I've been shopping on Craig's List again. It's a bad habit of mine.
Actually, I take that back. When I look around my house at all the things I have thrifted, I am quite pleased with them all. So let's just call it a habit. Nothing bad about it. In fact, just recently I have sold our old kitchen cabinets, an armoire in our guest room to make way for a chair, and our old stove and microwave. We are delivering the latter to town tomorrow and I am hoping to bring home a $20 set of bookcases for our storage room (from another seller). Win win!
Although Sarah's room hasn't been on our target list of projects yet, I have had in mind to buy her a chandelier. She is my princess, after all. Through all the light shopping I've done for the kitchen I have kept my eye out for a good deal. This listing recently popped up on Craig's List:
Genuine Crystal 8-Arm Chandelier, $250
I took note but moved on. It was more than I wanted to spend and a bit traditional.
And then, a week later:
Genuine Crystal 8-Arm Chandelier, Price Reduced! $100
This time I bit. I pulled out the measuring tape to make sure it wouldn't clock us in the head when we walked through her room, then offered $75. It was ours!
I was a little unsure at first. It was covered with that dusty/greasy grime that all things accumulate when they are over 50 years old. I laid it out on the kitchen table and spent several hours cleaning the entire chandelier and every individual crystal.
It sparkled! It was worth the effort.
And after putting it up in Sarah's room I was even more sure of the purchase.
Fit for a princess.
As with any thrift purchase, it is fun to try to find out if you scored a good deal or not. The chandelier bore the mark of Palme&Walter KG, which we identified as a German chandelier maker. However, the only lead we could find on its value was a listing on eBay for another Palme&Walter chandelier (which looked very much like ours) that had rare Strass crystals on it. Apparently those crystals had signatures in them which could be seen with a magnifying glass. This chandelier sold for $6,000. Ahem. Needless to say I got out a magnifying glass. But I couldn't find any such signature. And the likelihood of a chandelier of that value ending up in an unknowing Great Falls citizen's home? Yeah, right.
In any case, although it would be nice to have a better idea what the value of this fixture is, I'm confident either way we scored a good deal. And Sarah is ecstatic.