We opened the crate marked “Mama’s Chandelier: BIG” and didn’t know what to expect.

Here is what we had once the dust settled and everything was out on the table:

We put it back together to see what we were working with, and sourced some of the scrolls we were going to need to replace:

It was painted with bronze paint, but under it was fairly intact gold leafing. This was one of those “Huh?” moments, as gold leaf doesn’t tarnish and gilding does…

In any case, we set about with a paintbrush and denatured alcohol to remove the gilding. Once we got it down to the real finish, we looked it up – this wasn’t some rare specimen, and parts were fairly easy to find, so we got permission to have some fun.

We mixed a simple cobalt and thinned it with super-refined linseed oil (straight, not boiled) to paint the recessed parts of the fixture, trying to give it a sense of cloisonné.

We like the finished result.

Now we just need to talk them into buying some drapes to go with it and get rid of those miniblinds…