A few months back, Kyn went on a girl’s weekend and the kids and I were left to fend for ourselves. This happens every once in a while and always seems to work out just fine. However, the law of averages states that if you flip a coin 3 times and it comes up heads, it’s most likely going to be tails on the fourth flip. Tails it is! Everything was great until the day she was coming home. I took the kids to school and came back home to clean up a bit for her arrival later in the afternoon.  I noticed that the chandelier in our entry was a bit dusty. It is an Ikea Maskros Pendant Lamp. I enjoy the “starbursty” shadows it throws on the ceiling and walls in our entryway.

Being the industrious chap that I am, I decided to dust it. I stretched out over the railing to pull the chandelier towards me. I don’t recall having much of plan past beyond this point;  I suppose I was going to give it a gentle shake.  It turns out this was a bad idea. While (GENTLY) pulling on it, one of the sections popped out.  I tried to click the section back in place. This didn’t work either. Instead, I broke off a piece that secured the piece to the rest of chandelier.

Plan A: I found some “supertype” glue and glued the piece back together.  I put some tape on it to hold it in place and waited for the glue set up. A few minutes later, I removed the tape. Problem solved? Nope. While the glue did hold, it had a reaction with the white polymer and made the area around the break a smoky brown color. It was really noticeable and if I could notice it, there was no way it was getting by Eagle Eye Kyndra.

Plan B: I found a couple different white spray paints from my personal collection. I masked off the area around the discoloration and got to sprayin”.  I knew it wasn’t going to be a perfect match; I was just looking for a “close enough” moment. Problem solved?  Nope x 2. Not only did it not cover the brown area completely, none of the whites were even close to the original white polymer color.

Plan C: What I had feared from the onset of this debacle had come to pass. There was nothing left to do but remove all the sections and paint them a color that would both cover the discoloration and be pleasing to the eye. I went with a bronzy-gold color. It was a risk, but if it didn’t look good I was going to have to pitch the thing and go buy a new one anyway. So, as Tim Gunn from Project Runway says, “make it work”! I disassembled the chandelier and masked off the parts I did not want to be gold; there could be no overspray! It seemed like there were 1000 sections, but I think there were around 40. They took a long time to prep, but after an hour or so I was ready to paint. I scattered all the sections out in the backyard and sprayed them one by one. After letting them dry, I removed all the masking tape and laid them out in the upstairs hallway. One by one, I ever so gently reassembled the pendant, finishing up with about 2 hours to spare. I decided to keep this whole sorted affair to myself and see how long it would take Kyn to notice, which I believe was all of  90 seconds. She also suspects it was an errant ball that originally broke the chandelier. To that I say “I was dusting the light… that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!”