Our story so far: Who needs duct tape when one has spray paint? I made use of it to rejuvenate a set of crystal chandeliers for use in the old Methodist church we were turning into our dream house.

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I also employed spray paint to bring another set of light fixtures into my rustic transitional design scheme.

The lights we chose to hang in the sanctuary, our new great room, would feel right at home because they had hung there in the past, illuminating church services, baptisms and weddings for a least a decade, maybe a generation or two.

The former pastor had purchased the light fixtures when the congregation moved out sixteen months before we bought the church. She told us one of the members had donated them, so they had sentimental value. When she met us, she offered to sell them back to us for a song, to which we readily assented once we saw them. The design was a nice union of traditional and modern with a hint of religiosity but without overt evangelism. The cross on all four sides of the square fixture was a curved geometric design. Both Tyler and I were honored we could recycle these light fixtures and hang them where they were meant to be.

They needed a little work, and I was the right woman for the job.

I disassembled them, sanded the surfaces, spray painted them hammered black (I tried a few parts in hammered bronze and rejected the two-tone look) and then hauled them all to the glass expert—the same one who would be installing our glass shower door at some point—to replace the dingy shades with seeded glass. They sparkled when he was done.

Now an associate of the Lighting Savant was employed to rewire them, and weave the wiring through the chains from which they would hang from the ceiling. These chains had been left empty and dangling from the ceiling when we took over. More than one member of the peanut gallery observed they were heavy enough to pull a car. Well, we were “building solidly” per our mission statement, weren’t we? These light fixtures would never fall down! Two of the chains were shortened considerably as the lights would be hanging over the balcony.

More than any other light fixtures, these chandeliers excited me. I could hardly wait for the day we would hang them from the beams in the sanctuary.

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Tomorrow: Lights for the hall of history as Chapter 22 concludes. Read it here.

Our story so far: We invested in a number of new light fixtures for the old Methodist church we were turning into our home, but we also had big plans for some used ones.

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During demolition, I ran across a quartet of ugly, spider-like lighting fixtures. They were ugly to me because I disliked brass (if you’re a fan of brass fixtures, we’ll just have to agree to disagree; I’d heard brass fixtures were coming back, but that was just one trend I couldn’t endorse). I was so close to getting rid of them, I relegated these fixtures to the donate pile. Tyler stopped me. I didn’t understand why at the time, but he obviously saw something in them I couldn’t see.

Also during those early days of clean-up, I ran across a couple of banker’s boxes full of plastic crystals. I thought they might be Christmas decorations; perhaps they somehow hung on a Christmas tree like icicles. I packed them away with the intention of figuring out how to use them later.

Then, more recently, as we discussed how to run electrical wiring, Tyler and I browsed the lighting displays at a couple of big box stores. We were trying to determine which rooms would have can lighting, where we might put sconces, whether to put light kits on the ceiling fans. The electrician would need to know these nuances when he ran wiring through our ceilings and walls.

While in the lighting department, I was inexplicably drawn to the crystal chandeliers.

This was me being stupid. We didn’t have a ballroom in the church, and I didn’t spend a lot of time in floor-length gowns ordering around the servants. “Chandelier” wasn’t in the rustic transitional design plan.

But. Chandeliers are so lovely! Ethereal even. Evocative of heaven. Fit right into a church!

(I can justify anything.)

I began thinking I could maybe use those Christmas icicles I found in some sort of chicken cage or tin can to create a rustic chandelier (you’ve heard that definition of creativity that suggests putting two opposite things together in a new way? A tin can chandelier would be the dictionary picture for that).

I actually found a modern light fixture like this at Menards, so I’m not delusional. It’s a thing.

But before making this Frankenstein light fixture, I tried using my icicles on the brass light fixtures I found and almost gave away. Couldn’t hurt to try, I thought.

Poof! Magic happened! The crystals were made for the light fixtures. Whodathunkit? (You knew this was coming, right?) Beautiful! Two of them would be offer perfect lighting for the night stands in our bedroom.

