End of an era: Repurposed vintage hanging ceiling light

If you've followed my previous blog posts, you'll know that my new place has almost no overhead lighting in any of the rooms. I found a hanging plug-in lamp on Craigslist last month for $15 and decided to reinvent it. It is definitely a neat space-age vintage piece, but it had unattractive 70s orange and puke green colors going on. Actually, my family lived in a house when I was younger that had a lovely carpet in this color scheme.

Anyway, my general go-to colors are turquoise and orange (or variations, such as coral and teal) so I decided to use translucent glass paint (like stained glass paint) to paint a turquoise blue over the green plastic discs. BUT, that was a failure because the paint was too thin to cover up the green. So I dug out my standard acrylic paints and just painted the discs opaque orange and turquoise. I finished it with a high-gloss spray to keep the paint from chipping. It turned out quite nicely. Here's a finished picture (I started this project before the blog, so I have few in-progress pictures)

My next issue was what to do about the chain. It was a white crackly color, probably chipped and scratched from years of use. I really wanted to get a new chain, but (shock) hanging chain lamps are not common now, and replacement chains are either very expensive, too short, or even uglier than the current chain. So one night I decided to just paint the chain. It was impossible to remove it from the intertwined cord without it being a major production, so I painted the chain while still on the cord. Note that you really do need good-quality glossy paint for this. Mine was still the cheap stuff, so I painted a few feet (using a thin paint brush), then sprayed it down with the gloss, then painted a few more feet, and sprayed it down. It took a few days and it's not a quality job, but I just wanted this lamp off my living room floor. As you can see, it's not perfect:

Finally, I had to figure out how to hang it. I couldn't find any studs on my ceiling (long story) and the lamp weighed about 8 pounds, making it too heavy for basic screw hooks (which are generally rated for up to 5 pounds), so I got a large ceiling hook and toggle bolt rated for up to 15 pounds. It required drilling a 1/2" hole in my ceiling, so I'll be filling that one with putty before I move again. The hook was also an unattractive, basic Walmart issue, so I painted it bright orange to contrast with the cord. I used two smaller screw hooks to hold the chain and painted those as well. 

Then, I hung it up!

I love how colorful it is and I like the colored chain especially. The opaque discs do seem to limit the lighting a bit, which is fine for the ambience of a bedroom, but I may remove the discs altogether in a few months. We'll see. Thanks for reading!