Lightening up '50s Style

(Before: Light in our sunroom, which is currently being used as our bedroom.)

Three of our rooms have this cheesy cheap looking replacement "diffuser" on the ceiling fixture, (or what I call them: a ceiling lamp shade.)
I took a look at the BigBox hardware stores and discovered this was the only kind they offered.

I remember when I was growing up in the 50's every bedroom had a ceiling light with a pretty wavy glass diffuser. Some, like my brother's, even had brown cowboys as a motif that was painted onto the glass.

Sorry, this plain disc shape thing just didn't measure up. The round against the subway tile pattern ceiling tile just didn't work. Nor did the fact that the diffuser failed to cover the light bulbs themselves when view from the doorway.

Totally NOT cool.

What to do...what to do...

Well, thankfully here in SLC, there is a splendid building salvage business known as George's Architectural Salvage store. It is quite an experience. The place smells of feral junk yard cats pee, which is only natural as there are several cats around the property, keeping tabs on everyone as the metropolitan versions the classic junk yard dog

You can get just about anything you can image there. Including lots of pink toilets and sinks and even bathtubs for those of us who have taken the pledge to Save the Pink Bathrooms.

(I shared that link with the young woman who waited on me. She is a TOTAL fan of pink bathrooms and it just pains here to see all the torn out pink bathroom fixtures that people bring in to sell. If anyone reading this needs a pink bathroom fixture, just give them a call!)

Anyway, back to the light shade: I was first drawn to this diffuser, which hangs like a bowl from the light fixture by three chains. Isn't it gorgeous? It would look so great in master bedroom with the coral pink paint that I am thinking about.

Sadly, it was already sold.

But...

There was this lovely blue one. The guest room is to be blue; hmmm....

Trouble is, this is actually a style from the 1930s-40s.

Frankly they are gorgeous style, and each bowl is decorated as nicely as a birthday cake.

It took only a little bit to decide against going with that look though. Too fussy for a mountainside ranch house.

You have to be willing to hunt around a bit.

Get a little bit dusty and dirty...

I did find a pile of diffusers.

A few had chips.

Finally I found the perfect one for our sunroom.

It was dusty and dirty, and had a bit of paint speckle on it from a sloppy ceiling paint job long ago.

Ten dollars later, a dunk in sudsy water and some thumbnail scraping on the paint speckles and I had....

After: I love how the grey painted foliage looks like cut glass!
Isn't that a thrifty way to fool the eye.

I'd really like to have a glass or silver nut to hold the diffuser on.

The other rooms have brass nuts.

(Another small detail to be hunting down.)

The botanical theme works well with the garden view room!

I can't wait to continue the hunt for diffusers for the other two rooms.
The search is on!

Whoo hoo!



(PS: Ebay has TONS of the three chain hanging lights selling for well under ten bucks. One vendor suggested using them as bird feeders. I decided to take a spin on ebay right after I posted this, and guess what I saw? This ADORABLE diffuse with a little girl in pink jumping rope. Yup...I bought it. It was under ten bucks too!)