Personally, I'm a self proclaimed bargain hunter. My friends know as me as shrewd negotiator, always on the hunt for a deal, and never wavering in my desire to achieve big budget looks at bottom dollar pricing. I understand that there may be a time and place to pay full price, but that time and place usually isn't one where I'll be found! 

Over the last several years, as we've been establishing our decor style and preferred aesthetic in our Foursquare on the water, I've been deal hunting and stock piling. Whether we're talking antiques, light fixtures, textiles, art work, or accessories, I have a mental plan for our home and I'm always looking for items that would fill the gaps in this style.

In a nutshell, we're going for a "coastal farmhouse with antique accents" vibe, primarily because our home is an historic coastal farmhouse (go figure, embracing both the age and style of the house in its decor). As I've found decor items that fit with this style, and they happen to be a good price, either by happenstance or shrewd negotiating will, I pick them up for later use. 

This tactic is precisely how we've ended up with several hanging fixtures for our home, all occupying space in their boxes in the attic. The themes of each are consistent with the others. Lots of light browns with natural wood, some with a gray weathered appearance, textured fabric like burlap, glass globes or domes with plenty of imperfections, and rough traditionally nautical rope accents. Here are just a few examples of my hoard.

Once such instance in which a lonely low cost but beachingly charming light fixture looking for a good home found me was on a trip to the Restoration Hardware Outlet in Leesburg, Virginia. It's actually in the box at the bottom of this photo. Yes, that says "BASURA" on the box, but I could see this fixture was far from trash!

Within the box was an apparently perfect looking Cruz Burlap Pendant fixture from RH Teen. Not only is it a burlap covered drum shade, the black metal accents and the large twisted nautical style rope was perfect for our house. While the regular price, still available on the website today, is $249, the outlet price for this light, an amazing $45!! It would have been a tragedy to NOT buy it!

So I purchased it, tucked it away in the attic, and began planning for the day we'd be able to install it as our dining room chandelier, even though our dining room renovation was still a ways off. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that this new light bumped the large glass light from the earlier photo in this post. This is a case where deals give you options.

Fast forward a little over one year, our dining room renovation began in late 2017 and has progressed to the point where the plaster is restored, everything is painted, and we're ready to install our light fixture. We excitedly pulled the box marked Basura from the attic and began the glorious unboxing process. We knew the rope that supported the fixture was a bit too long and would need to be reduced in length, but that didn't seem like that big of a deal.

We figured we'd pop the box open, adjust the length, and then install the light. Much to our chagrin, when we broke this light out and looked over the assembly, there wasn't an obvious option to adjust the length of the rope. The shade itself is 14", the rope comes standard at 36", and when you include all of the mounting hardware you're looking at a total fixture height of about 56". When you have a normal height ceiling, say 9' like in our home, that puts the mounting height of this fixture at a solid 4' off the ground. 

We hunted around the RH website and eventually determined that the length of this rope, and the light fixture as a whole, was intentionally not adjustable. How dumb is that? You basically needed to have a vaulted ceiling or something similar that offers about 13'-14' ceiling height. No wonder it was so cheap at the outlet (but doesn't explain why it's still for sale full price on the website).

As we dug into our options we decided the only acceptable path forward for our needs was to alter the light's rope length. Alex was confident we'd be able to figure it out, so we started doing one of the things we know best, taking it apart.

The rope assembly is pretty simple. It consists of about a dozen or so small cotton strings twisted into three pairs of thicker ropes, that are then twisted together around a central black plastic wire. The wire is essentially what holds the weight of the fixture, and the rope is more decorative than anything. As you can see in the above photo, the wire is pinched in place by a set screw within the mounting hardware. But once the set screw was loosened, we couldn't remove the rope from the metal housing. Undeterred, we started hacking at it, cutting the rope but being careful not to cut the wire.

Once we'd begun freeing the rope from the housing we slowly started to see how it was put together.

The interior of the metal housing has three screws mounted towards the center that act as a sort of cleat around the rope. There's also a metal wire that wraps around the top of the rope that holds onto the metal screws and keeps the rope in place. 

While we tried to figure out how to handle reassembly we wrapped some duct tape around the top of the rope to make sure the twist stayed in place. I certainly didn't want the whole thing falling apart while we were fooling around with a plan, and this twisted rope tends to want to unravel when nothing is holding it.

