Chandy

One of my sweet deals from the shopping excursion in San Marcos was a fabulous capiz chandelier from West Elm (here). After bargaining with the manager to get a more pristine shade piece, the chandelier which came in two pieces (shade with capiz shells and canopy) left in my hands for 64% off retail. Booyah. I had been eyeing this chandelier for some time online, but never wanted to pay retail for it. This find was HUGE!

So home I went and decided to hang this thing all by myself. No problem. Sure, I am not the electrician in the family and of course I hadn't hung a chandelier by myself before, but why not. As you can see, here is the before picture of my dining room. The builder-grade chandelier you see was the centerpiece of room and very uninspiring. Snooze and not my style.

I had many struggles with the new chandy, which included:

1. The ceiling hole from the old chandelier was wider than the baseplate of the new chandelier. Patch/tape/mud/sand needed.

2. Shade and canopy did not match. Nope. Luckily the outlet had the matching canopy, and they sent a courier to pick up the old canopy and deliver the matching canopy. Amazing!

3. It took over an hour to unfurl the carefully packaged, triple bagged and taped, extremely fragile capiz shell danglies. None broken, I'm awesome.

4. But the ultimate "struggle": I may have put a stepstool on the table (with the table runner still on it) since I was too short to reach the ceiling. I may have had the chandelier canopy hanging from my shoulder while I was sweating in the dark with a spotlight illuminating the ceiling, trying my hand at wiring the chandy. I may have had my pockets stuffed full of wire nuts, screwdrivers, and screws. I may have shimmied the stool too close to the edge of the table, the stool may have fallen off, I may have thrown the canopy to the floor and I may have, just maybe, done some parkour from the falling stool, to the table, to a chair to the foyer to save my stupid hide. ...this may have happened.

Good stuff.

At the end of several days, the new chandelier was hung and I love how it turned out. What do you think?