well *that* was not what we expected…
Written on March 27, 2008 by steph
the electrical work started yesterday. we stopped by the house after dinner to marvel at all the coils of wire in the dining room and pick up the light fixtures that are original to the house that we want to clean up, fit with new sockets and wiring, and have reinstalled. there wasn’t much else to see (in the dark with all the light fixtures gone). the electrician spent much of yesterday afternoon trying to get the new service coordinated with pg&e (pacific gas & electric)…even though he wants to recess the new panel in the exterior wall, pg&e wants two bollards in front of it…in our neighbor’s driveway. if we put the panel on the other side of the house, we’d need bollards in our driveway which is only 8 feet wide to start with, so we’d probably not be able to park in our driveway if we add bollards. the neighbor’s driveway is about 20 feet wide and where the bollards would be would technically be on/at the edge of our property, but in their concrete. it seems like they’d still have ample room to park, but they’ve been really nice so far and we don’t want to piss them off…especially since we are going to need to be encroaching on their driveway and yard when we replace the shingles, work on the foundation, etc.). anyway, will (the electrician) is still trying to negotiate something, so we’ll see.
so we picked up some of the fixtures. here’s a “before” photo of the fixture in the center of the dining room:
it looks like a brass fixture that needs a good cleaning, right? at least, that is what i thought. so will removed it from the ceiling and eric & i took it home and removed the old electrical bits so that we could clean it up. it is heavy and was filthy! cleaned up, however, it is not even remotely what we expected:
yes, at some point in time they were painted beige and silver. ick. we could see what looks like antique brass where the paint has chipped off, but more likely they are brass-plated (then painted) steel (a magnet will stick to it). we scrubbed that dark spot on the smaller fixture (which was in the foyer) and it looks very much like steel, so i’m not confident we’ll be able to strip the paint off and keep the brass in tact.
i’m not sure where i want to go from here. we should probably try stripping the paint first, and i suppose we could look into having them re-plated, but neither of us want them to be new shiny brass…so more spray paint? i’m afraid they will loose all their definition and detail if i paint them…decisions, decisions, decisions.
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When you get those fixtures replated, you can also have them do a patina so they are not super-shiny. Looks better than painting and keeps a lot of the definition of the metal.
As for the driveway encroachment, I’d consider asking the neighbors how they feel about the possibility of bollards. They may not care that much, given that they would be technically on your property. It’s worth asking, at least.
If you alternatives are
1) try to strip the paint and risk stripping the brass; in which case either plate or paint, or
2) paint it as it stands
it seems you have nothing to lose by trying to strip the paint.
When I read “electrical” and “not what was expected”, I flashed back to when my folks were doing some work on the house I grew in. Turned out much of the wiring it was aluminum, with cloth insulation!
Spray paint ain’t a bad discovery. =)
Well, we do have plenty of cloth insulation, although I don’t think any aluminum wire. But it’s all being replaced!
we actually decided on spray painting the fixtures to look like cast iron. i’ve been giving them a fine mist just about every day before work and i think they are looking pretty good. we’ll do a write up about them after we’ve taken photos! the rewiring is steadily progressing too, there just isn’t as much to say about it.