At first glance, it seemed like this should be easy. The housing and hook at the top are obviously two pieces, one that threads into the other. Alex took his tools to the mounting loop and tried to loosen up the two pieces. If we could get them apart, we'd just need to trim to length, slide the housing over the end of the rope, wrap the end of the rope in a new piece of wire, and thread it all back together again. But things are rarely that easy. It seemed like there was a bunch of super glue adhesive on the two pieces that essentially cemented them together within the threads. At the very least, we had ourselves a broken disassembled light fixture. 

Alex tried to soften the adhesive by allowing it to sit in a cup of mineral spirits for a while. Unfortunately, that did nothing.

After we made several valiant attempts at separating the two pieces we decided to go back to the drawing board. Since we couldn't get the pieces apart, I suggested shortening the whole thing and then trying to fit the rope back into the housing. Alex noted that the whole fixture is actually supported by the wire more than it is the rope, so this might be able to work if we could get the wire past the three screws.

Before we could shorten things we needed to figure out the correct height based on our table. Without shortening anything the light was practically on the table.

Obviously, this wouldn't work. The ideal height of a chandelier above your dining table is supposed to be 30"-34" for an 8' ceiling, with an additional 3" per one foot of ceiling height. So that means 33"-37" for our table.

After we broke out the tape measure, Alex held the fixture at the desired height while I viewed things from the table to make sure it looked good while seated and while standing in the next room.

Once we had what we felt was an ideal height we quickly marked the cut line with some painters tape, then with some sharpie.

Before we actually made the cut we started to unravel the rope. With nothing holding it together the rope was almost trying to unravel itself.

When we got close to the cut mark, but before cutting, we placed a few pieces of duct tape on the pieces of rope just above and below the cutline to hold things together, then Alex cut each section of rope individually.

After removing the necessary length of rope and setting it aside, Alex trimmed the wire's length to also work better with the new height. He left the wire about 12" longer than the end of the rope to give enough length into the electrical box.

Reassembly was actually pretty simple. We made sure to wrap the rope tightly around the central wire, then ran the wire up through the center of the upper housing.

Now the somewhat tricky part, getting the rope back into the housing. Alex took the length of wire and wrapped it tightly around the top of the rope. We also left the duct tape on the very top of the rope twists just to keep everything together. The second ring of duct tape was just holding everything in place and was positioned to be removed after the rope was firmly in the housing.

Inserting the rope into the housing was a matter of twisting the housing onto the rope in a counter clockwise manner. While Alex twisted, the metal wire was able to move over the screws and then securely seat within the housing. 

Once fully seated Alex pulled the remainder of the wire through the collar and then secured the set screw to hold everything in place.

Following a bit of nervousness where we worried we possibly wouldn't get it back together, we were in business and ready to mount the chandelier in the dining room. We test fit by hanging it in place and admired our handy work. We'd conquered the "fixed length" chandelier rope, take that RH Teen!

Everything was looking good so we went ahead and hooked up the wiring. My bargain find of only $45 did end up taking us about two extra hours to install due to the need to hack it apart a little. Ultimately we both feel like this should have been an adjustable height fixture. It wouldn't have been difficult to make changes if RH hadn't glued the threads on the housing. For whatever reason, they did, which meant we needed to do a little adjusting. The end result is exactly the look we were hoping for, and for pretty much exactly the amount of money I was interested in paying.

Seriously, $45, you can't beat that bargain! I feel like I've been getting pretty good at finding deals, especially on lighting and rugs. From HomeGoods to true outlet shopping and antique shops, there are many deals to be found out there. What do you think? Do you have a few places in mind that are your absolute go to locations for scoring great decor deals? Have any secrets you want to share? We'd love to hear!

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Ever since we bought our house in 2003, we've been fighting a bit of a losing battle in our basement. This narrow but long space plays quintuple duty on a daily basis. Storage, laundry, utility room, server closet, and shop. Oh how we long for the early days of a nearly empty basement area.

Though it may have been virtually empty when we bought our home, we quickly took care of that quality of the space and built some shelving for storage and a little work bench from plywood and 2x4s.

