When we moved in, the house had a dreaded boob light in the hallway. (Update: see the hallway makeover here.) We quickly replaced it with this light:
It was only a few dollars at an architectural salvage store. (It’s not old though, they are still selling it at the home improvement store for about $75.) We picked it up because it was only a few dollars and it was better than the builder-grade ugly thing.
I’ve been wanting to replace it for a couple years with something that’s more our style, but haven’t…lighting is expensive! And finding one that’s your style second-hand can take years, literally.Â
To tide us over until then, I sanded off the dull, dirty yellow finish it had.
I was hopeful that it was just paint, and it was! So with a very coarse sanding block, I sanded the paint right off the glass fixture.
The sanding took a while, but it was easy of course, and it was a free upper body workout. That glass piece is a lot bigger than it looks when you’re trying to hold it and sand it.
Just put on a podcast and sand away.
If you test this on your light fixture and find that it isn’t a flat-finish paint as ours was, you can always spray paint the outside of it. Of course, depending on your fixture, you could lose a little of the light that comes through the fixture, but it might be worth it!
Once the sanding was done, I gave it a good wash in the kitchen sink and it looked like it had always been white.
To our surprise, we actually like it now. As in, we are totally fine with giving up the search for a new one and keeping it. It was subtle, but removing the paint from the light fixture made such a big difference.
We have a thing for making over or making lighting, check out or other ideas here.
It makes a huge difference according to me! I didn’t realy like your light fixture, but now it so much lighter! Lovely! Keep it!
Thanks, Magali! I think we might just keep it. 🙂
Wow what a difference. The feel is so much better now, more simple, just better.
I was surprised at how different too.
I’ve done this with a couple of shades but, I scrubbed off the paint with a steel wool pad and a sink of fairly hot water. The lights seem so much brighter. Yours look great too.