated and improperly scaled brass light fixtures with the most beautiful chandeliers. I am not going to lie--I am currently experiencing the slightest bit of design envy...

Necessarily, I didn't even have to ask begged her to kindly donate her old fixtures to my increasingly large pile of makeover projects. Of course she said yes, and I went straight to work on taking the largest of the chandeliers from brassy to classy...

And here's how I did it...

In the interest of full disclosure, Mom's brassy beauty had actually undergone a previous makeover about ten years ago. Please--no judging, but this is what the chandy' looked like a few days ago...

This is actually the smaller (but virtually identical) of the two chandeliers my mom handed down to us. Unfortunately, of course I forgot to take a "before" photo of the larger chandy' that was the actual makeover subject of this project...

But you get the idea...

This lovely look was achieved many a year ago with a can of this...

And while said "makeover" may have seemed entirely regrettable, it turns out that the existing texture made all the difference when it came to making over the chandelier this go-round...

I like to think that the existing texture not only ultimately added dimension, but also a feigned age/personality/character to an otherwise rather ordinary chandelier...

Back to the SUPER SIMPLE process, though...

First I spray painted the chandy' with a very light coat of this (leftover from a previous project)...

Once the first paint layer was dry, I spray painted a fairly thorough layer of this (another leftover)...

How easy was that???

I added a chord cover...

Some razzle dazzle (leftover from a previous chandy' project)...

And even recycled the old tattered and yellowed shades by spray painting them white...

(I can't believe that actually worked, but it does--TRY IT)

And because I just can't resist a little distressing--even on a chandelier--I sanded ever so lightly in some areas...

My-oh-my! How can I resist this little light of mine?

Free, fun, feminine, and oh so French-y...

 Here's hoping that the next time you come across a brass light fixture (particularly if it is FREE), you run TO it and not AWAY from it...

With potential like this...why not give your brass some class?

We are working really, really hard to place all of the finishing touches on the guest room so that we can share the rest of our simple and affordable projects with you. If you look really closely at some the pictures above, you can even spot a few previews!!! I hope you'll stay tuned...

 And, as always, thanks for visiting :o)

XOXO,