 

In the years that followed we've ended up with so much stuff down there that, at times, we can't effectively get around without having to act like we're on American Ninja Warrior! Wendy accuses me of treating it as my hoarder's lair. At times, she's not entirely wrong.

Aside from all of the crap, the thing about this basement is that it's always been pretty dark. There are a few random bulbs and four mismatched 4' fluorescent tube lights that are run from two different switches. These switches are also inconveniently located at either end of the basement. It's a set up that's less than ideal, and the lights have this horribly annoying buzz that just.never.stops.

After we grew tired of the old school glass tubes flickering and dying, and then inevitably breaking them because I procrastinated taking them to the store for recycling (it happened twice, and was horrible both times), we wanted to upgrade things by adding some LED replacements. 

Unfortunately, these LED bulbs caused the transformers in two of the lights to constantly overheat and shut themselves off as a protective measure. Add to it that the LED bulbs I was using seemed to have a high failure rate...which means the pins broke after less than a year of use and threw me into a fit of irrational rage yelling. "THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO LAST FOR 30,000 HOURS!!! THIS IS SO MANY LESS HOURS THAN THAT!!!!"

Rather than continue to be frustrated by our dank basement with insufficient lighting, we determined it was about time for a little upgrade. We decided to buy eight 4' LED low profile lights from Hyperikon to replace the four fixtures already in place. 

We ordered the lights we're installing from Amazon, and all in we spent about $240 on the eight fixtures, which are all non-linking plugin models. There are a ton of options available on Amazon, but we went with these lights for several reasons. These were affordable models and the light output is more than sufficient at 100 watt equivalent, 3800 lumens, and a relatively warm color temperature of 4000K. 

We chose the plugin style fixtures knowing that it would allow us to move lights around in the future without much effort. Using wire ties to make sure any wires are nicely bundled and out of the way and we have a flexible and future-proof solution no matter what we do with the basement.

The lights themselves are LED strips protected by round plastic coverings. 

The whole fixture can be either hung form the ceiling or surface mounted with low profile clips. 

The first step in our new lighting game was to mount two of them in place so we wouldn't be working completely in the dark when we removed the old lights. For our purposes, we're mounting them directly to the underside of the exposed floor joists in the ceiling above, so it only required us to screw in the two clips and snap them in place. 

Install of these lights could not be easier. They snap right into the clips and all you have to do is to plug them in to fire them up.

With adequate partial lighting, the next step in our task was removing those old terrible florescent lights so we could install the six remaining new lights. These old lights were all poorly hung at various heights.

Besides the fact they were absolutely filthy, they also were either close to failure or had completely failed.

The old lights ran from the front to the back of the house, mounted across floor joists. With these new lights in place along the joists, the basement actually feels a little larger, and like the ceiling is higher. 

As I mentioned, the lights are 35 watts each and come in at 4000K, so their color temperature is pleasing and not too blue. I feel like any higher than 4000K just ends up feeling way too cold and unnatural. They're also rated for 50,000+ hours and come with a 5 year warranty. That sounds great and all, but the risk with LED lighting isn't that the LEDs will last, but that the circuitry will last. I'm hopeful that these lights will be the last we'll ever need to buy for the basement. With regular use, we're looking at about 20 years or so of life in these lights.

As part of the install process we also changed up the outlets in the ceiling that the lights plug into so that they're all on the same switch. Wait, one switch to turn all of the lights in the basement on and off? So I don't end up all of the way upstairs when I realize that the switch at the other end of the basement is still on and needs to be turned off? What a crazy idea!

We've had these lights in place for a little more than a week now and I can't believe how much it has improved the basement's usefulness. I can see the projects I'm working on so much better now and really look forward to spending time getting things done, even when it's completely dark outside. Honestly, I can't believe it took us this long to make this relatively simple improvement.

I do have to say, having this much light in the basement has me looking around and contemplating a major reorganization and rebuild to make this space a true shop. I'll have to convince Wendy, but maybe moving the washer & dryer, shrinking the storage, and finally removing the old and unused oil drum would give us the functional space I've wanted for a very long time. 

We've talked for a long time about finishing the basement, but I would hate to lose our very functional workspace. Maybe an update that's not quite a finish? The total space of the basement is 15' x 30', which would make a very functional (albeit narrow) shop space. What do you think?

