We’re talking about the big shift, from the general use of incandescent globes to energy saving globes, which use only 25% as much energy as their old style cousins, and save us enormous amounts of both money and greenhouse gases over their lifetime. Who knew that a light bulb could create such an involved conversation (except maybe Thomas Edison!). But there is a lot of talk being thrown around currently about how great energy saving bulbs are. Truth is, that they are going to be an absolutely necessary weapon in our arsenal against climate change – but there are two sides to every story. Why do we love them and want to marry them … and why hasn’t everyone immediately replaced every single bulb in their home?

Firstly, some statistics, from green.yahoo.com. The 18 seconds campaign on this site is sponsored by Energy Star bulbs, and shows how many energy saving bulbs have been bought from their company and installed across America, and how many tones of carbon dioxide that has saved going into the atmosphere. Roughly 27 million bulbs have been purchased (not even one per 10% of the population), however this equates in terms of greenhouse savings to 193,000 cars off the road, or 12 billion pounds of CO2. For a little thing, they sure pack a wallop! Middle America is the best at using these, with Oklahoma and its neighbors ranking best. Energy Star says it takes 18 seconds to change a light bulb – so why hasn’t the Earth recovered already?…

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Lyman (usually just ‘L.’) Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz, one of my personal all-time favourite movies and one to which I know all of the lyrics, including whether the high voiced Munchkins or low-voiced Munchkins sing the lines! It is an absolute classic, as well as the first movie to be made in color, and the classical style of the movie is reflected in the design of this chandelier in the lobby of the Hotel del Coronado, which Mr. Baum also designed. With a total of 25 lamps to make the crystal chains underneath absolutely glow, and elegant styling which is all the more beautiful for being understated, it is just what you’d expect from the writer of such a gorgeous kids movie.

The Hotel del Coronado is two hours south of LA City, and has a view of Coronado island – the hotel takes its name from the island, not the other way round! It was built in 1888, so doubtless would be a lovely place to visit for those of you who, like us, get all jumpy and excited about antiques and classic architecture. It was updated in 2003, a refurbishment which cost $55 million and put considerable effort in to retaining the original style and charm of the place. The floral carpeting is said to be somewhat iridescent, changing hues as you move around the hallway, and the armoires and coffee tables in the lobby are all hand carved. (more…)

The Ice Hotel is located in Jukkasjärvi in Sweden – a shivering 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle! All of the ice in the hotel, including the gorgeous clear columns, the intricate chandelier, and the impressive walls comes from the River Torne. This river apparently produces the clearest ice possible, because of the water’s purity and the steady movement of the river. It has an eerie, solemn, alien look to most of it, and the ice chandelier that you see at the start of the movie is one of the touches that makes it seem a bit more accessible and human. You could otherwise believe that you had stepped into a Martian palace, or even the ice world that Clark Kent was trapped in for a time between Supermans 1 and 2!

Ice is one of the easier materials to carve, once you have practiced the technique a bit, because of the regularity of the molecular structure of the sculpting material, its softness and availability. However, temperature is obviously a major challenge to overcome! When large sculptures are being made, machines are used nowadays, but the chandelier shown in the ice hotel could be made with only hand tools, patience and a love of ice and chandeliers. Unfortunately it is not possible to find antique ice chandeliers!You could try making something like this yourself – ice sculptors use block ice, drills, soldering irons and ice picks, as well as chainsaws for larger pieces, and there are also plenty of courses available on the web. Here is a beautiful chandelier which you can make yourself, at little cost, and have fun doing it – and best of all, it will live on only in your memory, where it can become as great as you want it to be! (more…)

Well, the urban legend of the nail sticking up out of the floor holding up a chandelier in a room below (or you can substitute wires) may just have some truth about it – but by gosh, it sure isn’t scary!

Unlike the one about the murderer in the back seat of the car, or the tapping at the window, this one is just a little bit pointless. The (scary) story goes, that there were a pair of sisters who were never allowed to touch a nail sticking out of their parents’ bedroom floor, but were not told why. One morning they came in to their parents’ bedroom to find them dead mysteriously, and the superstitious daughters, who had listened to too many urban legends, believe that it was something to do with the nail. They work up the courage to pull it out, and find that it was holding up a chandelier in the apartment below theirs, which fell on their downstairs neighbor.

There are also several versions circulating where newlyweds, or travelers to Moscow, see wires under a rug in their room, believe they are for a bug, and cut them – dropping chandeliers of various impressive sizes into rooms below.

There are several physical limitations to the truth of these stories: the most notable being that you could not mount a huge chandelier to a roof with wires alone – if they did stick out of the floor of the room above, and were cut, they should only stop incandescent lights coming on…

It is possible that someone may have somehow attached a chandelier so that the fastening nut or nail stuck out of the floor above – but only if they were a bit of a weekend handyman, and were perhaps basing their knowledge of how chandeliers should be attached on this myth! In any case, most that have chandeliers have spent too much money on them to fasten them so insecurely, and we hope that licensed builders and electricians have more sense … 

Photo credits: Under the carpet by Agnieszka Mieszczak

When you look at the very extensive, very intricate, and very well-made lighting products in our antiques range, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that possibly the most authentic antique light is DIY, free and available to all at the low-low price of nothing - the simple campfire. The creation of fire is recognized as one of humankind’s first and most important steps towards where we are today – but recognized by few as the most authentic of antique lamps!! Lighting has progressed through various stages throughout history to come to where it is now, with a huge range of lighting options in hundreds of categories and types, and also at different levels of artistic value. Where did it all start, and how did the journey get us here?

The use of fire for light would have been so important in our evolution – imagine the winter months, before artificial light was created. There wouldn’t have been much you could do except sleep at the times when the moon had waned and the sun went down – and without either reverse-cycle heater and airconditioners, or fire, even sleeping would have been quite cold and uncomfy! Fire provided a huge opportunity to extend the day’s activities past daylight hours, without doing too much waste-of-time sleeping! At the Cradle of Humankind, evidence for the existence of fire from up to 1.8 million years ago exists. One of the other activities we first used fire for was in landscape management – before the advent of gorgeous home furnishings, we just had to make do!

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