A few updates

We've been in our house for just over two years now and have been talking about painting the entryway and changing the entryway light fixture since the day we moved in.  The issue was the very ugly, bright brass light fixture with clear glass rectangles hanging from the ceiling.  Now, I really need to learn to take a before picture...but just trust me, this thing was ugly.  The problem was finding a new fixture to replace.  The ones I liked at the stores were very expensive, I had a hard time justifying the expense for something that no one really ever noticed.  Then, one morning I noticed this chandelier on my local garage sale site....it was listed for $65!  Are you kidding me?  It retails for $450 so...SOLD!  Now, we could have left it brushed nickel, but we have none in the house....that's okay, that's what a $10 can of Rustoleum Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint it for!

Here it is, pretty, right?

 Oh,and we did have this in the powder room...but no other chrome in there either. So what the heck...let's paint that too!  I've seen all the DIY blogs and they make it look SO easy!

 I took the light fixtures to the garage and hung the big one between two ladders, covered all the little light thing-a-ma-bobs...

 and started spraying!  And seriously, it was too easy.  The only issue was the spray paint dries very quickly in the air when sprayed open like this and it falls to the ground making paint "dust" all over.  It's easy to sweep/vacuum up, but it was still rather messy.

 What a tough room to photograph, but there is the bathroom light fixture...WAY better!

 And here it is with the glass back on.  Walter seems to like it too.

 Another thing we wanted to change since moving in was to paint our entry as well.  Whoever painted this did an amazing job years ago, but the grey/white texture look just doesn't work for us.

 And why did it take so long?  Well, partly because we have this 16 foot entry...not exactly easy for reaching the light...but now that we found the chandelier...it's time!  We were going to rent scaffolding, but it wouldn't fit in the back of the van.  Hmmm, put in a call to the local equipment rental to see what they had and they suggested this little power lift.  It was perfect!  You use a power drill as the motor to move it up and down and as you go up, you simply install another section beam to go higher. Much easier than scaffolding! Here's my darling Hubs up there taking dow the ugly brass.

 And putting in the new...

 Once it was installed - with 20+ year light bulbs, 'cause we are NOT renting this thing just to change a bulb! - I got up there and started painting...and cleaned those windows!  And of course, the kids all had to go for a ride.

 I am ridiculously happy with how it all turned out. We installed a dimmer too - I'm shocked there was never a dimmer before,  The lighting is great...we went with LED bulbs in soft white.  They should last 22.6 years if burned at 3 hours a day.  Sweet.  The next time we need to change them we can ask our grown kids to come over and do it for us!  ;-)

 Waler seems to like it too.

I still have more painting to do, but at least the big part is done.  We rented the lift for 4 hours and it saved us a lot of time - and some dangerous balancing acts too!