At any rate, these new lights are a breath of fresh air here in the basement, and I'm so glad we made this relatively inexpensive change. It's probably a 2 out of 10 on the DIY difficulty scale, so if you've been procrastinating additional task/work lighting in your work space, the technology and price point is in the right place for you to finally take the plunge.

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In our quick office makeover we had initially planned on keeping the ceiling fan that came with the house, even though we never really liked it. Though we had plans to spray paint it white to help it disappear into the ceiling, we realized just how much this room was missing a central ceiling light fixture with a little style.

After determining we didn't need fan in this room thanks to the installation of central A/C, a massive search begin for a new fixture that was reasonably priced, fit the casual style of our home, and importantly, was the right size. We held up fixtures I had already purchased for other rooms in the house, looked all over Northern Virginia including several HomeGoods stores, Lowes, Home Depot, and World Market, and scoured online. 

Unfortunately though, we were striking out. Rather than spend a lot more time looking for that elusive unicorn of a fixture, we decided to go ahead and make one on our own.

Our first stop was at our local Restoration Hardware Outlet in Leesburg, Virginia. They have a large collection of lighting parts and fixtures that work well for this sort of thing. This is actually where we found the light above our bathroom vanity, in the room adjacent to our home office. (Check out this post for a complete look at our home's floor plan and how the rooms all flow together.)

My hope was to score a fixture that was from the same family as the bathroom fixture (called 20th Century), and then use that as a base. But the inventory at the outlet is very hit or miss so you never know what you might find.

The great news is that on our trip we really lucked out! We found one fixture buried near the back of the shelf that just happened to be a style match to the bathroom fixture, but was also a ceiling flush mount version. After opening the box to be sure everything was there, we had the base of our fixture. After discounts the total price was just $32.

Next we started searching for something to make the light fixture interesting and unique. We had kicked around the idea of finding an antique oyster basket and had looked around the Old Lucketts Store (our favorite place to shop for antiques), but didn't find anything that had the right scale. It needed to be large in diameter (at least 12" across), but short in stature (max of about 10" tall). Anything larger would protrude too far into the room from the ceiling, threatening to hit people in the head.

After turning our search to eBay with terms like "vintage oyster basket," "antique egg basket," and "crusty clam bucket," we eventually came up with a few good options. We settled on a basket that was about 14" in diameter and 9" tall.

The most important part of the basket is that it had a hole in the bottom where we'd be able to run the light fixture and wires. Total cost with shipping, $49.

To light the room we wanted an interesting lightbulb for the fixture, but it also needed to be energy friendly. Alex was shopping for bulbs at Lowe's and found this great large bulbed light that is also a filament style LED. This bulb was $15, which is a little more expensive than we anticipated, but it would add that very unique look to the light.

Finally, we needed to disguise the very bumpy and oddly cut section of drywall around the junction box. We could have patched it with joint compound, but we'd still have the issue of the junction box protruding from the ceiling.

Instead we settled on an 18" diameter ceiling medallion with a classic yet simple look, also from Lowe's. This medallion rang up at $21.

Before we get started on the build, let's look at total cost. All of the parts and pieces together, including the ceiling medallion, came to $117. While there are certainly many fixtures you can find for less, there are quite a number you'll see for far more. A little over $100 for a cool one-of-a-kind ceiling fixture was something we could live with.

The build of this fixture was very straight forward. I'd rate it an easy to moderate on the DIY difficulty scale.

The first step was to place the ceiling medallion. For this we had to slightly alter the polyurethane backing to accommodate the slight protrusion of the fixture box by razoring away some of the backing. In the process Alex nded up stabbing himself in the stomach with the blade. It was a minor scratch but I recommend omitting this step if you're following along at home.

Once the medallion was ready to be placed, Alex ran several beads of Big Stretch caulk around the backing and then used a fixture plate screwed to the fixture box to secure it in place while the caulk cured overnight.

He also took the opportunity to run a good bead of caulk around the perimeter of the medallion to fill any gaps.

When it came to assembling the fixture it actually started with disassembling the base fixture we picked up from Restoration Hardware. Alex unscrewed a few pieces and removed an internal nut on the threaded rod, and suddenly all components of the fixture were in pieces.

