To Be Restored

Heavenly Lights

Why Antique Lighting?

Antique lighting was made by craftsmen who cared about their work. These lighting fixtures were made in a time when nothing was to be thrown away. A time when quality was everything, no corners were cut, no inferior parts were used, lighting constructed to last a lifetime.

There is history in every piece. These fixtures have hung on walls and ceilings through the roaring 20's, the Depression and war of the 1930's and 1940's and happy times in the 50's. They have quietly been a part of our history.

Click here to see Restoration examples

Dusty Treasures

Our collection of antique lighting continues to grow, but sometimes it grows faster than our hands can restore. That's why, we'd like for you to see what's "in the back". The lighting fixtures pictured are in their natural state, no restoration, full of dirt and usually covered with layers of paint or rust.

But we want you to see them, dirt, grime, rust and all. We feel like you'll be able to see the potential of each one.

Click each picture to see a larger view.

Take time to browse through the pictures. Look at the lines on the chandeliers, the curves, what draws you to one over the other? Is it the intricate scrollwork, the prisms, the curve of the arm or the color of the brass?

Now imagine where you want to place the chandelier or sconce. Picture how it will hang on the wall or ceiling. Do you want it to stand out and be noticed or do you want it to blend in?

Think of your walls as a blank canvas and lighting as your artwork. Make it beautiful, not boring. Let's face it, lighting is a necessary luxury, so why not make it fantastic?

After you browse the pictures and see something you like, call or e-mail us so we can determine together how to make your lighting luxurious! We add pictures frequently and are unable to picture all fixtures we have available. If you're looking for something specific, contact us and we'll rummage through our piles to see what treasures we can conjure up.

Restoration Examples

Take a look at the restoration examples below:

We found this fantastic pair of iron and brass 2 arm sconces here in Nashville. They actually came from an old home in Indiana. They are American made and date back to 1910. When we came across them, they were rough. Just like we said, dirty, layers of paint, wires hanging out. These even had melted candle covers. See what happens when correct wattage bulbs are not used in lighting fixtures? Enough preaching.

Easy to look over this pair saying they are hopeless, right? Wrong, these sconces were fantastic! Yes, they had no on/off switches, no hardware to hang them to the wall, but they had great bones. A mixture of brass and iron, not something we see all of the time. There was a beautiful floral design on the backplate and a nice fleur-de-lis type ornament on top. We pictured these in our To Be Restored section where our customer found them. She browsed through the pictures just like you and came across these. She could see through the mess and knew the sconces would turn out beautifully. Our customer wanted an antique feel, she wanted the sconces to look fresh without looking new. We discussed several ways of restoring the sconces and finally came up with our solution. We ended up stripping the paint off of the top of the wall lights to let the aged brass show through. We then rewired them, put in new sockets, on/off switches and hardware to be able to hang them on the wall. We painted the iron arms brown and finished them off with beeswax candle covers. These candle covers are so nice, they look like they held real candles with dripping wax-wonder where we got that idea. Finally, the finished product:

Simple but elegant.

When browsing through pictures, you may find a chandelier you like that just needs touching up a bit. We had pictured a beautiful tole chandelier. The fixture was made in Italy and was just what our customer was looking for, but it had a few issues such as rust, lots of it, old wiring and paint loss. Our customer wanted us to bring the tole chandelier back to life keeping as much of the original color as we could. We took all of the rust off, then cleaned and rewired it. We then painted it and added new candle covers. Take a look at how it turned out- beautiful! It now hangs proudly in our customer's nursery for her baby to enjoy for years to come.

  

One last before and after we would like to show you is a fixture of our own. The original fixture was a two arm pan light much like the one shown here in the picture. This is not our exact lighting fixture, this pan light has already been restored.

The fixture we customized had not been painted and did not have shades. Now we understand that there are some of you who are against painting brass and that's alright. No fair getting upset with those of us who like painted brass-remember, you can always strip the paint right off.

The two arm pan ceiling fixture we worked on was American made in the 1920's. The brass fixture was missing its finial and ceiling cap. It had its own piles of dirt so we cleaned it up and then primed, painted, sealed and rewired it.

We gave it a new chain, new sockets and a new ceiling cap. We also drilled holes in the shade holders and put these gorgeous antique dangling crystals in it which gave it an incredible sparkle factor. We finished it off with an antique prism we put in place of the finial. We keep the rainbow colored bulbs in it (rainbow is our term). They are 60 watt large based bulbs that are iridescent and put off beautiful colors when lit. These bulbs can be purchased at any hardware store. We hung the pan light from our tin ceiling in our newly restored bathroom. It's one of our favorites.

So you see, the possibilities are limitless!

Contact us and let's be creative together!

Don't forget to check out our completely restored lighting on our Ceiling Light Fixtures and Wall Lighting pages.