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Chandelier Makeover With Soda Cans!

by on Sep 26, 2012

We’ve been hanging onto this chandelier ever since we removed it from a house we remodeled awhile back. Last week, I finally got around to giving it a makeover. It was installed glass-shades-down over a the dining table in an eat-in kitchen. Left as is, it was too bulky and just not quite right for any installation in our house. What it needed was to be flipped upside down and given a paint job. It also needed to lose its gigantic glass shades (pictured in the small image on the lower right above). 

First, we started with the inversion. This is easier than you might expect. Basically, you just unscrew what you can and take the fixture apart. Then you put it back together the other way around. Seriously, it’s that easy. This is what it looked like after the flip-around:

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I had the perfect paint on hand, but it wasn’t spray paint. No biggie. I just used a sponge to cover the fixture so as to avoid brush marks. Plus, I like the texture the sponge gives the paint. 

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Okay, so at this point it was looking much better, however, I needed to address those ‘cup’ things that held the gigantic shades. I didn’t want to just replace the shades with something smaller. I wanted to eliminate them altogether to make the chandelier more chandelier-like, if you know what I mean. 

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I considered a few things with which to cover the transition from cup to socket. Roof flashing and small cat food cans came to mind. I ditched those fairly quickly when it occurred to me that soda cans were the PERFECT circumference. So that’s what I did. I cut the bottom off the cans, then punched a hole in the center of the bottoms and cut out a hole to make a baffle. I finished by trimming close to the beveled edge of the can to straighten the visible edge. And as for that choppy center, you don’t see it once installed.

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Here’s a shot of the fixture installed, aiming down. See? The jagged edges are invisible.

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And here is a long shot installed in our guest room. Oh, and I tried flipping the soda can baffles to make them look like little saucers. Sweetie and I agreed we like them the other way as they looked more like a purposeful transition.

created at: 09/26/2012

 

 

 

 

 

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