I bought this light fixture off of the nicest man one rather cold morning. It was probably the brisk air that made the price so low--he wanted to sell everything and get back in to his cup of coffee I'm sure. He was thrilled that I could use the fixture and told me all about the dining room that held the white flowered light. That's the thing about garage sales. You meet nice people who are truly happy when you can use something that they've gotten their use out of. So I picked it up for $4 and took it home.
The entire lamp, including the lampshades had been painted with a white textured paint so that it looked like it was covered in white sand. Once you paint lampshades with a heavy paint like that, they no longer glow, so the lampshades were unusable. I knew that when I first looked at them and so I automatically knew that they would have to be replaced and I budgeted for it.
What I really wanted in my family room was a red chandelier. So initially I painted the entire fixture red, but it lacked dimension and didn't look special. So I painted the candlestick holders flat black and misted the entire fixture with gold fleck paint. Then I purchased six brand new gold lampshades for $45. The end result was exactly what I wanted.
