Chandeen's Chandelier

I have always wanted a chandelier.  My hubby being the wonderful man he is, wants to give me everything I want so the search began.  The first problem we came across in our search was the old budget.  We just could not afford a chandelier in the thousands of dollars like this:

Cost: 5,000-6,000

This was DEFIANTLY out of our price range.  In fact, almost every chandelier we saw was out of our price range.  And we literally went to every antique store in Great Barrington, a ton in New York and Connecticut, and even some as we vacationed in Maine.  Needless-to-say we searched for weeks.  I did find a little chandelier in a thrift shop, that I will one day refurbish and use, but nothing in the kind of grandeur I wanted for my dining room (ok so you saw it I know). 

Finally, just when I had walked through so many overpriced antique shops I wanted to quit, we stopped at a light store.  By this point I was researching new chandeliers and had given up on the whole antique thing all together.  So we stopped at the light store.  

There it was.  At first I was drawn to yet another overpriced crystal chandelier, and was about to walk out, when Jeff pointed my soon-to-be chandelier out.  It was beautiful.  It had all the crystals hanging down, and although the frame was not crystal I thought I might paint it. Best of all, it was in our price range!

Now getting my little beauty home was another whole problem.  I drive a mini, and it is just that- mini.

This is a little photo shoot I did when I first got it.

 

You can see there is not a lot of room.

To make it worse, the store did not give us a box or anything.  So we stuck the beauty in the trunk and drove off... but hardly got out of the parking lot when we realized we had to take the crystals off or they would break.  So there, on the side of the road, Jeff and I pulled off all the crystals. 

I wish I had a picture, it took me two hours to put them all back on, and considering it is lopsided I'm still not sure if I did it right (but can't figure out what went wrong either).

Anyhow, here is the beauty, lopsided, off center (not anymore!) and all!

I decided not to paint it because I liked the contrast between the shining crystals and the dark frame.  Who knows maybe I will change my mind.  

So what do you think?  Do you have cheaper chandeliers where you live? Maybe the North East is just not the place for chandelier hunting (too many city folk antiquing).