Thrifty Retro Swag Light

This weekend was the annual open scrimmage for the Denver Broncos. While I love to support the home team, I think I'll get to see plenty of them on tv this fall. On the opposite end of the scale is Matt, who just can't get enough Bronco goodness in his life. He usually goes to this event with his brother, and I dropped him off at his brothers house so they could ride together. On my way home from Nate's house I noticed an Arc Thrift Store just down the street and decided to check it out. Honestly I'm pretty glad I did. Not only was there a huge selection of stuff there, but it was actually organized in a way that made finding things a million times easier (unlike goodwill). So there I was, amidst all the other thrifty shoppers perusing the wares n' such when I spotted this awesome light fixture.

There it was, just sitting there with all the 80's reject, lighting feeling like a sad little orphan. So I scooped it up and continued my way around the store. Unluckily for me (and probably luckily for Matt) I didn't really see much else that caught my eye so I handed my $15 over and made my way home.



As you can see from the inside theres a lamp shade like thingy inside, but it's pretty disgusting and crumpled up in one spot.



Here it is hung up in a corner of the dining room. I don't plan on keeping it here, but this is one of the only ceiling hooks in our house and I wanted to take some pictures of it to share with you fine people.







I tried it without the shade inside and I think I like it better this way. It's a lot less yellow-y, which I really hate in my lighting.





I know brass is all the rage right now, but I'm just not that cool. I think I might like to put some ORB spray paint on the chain just to add a little depth. Kinda like those cool wooden dressers with dark stain and creamy white drawers or something. As far as the light goes, I didn't see any labels inside to google. I tried a bunch of search variations that included but were not limited to: swag, lamp, light, pendant, ceramic, mcm, mid century modern, vintage, retro.... The closest things I found were similar in shape but they had smaller holes, more of them, and kinda looked like Swiss cheese. It would be fun to find out that my $15 lamp was really a valuable antique that's worth $300, but I really don't care. I just like the way it looks.



What thrifty treasures have you found lately? Have you ever bought something that you later found out was worth a lot more than you paid for it?