I have been buying antique light fixtures for years. I adore eBay and find so many irresistible deals on vintage and antique lights. I buy what I love and store it away to use someday, in some as of yet unrestored room of our house. I have so many boxes of lights packed away that I don’t even remember what I have any more. And I am running out of rooms!

I went through all the boxes the other day and it was like Christmas morning. I was overjoyed to find this little light. It goes perfectly in our dining room. I smile every time I see it.

As a rule I try not to spend more than $250. I buy what speaks to me and don’t worry about it’s value or collectibility.

We finally got the chandelier hung in the den. It sat in the corner for over a month after we had it replated. Now that I see it up I wonder why we waited so long?

We needed more light outside for security reasons. The previous owner had placed lights around the house. Although large, they didn’t really put out enough light and were clunky looking. We decided a better solution would be to romove those lights and place motion sensor lights inconspicuously under the rafters.

We lit up the porch area with two lanterns I purchased last fall from The Bright Spot. We were a little behind on hanging our lights!

The antique light has finally arrived! Isn’t it beautiful?

Looking into the den from our living room. The new plaster walls are such an improvement.

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This isn’t a how-to article. I don’t think there is any need for a step-by-step guide on how to blow your restoration budget, that is if you are organized enough to have created a budget. The first room we tackled was our dining room and we were cluesless about how much it would cost. Budget? What budget? Our philosophy was it costs what it costs. We have since become a little wiser, but just a little.

This time around we created a rough estimate of what we would spend restoring the living room and den. But, things like having the plaster completely fall off your walls in numerous places tends to blow any budget, er, rough estimate out of the water.

Fortunately, or unforetunately depending on your point of view, our budget is expandable. Kind-of like my waistline after eating at In-n-Out Burger too many times because everything in our kitchen, including the dishes sitting inside our cupboards, is covered with a fine white dust from when our new plaster walls were sanded, and sanded again, and yet again.

The death of our budget was a 1910 Arts & Crafts Chandelier made from hammered iron with a brass plated finish and caramel/white slag glass in excellent condition that glows a warm amber when lit. The fixture has very classic Arts & Crafts lines with a tapered body and upper “cut out” windows in the center shade, riveted construction, a hammered finish and a nice dark patina. The antique dealer’s website said, “Another great piece of early North American lighting that is becoming hard to find.”

I looked at the light once, I looked at the light the next day, I looked at the light every day for a week, I showed David the light, I spoke incessantly about the light and finally I emailed the antique dealer to see if he would come down on the price a little bit. He wouldn’t, but starting my email with, “My husband and I have fallen in love with a light fixture featured on your website,” probably wasn’t the best bargaining position. The dealer smelled blood and we caved, or splurged – that’s what we are calling it, our splurge – and we bought the light. “Our splurge” sounds so much nicer than we have lost our minds! But, hey, every restoration project deserves one splurge, right? Right?