Our goal was to thread this fixture through the hole in the bottom of the basket and reassemble. This simply meant following the reverse process of what he did to take it apart while including the basket as part of the process.

The majority of re-assembly just involved screwing all of the parts back together.

We also paused to remove the handle from the basket since we won't be needing it hanging into the room. This only required a pair of pliers and some brute force to bend the loops back open.

Attaching the wires was simple enough. The ground attached with a nut on the threaded rod and the neutral and hot were threaded right from the light socket.

As we assembled I pointed out a small bend in the basket wire that was driving me crazy. This was a simple fix by gently pressing a wrench against the bend to straighten it back out. We used the wrench here to make sure we didn't scratch the patina with the coarse teeth of a set of pliers.

As we worked on the fixture we noticed how much rust was falling off of the basket by handling it. We want the old patina to stay, but we don't want a circle of rust appearing on the new carpet below the fixture. In order to prevent a mess in the future, Alex knocked off the loosest rust and grime with a little "00" steel wool.  

We continued assembly by reattaching the components, running the wire through the threaded rod, and securing all of the components in place.

In order to control this light we're using an Insteon micro dimming module that is installed in the fixture box, so Alex installed that before placing the light on the ceiling. The intent of this step is to reduce the need to hold the light awkwardly near the ceiling several steps down the road. 

Things were humming along pretty nicely and all we needed to do was to install the fixture in place on the medallion.

Since the bottom of the basket is very close to the ceiling, it was a little tricky to place the small nuts on to secure things, but we were able to make it happen as I held the fixture while Alex carefully threaded the nuts onto the posts.

We thought were were done, but we thought wrong. I mentioned we were using the Insteon micro module. Well, in our haste...someone...forgot to record the 6 letter/number code that uniquely identifies the module, and we needed that to properly program it. 

Our friend staying with us that day perfectly captured the moment when Alex informed me we needed to take the light down, write down the number, and complete this process of struggling to install the light fixture all over again. Apparently this is the look I give when my partner in crime has forgotten a critical step in the process and we have to duplicate our efforts.

After removing the light, getting the code, and then putting things back up one more time, we turned the breaker back on and got ready for the light!

It was perfect. The large bulb looked great and cast wonderful shadows on the ceiling from the wire basket.

The light it gives off in the room complements the desk lamp and floor lamp and really adds a much needed layer of dynamic light to the room.

All that's left now to complete the whole project is to replace three light switches and then we can call this quick office makeover done.

We feel absolutely great about the end results of this project. It turned out better than either of us hoped, and now that we have our completely custom DIY light fixture, the room has what it's always been missing. 

Have you ever gotten creative and made your own light fixture? If so, how did it work out for you? Do you feel like you created something unique for far less than you may have paid elsewhere, or was it more of a DIY Fail? 

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The large fan in the center of the room sticks out like a sore thumb. It's shiny brass, sports dark stained wood blades, and seems to be a rather imposing and dated feature of an otherwise bright and cheerful room. To make matters worse, we rarely use this fan and the room is really dark without any overhead lights.

Our initial thoughts involved keeping the fan by disassembling it and painting it white. We were committed to this plan to the point where we purchased a can of spray paint, took the fan down, and set it on the ground so I could start taking it apart. As we discussed how to best disassemble it and then spray the individual pieces, a strange thing happened. We started to realize just how much we didn't like the ceiling fan and how dark the room gets at night. So we got to thinking, do we really even need a fan? Perhaps new lighting would be better?

Just to entertain our meandering and somewhat distracted thought process I decided to grab a few fixtures we have in the attic. These are all fixtures I've picked up and plan to use in different rooms of the house, but each is just waiting in the box in the attic. So why not bring them out to play?

While we didn't specifically plan to use one of these lights in this room, if one just happened to work well, why not give it an early home? We held each up to get a sense of scale and look in the room. The first is a Ballard outlet "door buster" purchase I initially thought we'd use in our eventual dining room, but I started to have reservations on whether it will be large enough above the table. Therefore I shifted gears and have now decided it will go near the front door in the living room to create a foyer of sorts in the room. But would this lantern work in the office instead? 

