DIY Chandelier
Wed, Feb 3, 4:25 PM (6 days ago)
Hi friends!
My dear friend Hannah and I had a wonderful time putting together a chandelier for her new home and I can’t wait to tell you all about it! Settle in with a nice cup of tea and see what we did!
Hannah and I have been friends since high school and now that she is settled in and married to her amazing husband who also has been a friend since high school they are building their dream home! I’ve been helping her through some of the design components and one thing we found when picking out lighting for her home is she just couldn’t find a chandelier big enough and in the right style for her dining room. One day when looking at inspiration for what to do to fix this issue we discovered her love for a wood chandelier with hanging lightbulbs. After looking around and still not finding exactly what she wanted we decided to take a shot at making a chandelier for her future home!
Now Hannah had already salvaged some beautiful wood that came off of a table that she had remodeled that originally had come from Goodwill for $15. Then with some research online she found a lighting kit off Amazon for $35 and the chandelier was ready to get built!
When the trim was removed from the table it came off in two pieces that we later screwed together.
When first looking at the wood it was definitely an outdated stain with a super high gloss on it that was just not appealing. I suggested whitewashing the wood in order to tie in better with her modern country home. Once we were investigating the details of whitewashing the wood we realized there would be a lot more sanding time and labor involved before we could even get to the actual whitewash. Since this was technically scrapped wood that originally she was going to throw away we figured why not try something new! We dipped our rags into the white paint bucket and rubbed it all over the wood until we were satisfied. And boy were we satisfied! Somehow the texture and glaze of the wood that was currently there took to the paint really well and created a whitewash effect that we were looking for without all the extra sanding involved! Once it had dried we did take a small piece of sandpaper to different parts of the wood in order to create a further distressed look. Then the two pieces of wood were screwed together and we got to work on the lighting kit!
At first, the lighting kit seemed like it was going to be a stretch for us amateur DIYers. But it was actually the easiest thing - I promise! Once we had pulled out all the pieces for the kit and counted the number of lightbulbs we went to work deciding where to place them; since there were 10 lightbulb sockets we decided to evenly spaced them and hang them just under the wood. We played around with what different links of cord would look like but finally decided on more of a spokes-in-a-wheel look with the cords being tight in the center, just slightly above the wood piece. Once we were finished we hung it from the ceiling in her basement and just admired our amazing work! All that’s left to do is install the chandelier from the center, add some fun Edison lightbulbs and it’s ready to go! This project was quick and easy and so much fun to do with a good friend!
Good luck with your DIY!
Ana!
