Yesterday I visited my dear friend Holly Chamness in her work room. She runs a custom drapery business catering to the top interior designers in California. She is one of the last artisan workrooms around, hand finishing draperies with the touch of the finest couture houses in Paris. She made all of the white linen drapes in my home and the gorgeous silk taffeta heart stoppers in my bedroom and dining room.

Yesterday, I popped in to see about luggage covers. An unusual request for sure. But I know Holly is the only one who understands. She pulled out her Gucci Rolls Royce luggage from the 80’s and showed me the exquisite covers made for it.

She insists I need leather corners.

With her signature auburn locks and southern charm, Holly is the epitome of grace. Her style is at once modern and old world.

Her work has been featured in Architectural Digest among other publications.

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When moving into a new place, one of the first things I do is change the lighting. This means changing fixtures and usually installing dimmer switches. This is not as complicated as I once thought.

The first step is to turn off the power at the service panel. This is a good time to figure out which switch or fuse controls which room or area. Label these now and thank yourself later.

Now you can go about removing the fixture, in my case a ceiling fan. Loosen the collar of the unit. On a chandelier it is the small screw on part supporting the canopy. That is the part covering the hole in the ceiling and all the wires.

Now you will find the wire nuts connecting the wiring. There is often a ground wire but sometimes not.  Unscrew the wire nuts and you can now remove the fixture completely. For the fan I removed the paddles first.

Now you will be left with a hole in the ceiling with wires hanging out. And a metal bar with holes in it. This is where you will screw in the nipple end that anchors the chandelier into the mount.

Thread the wires through the chain, collar, canopy and nipple and through the hole in the bar in the ceiling. Screw the nipple in to hold the chandelier in place. This is the hard part because this is when it gets tiring to hold up. 

After the nipple is secured into the ceiling mount, you are hands free. 

reconnect the wires with wire nuts. Attach the neutral or ridged wire one to the white wire from the ceiling. In my case in an old building, I don’t have that or a ground wire.

And the hot wire to the black wire in the ceiling.

You can now turn the power back on and test to see if it is working properly. You can also test the polarity with a continuity tester to be sure the correct wires are connected. 

Now screw the collar onto the end of the nipple to hold the canopy in place.