While I do really like the look, we decided it's just too tall. It would hang down too far from the ceiling and would certainly be a problem for anyone taller than about 6'2" that might walk through the center of the office. At the very least, it would feel like you were going to hit your head, even if you had a few inches to spare.

The second option we considered is a light I found on Wayfair many months back. It's an irregular wavy glass teardrop shape and I really love it. I'm thinking of using this in our eventual dining room over the table (replacing the lantern idea I originally had). 

For the office it has the look I am really going for, would put off some great light, but has the same problem as the first, it's just way too tall and would hang far too low in the room.

Finally we gave our last option a try. I found this light, a pair of them actually, at HomeGoods last year. My original plan is to use them in our main hallway, but I really like how it looks in this room. 

The soft wood tone of the top, the clear glass and open bottom, it's almost perfect. But again, it's just a little bit too tall and I hesitate to split up the pair.

So my search for just the right fixture has continued but I've been unable to find just the right balance of style, price, and most importantly, scale. I definitely want a hanging fixture, but we'll need to keep it somewhat close to the ceiling. Max hanging height to the bottom of the light will need to be in the 12"-14" range to keep it far enough from people's heads. Given the size of the room, the diameter should be at least 14" across. This means a somewhat short and squat fixture. While we didn't have a winner from the fixtures on hand, It was a good exercise to hold these lights in place as it really gave us a better idea of what we might be trying to find. 

Over the last several days I've since been scouring various websites and thought at first we had found a great option (again on Wayfair) as this one ties into the look of the sconce style we used in the adjoining bathroom and will hang over the built in bench in the downstairs hallway. But after looking at dimensions, we realized it will be much too small for the room.

I also filled up my shopping cart with potential options I found on Houzz. But the ones that Alex and I both liked aren't the right size either.

In addition to searching online, you could likely find me stalking the HomeGoods aisles though regular trips to their usually rich with spoils lighting section. Their inventory changes on a daily basis, and I was encouraged when I saw the store about 20 minutes from our house had a new inventory of hanging lights.

After careful inspection though, I couldn't find a winner.

During a follow up trip to HomeGoods a few days later (I'm serious about stalking the aisles), I actually thought we may have found the perfect fixture. But it too turned out to be just a tad too small at only about 10" across.

While we've been striking out so far, we're still holding out hope and will continue our search. However, we're also kicking around the idea of making something ourselves from a found or antique item. If I'm able to find the right sized antique wire basket (maybe an old oyster basket?) I'm sure we could turn it into a really cool chandelier. But for now, the hunt continues. 

What do you think about our direction? Should we go with something clear class? What about something more open like the first option we held up? Maybe a DIY fixture from a found antique? Or maybe just throw a drum shade up and call it a day? Have you seen a fixture you think might work? No matter what we choose, we think the room will be so much better with a light fixture rather than the fan. Besides, now that we have central air in the house, this is the coolest room in the summer, so we really don't need a fan. 

At the very least this whole exercise only fuels my apparent addiction to purchasing really cute light fixtures that I simply can't pass up. Whether I'm shopping for myself, for a friend, or for a client, there's something just a little bit magical about finding that fixture that's juuuuuuust right!

Interested in a recap of the work we've done to make over the office to get to this point? Check out our posts on:

• A good look at the before and launching the makeover project
• The long process of priming and painting the room
• Restoring the antique cast iron closet hardware
• The saga of our new carpet installation
• Building a newel post and handrail for the back staircase
• The big reveal with before and after photos

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Years ago, back when we were renovating our upstairs hallway, we replaced the shiny gold polished brass light fixture that once adorned the ceiling with something a little better suited for our style and decor. We don't have any great photos of that original light, so this is the best we can dig up.

We bought the new fixture from Restoration Hardware and loved that it mimicked the shape of our hanging bell lantern in the first floor hallway while retaining as much hallway headroom as a flush mount fixture. It was the perfect solution for our difficult lighting decision.

As the years have passed we noticed that our use of traditional incandescent 40 watt candelabra style bulbs (the wattage suggested by the manufacturer) seemed to be burning the white plastic sleeves of the fixture. At first it was a little off-white, then brown, and then recently they turned very black.

From this little bit of evidence, it was obvious that the bulbs we were using were getting extremely hot and burning the chandelier sleeves. 

