Yes, please I'll take this Chandelier for $7.

Hello G-dub (that's Goodwill, for those of you who aren't in on the latest lingo), I adore you. I adore you even more when I find this sitting on the shelf:

She's dirty and a little gross. But boy does she have potential! I almost walked away. Then I saw the price tag that said $6.99.

Now, it wouldn't have been a big deal, except we were recently at Ikea and I was going to buy this for our master bedroom closet:

No big deal at forty bucks, but not quite the antique look I was hoping for.

This one at Home Depot was a little better, but at a hundred bucks, I didn't want that either:

(dear Home Depot - get a better picture...)

So, I grabbed this one up as quickly as I could. For seven dollars, if it didn't work who cares! I could still use it as a decoration.

We made this little contraption so it would be easy for me to clean the jewels, because of course, I didn't want to do extra work....eh-hem....never that easy....

There were a few jewels missing, but I made it work. I just used baby wipes to clean them off. Tom and I were so surprised at the difference when I first started cleaning them. It was amazing.

Isn't it great?! First I tried some Rub & Buff on the ol' metal parts, but I hated it. So, of course, I had to take all the crystals off. I took it to the garage and gave it a couple of coats of white. Not sure if it was satin or semi-gloss, just grabbed a nearly empty can from the cabinet.

And here she is hanging up in my very masculine but feminine closet...

Of course, this didn't go up without a few glitches! When I first hung it up, it didn't work. So I took it down and we took the entire thing apart thinking we would have to rewire it. Well, fortunately we got a multimeter (measures if batteries and wires are working properly) as a white elephant present at Christmas! Little did anyone know that we would actually end up using it! We tested all the wires and they worked great. Then we reconnected everything and tested the lights by sticking the ends into a wall plug (DO NOT TRY THAT AT HOME! It is not an electrician recommended way to check if a fixture works. Unless you are complete idiots, like us.) The lights worked! We realized that the lightbulbs were not getting all the way into the sockets because of the sleeve on the arm, so we cracked them a little....Then we hung it up and I rehung all the crystals...

This was a PROJECT. That is for sure. If you have a little guts and are willing to lose out on 7 dollars than I say go for it. Just remember to be safe...

I do have to say, I did a lot of this myself, BUT, hubs is amazing. He has that kind of brain that just knows what to do and how to figure stuff out - he helped a ton with this little light.

I think it looks great! I'm so excited to have a little bit of girly-girl in this house full of boys!