A Dirty Dear…Transformed.

 

My online vintage lighting store.

 

For several years I had a 1940s crystal chandelier in a box.

The chandelier was dirty. Impressive dirty. Spectacularly dirty. It was so dirty that one had no idea it was made of glass.

Well, after all these years, I hauled the poor dear out from the storage vaults and restored it.

And today? The poor dear…is very happy. Gloriously, deliriously happy.

 

Happy, indeed, and soooooooo beautiful. The fixture is scaled for a foyer of bedroom.

 

I really love the top bowl. Stunning. Fabulous!

 

This brings a tear to my eye. Something which had been brutalized for many decades has been restored to its rightful place as an object of great beauty.

 

 

 

My online vintage lighting store.

 

 

 

10 Comments

  1. Seth Hoffman on February 12, 2018 at 10:02 pm

    That is a classy fixture!

  2. Carole E Sukosd on February 12, 2018 at 10:36 pm

    Such beautiful work you have ! !

  3. Sandra Lee on February 12, 2018 at 11:52 pm

    She is a magnificent & lovely dear beauty!

  4. Mary Garner-Mitchell on February 13, 2018 at 6:56 am

    Your lighting restorations must be so satisfying. Now, how can you bottle your energy and sell some to me??!

  5. Stewart McLean on February 13, 2018 at 11:44 am

    Ross,
    I have noticed over the years that so many lighting fixtures have a warning telling one not to install more than a sixty watt bulb in them. I have come to the conclusion that a larger incandescent bulb would produce enough heat that it could start a fire. When I was in the business of renting houses to college students, at the end of the leases, I would find somewhat scorched foil insulation above the bulbs on fixtures when replacing burned out higher wattage bulbs, but not the fluorescent bulbs. They had either ignored or not seen the warning about wattage.

    I have concluded that LED bulbs, which are sold as the equivalent light as incandescent bulbs of such and such wattage, can now be used in these fixtures because they produce so much less heat. When you specified a sixty watt bulb for this fixture, it brought my conclusion to mind. I am curious as to why you specify a sixty watt bulb for this fixture. Is there another reason for the wattage restriction that you know of? Do you believe that my conclusion is correct?

    Passing thought:
    As I wrote the words incandescent, and fluorescent above, I came to the conclusion that marketing people might start calling LED bulbs ledescent.

    • Seth Hoffman on February 13, 2018 at 11:52 am

      I would agree that the wattage restriction should apply to the electrical power consumed, not the “equivalent” light output to a traditional incandescent bulb. Ultimately, heat generation is the design/operational constraint for electrical components, and excepting light sources that are heavy on the infrared spectrum, there should be little difference in heat generation between a 60 watt incandescent bulb or an LED array that also consumes 60 watts of electrical power.

      On another note, there is one exception to saving energy with more efficient lighting: during the heating season in homes with electric resistance heat. Electrical resistance heating is by nature 100% efficient (in converting the power consumed into heat), so whether that heating element is inside your furnace or baseboard units, or in your light fixtures is irrelevant (excepting local insulation, etc). An incandescent light bulb is just an electrical resistance heating element that is designed to radiate some (a small fraction, though) of it’s energy in the visible light spectrum.

      • Stewart McLean on February 13, 2018 at 2:54 pm

        I see your logic, however a 100 watt equivalent LED bulb does not consume nearly sixty watts of power, it is supposed to just produce the light equivalent of a one hundred watt incandescent bulb. In a quick look at such bulbs on Amazon, I just saw 100 Watt equivalents that consume between 11 and 15 watts. That is a significant decrease in the wattage that I am guessing will produce a consonant reduction in the heat produced by a sixty watt bulb.

        • Seth Hoffman on February 13, 2018 at 3:32 pm

          Yes, that’s what I meant (perhaps my wording did not come across correctly). Actual heat output and current is all electrical components really care about.

          It would be easier if we were able to start thinking in lighting in terms of a direct measure of light output (e.g. lumens) rather than a secondary measure tied to a specific type of illumination device. I am trying to train myself to think in terms of lumens, and choose bulbs based on that, but old habits die very hard. It’s similar to a spoken language in terms of cognition.

          • Stewart McLean on February 13, 2018 at 6:46 pm

            Thank you, I just wanted to be certain that my understanding
            of what you were saying was correct. I am grateful for your input.



    • Seth Hoffman on February 13, 2018 at 11:56 am

      I’ve also discovered the scary results of using excessively-sized bulbs in fixtures, especially closed ones. The enclosed flush-mount fixtures with a glass dome (“Boob” lights) so common in recent construction are the most worrisome, as they have no airflow across the bulb, and limited ability to dissipate heat, and they’re installed tight against the ceiling. I find that CFLs, and even large LED bulbs live shorter lives in them, due to overheating the electronics.

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