Guest Bathroom: Polishing Up Our $5 Light Fixture

One of the most awesome finds for our guest bathroom project was this $5 light fixture.  We stole grabbed it from a really nice contractor's yard sale, and even though there was a $10 price tag on it, I asked once if they'd take 5 and they did!  Score!

It did need a little work, though, because I think it had been in storage for a little while.  I made a baking soda paste with a bit of water and rubbed it down for a nice little bath.  If you look closely, you can see the top of the main rod had been cleaned but the bottom hadn't.

I was actually doing this cleaning job while Mr. Great Indoors was ripping out the old baseboard and discovering our big problem.

The next hurdle was actually being able to hang the light, which turned into much more of an issue than we thought since the previous owners had caulked in the old Hollywood light strip.  After some initial drywall repairs, Mr. GI had us fixed up.

While we did the majority of the drywall and wallpaper work, we installed the light without its shades.  You can see it here tape up within an inch of its life so we wouldn't splatter any paint on it!

And a few good looks of it installed.

This picture is a little funky, but it's the best I could do so you could actually see the fixture instead of its lighting halo.

It's certainly not perfect (a few chips here and there, nothing incredibly visible), but for $5 who can complain?  I love the style, both in finish and shape.  We were looking at light fixtures at the lowest range costing $40.  I'm not ever intentionally putting in a $10 Hollywood light strip in my house... ever.

Have you found any deals during your own renovations?

Follow along with the rest of our bathroom adventures: our dream, the before, mildewwww, every day we're drywalling (what a terrible pun), the our thrifted finds so far, ripping out wallpaper, making up my mind on a wall color, rehauling the vanity, an updated to-do list, a teaser of the floor, cleaning and wallpapering, painting, laying flooring, plus my Pinterest boards for the guest bathroom and master bathroom.