Fun With Antique Lighting

Alright, as you may be aware, I've decided to use antique lighting as much as possible throughout the house (with very few exceptions). That said, antique lighting is EXPENSIVE! Or is it? That really depends where you shop for it.

This is an example of a fairly typical antique fixture you would see in an antique lighting store. This one happened to be from an antiques market (from my recent trip), and I photographed it because it has matching shades and dome shade to the fixture I've got in my dining room. This fixture was 495.00$ (CAD + 13% taxes).



Now that's actually a pretty decent price, since I've seen similar fixtures for as much as 1500.00$ USD.

But I don't like paying full price, and I don't mind looking around for bargains, and there are definitely bargains to be found! The gorgeous, 100% original fixture with all the parts that I've got in my dining room (this one here:),



...was an eBay find for 95.00$ USD plus shipping. Add the price of the reproduction wire, and it was still under 150$. This was an absolute steal! I've seen one lighting shop that sold antique glass shades for as much as 130.00$ each! That's nuts!

The other fixture I got for the living room was also grabbed from eBay, and similarly priced (and WITH shades), but it needed a lot of work.

Before:





After:



Now, if you're willing to put all the time and effort into re-wiring and even refinishing these fixtures, you can get them very inexpensively.

As I mentioned, I made a trip recently to Ottawa (an hour from my home town), and I was able to rummage through a bunch of antique stores, and vintage lighting places, and I was able to buy some parts to complete some of my fixtures. I spent quite a bit of money on just a few parts, but I think I did fairly well.

From one dealer (the one with the 130.00$ shades) I bought a new repro brass canopy for the upstairs light, and that was 50.00$. It was about the same price I had seen from lighting parts suppliers, and it was very good quality so I got it. I actually should have bought two.

So here's the finished hallway light fixture, which is actually made up of spare parts. I used a spare turk-key socket and shade holder, along with a spare "loop", and some excess chain from a really insanely long fixture that I bought a while back. The top/canopy, as mentioned, is a repro.



Another fixture that I've assembled all the parts for (but that I haven't rewired/finished yet) is this large "gravity hook" shade fixture. Basically it's a finial-mounted canopy with 3 chains and 3 light bulbs attached to hooks. These hooks grab onto a large decorative shade. The "fixture" parts cost me something like 35$ USD + shipping, but the real hard thing to find was the shade. There were a few available for around 150.00 - 400.00$ but I waited to find a cheaper one. The first one I found cost something like 70$ with the shipping, but it got smashed to pieces due to crappy packing. I got refunded, and it was only about 1-2 months later that I found a second one. It cost about the same thing, but it arrived safely. That shade is ~14" across. Most of the parts on the table are for this fixture.



Another great find on my trip was from the same antiques market as the first photo above with the 4 shade + dome fixture. I found this set of two glass shades, and they were only 5$ each, but one of the two was broken (it had a small hole in one of the upper "bubbles" so I left it). For 5$ it will be good to have as a spare.



One of the fun things about antique lighting is that a lot of parts are interchangeable and adaptable with a mix of old and new parts. I've been looking for a bell-shaped shade holder for this wonderful acorn shade (which matches the dining room fixture) but the shade is a really odd size. It needs a 3 1/4" fitter, which aren't common. Most are for 2 1/4", 4", or 6". I actually came across a really hideous 1970's vanity fixture at Value Village (a thrift store) which had 2 globes held with 3 1/4" shade holders. They are plain antiqued brass, and for 4$ for the entire fixture, this gives me two 3 1/4" shade holders as well as an assortment of other parts (threaded rods, washers, etc). This acorn shade will be made pretty much the same as the upstairs hallway light above, and it will hang in the downstairs (main) hallway.



Lastly, I was able to find a plain "finial-mount" canopy to go with this fixture. I also picked up a bunch of antique turn-key sockets. All the lighting places I visited told me that they can't reuse these because of some ridiculous electrical code B/S (even though they are BETTER made than modern sockets), so I got 6 of them at 5$ each. The plain brass canopy was 35$, so I spent 75.00$ there.

I'm not sure where this fixture will go yet. Perhaps the upstairs "Laundry Room" (aka Guest Bedroom).



I'm still waiting for shade holders for this fixture (one on the left) which are on the way, and for parts for the one on the right (bell style shade holders instead of the earlier 1890's gas-type shade holders). The smaller fixture on the left will go in the front Office/PC room, and I already have 3 etched glass shades for it, and the 4 shade chandelier will probably end up going in the staircase.



I also have a bunch of antique shades I still need to find/buy. I've got two more shades coming in that are the same as the fancy ones on the dining room fixture. I keep going back to those ones because I like the milk glass, the patter, and I've managed to run across a few similar shades for cheap. I'm trying to keep the shades in the white/clear/frosted range, and avoid coloured or painted ones.

Bathroom Reno (Part 3)

Tiling was a big deal for me not because of the skill required, but because of the type of tile I was using. Slate. I chose natural slate tiles for the floor based on a client's bathroom I had seen, as well as an entry that I had seen in slate. It was one of the first things I bought because the store where I got it had a very good sale on it. Less than 2$ a tile, I believe. It cost around 120$ for enough tiles for the whole floor plus spares.

