Saving a Light

So, as prolifically crafty as I am, some things do get lost in the shuffle. I hate to admit that one of those things was the light fixture in Little Bear's room. Let me rewind a bit...

About 6 years ago, my husband and I bought two awesome (but in need of love) schoolhouse lights from a flea market for $75. They sat in a dusty old box in the basement for a while because we weren't sure what we were going to do with them. When we had to design a room for our last baby, one of those lights turned out to be the perfect thing.

My husband took the smaller light apart and we carefully cleaned the globe (thank goodness for Magic Erasers) and put it somewhere safe. We (this is the Royal "we", my husband actually did this) dismantled the workings of the light and separated the metal parts from the "electricity guts".

The metal parts before refinishing.

The metal parts were then taken to a local metal plater who stripped off the old rusty finish and applied a beautiful antiqued bronze coating. It looked good as new when we picked it up...3 years ago. Yeah, we got busy and never finished this light.

Close-up of the new finish.

 But a few weeks ago we got the notion to finally get this light together. We pulled out all the bits (made a quick stop at the hardware store for some solid brass screws and bolts) and got assembling.

My husband completely rewired the light with period correct cloth-covered wire that he purchased years ago on the Internet from a factory that actually still makes it. (See photo below.)

The prettiest wire in the world.

And voila, we had a period-restored 70 year old light. Another cool thing is that we installed a 100% LED 11 watt bulb that lights the room perfectly. 70 year old technology meets brand new technology...and works better than ever!

The new light in action. Now, I need to going on the rest of the room!

–Cassandra