Upset the sleeves were looking so very bad, and worried that allowing this to continue could cause damage to the fixture (or worse), we decided it was time to do something about this pesky eyesore. 

The first step in the process was to determine a way we could reduce the heat made by these bulbs without reducing the amount of light the three lights put off. Until we could effectively limit the heat in the fixture, we'd end up in this same spot again, looking at blackened sleeves in no time.

To accomplish our goals I moved to using three LED candelabra bulbs with the vintage "filament style" design. In this case I used Kodak brand bulbs in a 2700k color temp. I like the design of these bulbs since they look very similar to traditional bulbs, minimizing the size of the base where the LED electronics are housed. (Some LED bulbs have a much larger plastic base.)

Commenter, Kelly, asked a good question about whether or not you can use LED bulbs in enclosed fixtures. Since this is an enclosed fixture we need to use LED bulbs that are rated for use in enclosed fixtures. I ordered two types of bulbs, one type is a Thinklux brand that's rated for enclosed fixtures, and the other is Kodak, which is not rated for enclosed fixtures. After I installed them and wrote the blog post, I realized I'd swapped them after reading Kelly's comment. So now I've installed the Thinklux upstairs in the enclosed fixture and the Kodak downstairs in the open hanging fixture. If you have any questions about LED bulbs rated for fully enclosed fixtures, check out EarthLED.com's complete list. This is where we order almost all of our LED bulbs. 

And if you're curious, the main problem with using LED bulbs not rated for enclosed fixtures is the heat that the bulb can generate and how that heat may damage the circuitry of the bulb, shortening the bulb's overall life.

These bulbs put off just as much light as their incandescent equivalent but run at a fraction of the temperature. In my experience the LED bulbs remain cool to the touch for as long as they've been in use, whereas the incandescent bulbs are too hot to touch within a minute of being turned on.

Once the bulbs were replaced we could get started on the next step of this quick fix. Since candle sleeves just slide over top of the candelabra bases, replacing them is extremely easy. With the new bulbs in place, I measured the distance from the bottom of the light base to the lower section of the LED bulbs.

Since most LED bulbs have a plastic or metal collar at the bottom of the bulb that can vary in size (the bulbs we chose have a metal base of about 1/4 inch), I wanted to be sure we could cover this with the candle sleeve.

I determined we'd need a 2" candle sleeve to cover everything that needed to be covered. Again, this 2" size is possible only because we're using lower operating temperature bulbs, otherwise it would burn the sleeves even quicker if they were up closer to the glass of the bulb.

Rather than simply replacing the sleeves with another set of white plastic sleeves, I wanted to take a bit more authentic route. And by authentic, I mean wax. 

I've used these beeswax style candelabra sleeves for projects in the past, so I know they are good quality and look great. With my size in hand I ordered six beeswax candle drip sleeves in white (three for upstairs and three for the downstairs light).

These sleeves give the light fixture a slightly more natural look as if it were a dripping candle. But most importantly, it does it without any need to really modify the fixture. You just slide the old sleeve off of the fixture, and the new sleeve on.

The sleeves are a bit fragile since they are wax covered plastic sleeves, so they arrived well packaged and individually wrapped, ready for install.

Installation is as simple as it gets. I had already removed the old burned sleeve, so now I just had to take off the bulb, slide on the wax sleeve...

...and screw the bulb back into place.

As far as DIY goes...this isn't even worth mentioning on the difficulty scale.

Not more than five minutes after opening the package they arrived in we had ourselves a light fixture that was free from charred plastic sleeves.

After reinstalling the glass bell on the light and turning the bulbs on, we couldn't be more pleased with how great it looks with the new sleeves installed.

This is certainly a case where we don't expect anyone to ever stop and say, "Hey, it looks like your light fixture lights are real wax." But at the same thing we feel the wax sleeves add to the overall look in a way that looks more the way it should. We really like how the wax sleeves look and feel they subtly add to the overall aesthetic of what we're trying to do with our house. But most importantly, we also hope we'll never have a situation where someone at our home will stop and say, "Do you know that your light fixture's candle sleeves look they they've been burned? Is everything okay?" 

Have you ever used the wax candle sleeves in one of your lighting projects? Does this seem like something you'd do on one of your projects or do you prefer the more traditional plastic sleeves?

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