OK, they were still brass, but I could remedy that.

Ever hear of spray paint? It’s magic, too. A few years back, Tyler and I turned sofa legs into the coolest curtain rod ends with spray paint (read about it here; it’s worth checking out just for the before-and-after shots).

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Tomorrow: Great light fixtures for a great room. Read about them here.

Our story so far: While shopping for light fixtures for the old Methodist church we were turning into our home, I met the owner of a nearby lighting showroom who described himself as a “lighting savant.”

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While I could have chosen the exact same lights for all the bathrooms, I decided instead to customize each to the space. This wasn’t a hotel we were outfitting after all.

The first lights that caught my eye in the Lighting Savant’s showroom were the ones I chose for the powder room—the big, clear glass bells were distinctive without calling undo attention to themselves.

For the master bath, I wanted narrow up-and-down lights in polished chrome to install between the three arched mirrors I planned above each sink and the make-up area. (Well, to be fair, what I really wanted was lighted, mirrored medicine cabinets, but that idea was shelved when I looked up the prices. Still, these were the most expensive light fixtures of all the new ones in which we invested.)

Upstairs, I planned a full-on farmhouse feel, and this was the bathroom where I planned to paint a pair of old dressers for the vanity. The vanity lights I chose were country-inspired glass in industrial polished chrome. The result had a dash of the nautical.

My new lights would be delivered in two to four weeks. Now I devoted my attention to recycling some of the light fixtures we found in the church. At first glance, some had more potential than others.

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Tomorrow: Chandeliers? Really? Read about it here.

Our story so far: As the electrician wired the old church we were turning into our home, we selected light fixtures.

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The first light fixtures a guest would see upon visiting our new home would be the exterior lights. The existing lights were functional but sadly plain. And too small for my taste. The new lights would frame the castle doors, so we chose contemporary castle mash-up stylistically, and Tyler found a matching set on eBay.

The fixture included seeded glass, which roughed up the design just enough to qualify as rustic. We would employ this strategy on other light fixtures inside the house, too.

In another delivery snafu, one of the light boxes arrived with a distinctive rattle. The round glass—impossible to replace—was a pile of shards in the bottom of the box. Fortunately, the seller offered a quick refund and Tyler bought another immediately. Like our other finds, the lights went to the ever more crowded storage unit.

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Tomorrow: Lighting for the entryway. Read it here.

Our story so far: Reroofer, who once helped us repair the belfry, was enlisted to blow insulation into the roof of the 126-year-old Methodist church we were turning into our home.

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But Reroofer, our agile roof walker, wasn’t finished yet. With an uncharacteristic daytime handoff from Glimfeather the plumber, Reroofer threaded the soil vent pipe through the roof and proceeded to repair the hole in the roof created when we removed the portable gas heater (and accompanying stove-pipe) from the second floor.

A soil vent pipe, for people who only use bathrooms but don’t know how they work, has nothing to do with soil. It runs vertically from the underground drainage system to the roof. The vent allows odors from waste to be released into the atmosphere. By placing it above roof gutter level, no one’s the wiser about the stink of your, shall we say, poop.

For what wouldn’t be the first time, Tyler sent Reroofer up there with a can of black spray paint. I don’t have to remind you that details matter, and who wants a white pipe sticking out of the roof when one could have a black pipe. Not Tyler, the Virgo, who had already spray-painted the exterior vents for the dryer and stove white to match the siding.

Reroofer’s work was impeccable; when he was done, the roof looked as good as new.

A week or so later, the HVAC guys threaded a flue vent liner through the chimney in preparation for the fireplace we were installing in the sanctuary-cum-great room. Before ascending the ladder to straddle the highest peak on the roof, Tyler handed the appointed HVAC guy a can of heat-resistant black spray paint with explicit directions to paint the vent at the top of the chimney.

“What did the HVAC guy say?” I asked later.

Tyler said, “I think he was surprised I had heat-proof black spray paint on hand.”

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Tomorrow: Chapter 22 opens, and the air is electric. Read it here.