When it came time to install the tiles, I relied on the advice from one of the employees at Home Depot, and I went with a mastic type tile adhesive.

BIG MISTAKE!

Never ever use that shit. It is absolutely useless, and doesn't work at all. The manufacturers claim that it dries in 24 hours, but even after 2 days, if I walked over a tile, I could hear squishy noises. NOT good.

I ended up having the rip off all the tiles, scrape them, wash them, and start completely over. At this point I had only the main tiles done.







This was after 2 days of drying.



Soft like icing.





Here you can see the areas that were dry (just that little crust along the edges).



Luckily, it's all water based, and it came off fairly easily, but it was a huge set back, and ate up a lot of time for nothing.



When I returned the stuff to HD, the guy who worked in the plumbing/tiling area said that the other guy (a new guy) should have never sold me this, and that I should have gone with a thinset mortar/cement. They gave me the bag of thinset for free for all the trouble.

Apparently contractors like to use this mastic adhesive since it dries in 24 hours, but I can't understand how. It just doesn't dry. But that's what the tile guy said. He said it's not recommended for floors, or for anything larger than 6" x 6", but the label on the product clearly says that it's perfect for floors, and for tiles up to 12" x 12". It even says it's good for slate, so based on the label alone, it should have been perfect.

Here was the matched moulding for the window:



It was not an exact match, but it was the closest thing we had at work:



Back to the tiles, once I had the right product, it went well. I mixed the cement in small batches, and I laid the floor out the same as before (I had picked what tiles I wanted in which spots, so I numbered them). The thinset actually felt hard after just about an hour or so, and it was fully cured in 24 hours (so why use that other shit? Makes no sense).

I thought I had a pre-grout photo, but nope.



The grout was another nerve-wracking job that I was afraid to screw-up. Once it goes down, it's pretty permanent, and I also wanted nice smooth joints. I watched a few tutorials on YouTube, and then got it done. It was actually much easier than I had thought. Very messy, but not difficult. The trick is to use water very sparingly, and to make sure the tiles are very clean (no film). I picked a fairly dark colour for the grout, since it will eventually get dirty, and I wanted the dirt to show as little as possible. I also wanted something that would match well with the slate. I picked "New Taupe".

Installing the baseboards, and the toilet took a bunch more time, but it got done.















This is pretty much it. I just recently finished the door trim (crown), and a toilet seat was installed a while back (just a white wooden seat with chrome clips).



(The trim is now fully painted but I didn't photograph it yet).

Things left to do:

- Connect the fan and cut/install the vent in the roof.
- Make a fan cover.
- Vanity/mirror/sink.
- Accessories (towel bar, toilet paper holder)
- Door (I haven't got any doors for the house yet)

Bathroom Reno (Part 2)

Next came the vapour barrier and drywall. One of the reasons that I took down all the drywall was because A: it was super super dirty and gross, and B: because I wanted moisture/mildew proof drywall. This stuff is twice the price of regular drywall, but if it gets wet (and it did*) it won't rot.

* The drywall was in the garage after it was delivered, and I had not fixed the door/seal yet, so when it rained, all the bottom got wet.

I also had to cut the hole for the fan, which was pretty much terrifying, since I'd be disturbing the (probably) asbestos-contaminated insulation. So I went about this very slowly and carefully, and I pushed/slid the insulation out of the way for the most part. Cutting the hole was the most nerve-wracking, but I got it done.





I wanted a seamless edge for the fan, so it was installed using a wooden box/frame, which was mudded flush with the ceiling.





From the hallway side, I also installed some recycled mouldings. The top crown for the door was the piece that was on that bookshelf-thing in the wall in the office, and the side pieces and plinths were a mix of old and new.











Doing the joints/corners/seams in the drywall took forever. I have learned to hate it. In the end, the walls turned out pretty good, but the ceiling could have been better. It's still better than many other places in the house, though.

Here is the room primed:















Then I had to decide on a colour. Originally I wanted this one:



Which is the same as the colour on the right:



But I found it was too pink, and too dark. I was pretty disappointed since I had already bought the 50$ can of paint. I ended up using the lighter colour.

Window trim (also reused/salvaged bits and pieces).







The bottom piece of trim did not get made until much later.

COLOUR! For the most part, I've always lived in a white house (some wallpaper, but I don't count that) and even my apartment was all white. So this was a welcome change. I had wanted a more taupe/grey shade but I still like this.









The sconces were some of the cheapest I could find that had a classic look, with a chrome finish. I think they were 35$ each plus tax.

The cover that came with the fan did not fit, but it's hideous anyways:







The next step was to finish the bath surround so that I could shower in my own house! I had been walking over to my mom's house, 3-4 blocks away to shower.

I bought a neutral, "hotel style" fabric curtain, and a liner, as well as a fancy chrome tension rod.









Continue in Part 3...