Home Interior Design

When you install a chandelier in your house you acquire something beautiful and practical and an object that will become a focus for the room. All other decorations will revolve around it. It will become a talking point, the centrepiece. A fireplace draws attention to a lower level in a room; whereas a chandelier is the highest point of a room’s decoration.|Never in the long history of the chandelier has there been such choice as there is today. You can buy in person or over the internet. You can scour the brocante stalls in French markets or the junk shops in England or America.

If you want to start your French chandelier collection, what better way than to come and stay with us at our vacation chateau. Our castle is perfect for a chateau vacation for large parties and for guests one suite at a time. We are passionate about chandeliers and can point you in the direction of some fabulous antique fairs. Come and spoil yourself with a castle vacation. The money you can save on your chandeliers could very well pay for your holiday. Forget Paris for antiques unless you have bottomless pockets.

The type of chandelier which is associated with French work is more open with its main structural support supplied not by a stem or chains but rather by a cage or frame with prettily curved members, often gilded and with candles or drops in the centre space. Like English chandeliers, they have chains of drops and pendants.

The difference is that instead of being massed together, they are however spaced further apart so that they can be seen individually. The effect is extremely ornate and delicate without being elaborate.

The ironwork on French chandeliers by the 1900s was superbly refined and attractive. The stem might have leaves and stalks curling off it supporting crystal drops, beads and flowers. For all the festoons and bags drops, glass arms, full panoply of other elements, the French chandelier is distinctively never heavy or crowded and always alluring.

Perhaps the best known and longest established chandelier maker in France is the firm of Baccarat, which continues to thrive today.

Chandeliers come in all sizes and shapes - some more unusual than others. Amongst some of the most charming eccentric chandeliers are those designed to represent hot-air balloons. The early nineteenth century saw a wave of enthusiasm for hot-air balloons, prompted by the first balloon flight by the Montgolfier brothers, Michel and Joseph travelling through the air for some 6 miles in 1783. Some Montgolfier chandeliers are Italian others French.

One of the things you need to be absolutely sure of is that your chandelier is safe; that when it is installed it will stay up, it won’t shed pieces on your head and it won’t electrocute anyone or burn the house down.

If you bought you chandelier from a market or a brocante you should use common sense about its wiring. Any chandelier is only as safe as good electrically speaking as the circuit of which it is part. Have it tested by a qualified electrician and rewired if in doubt.

If you sell your house and you have a sentimental attachment to your chandeliers, you can stipulate in the contract a specific exclusion that the chandeliers are not included.

Moving house itself is stressful enough, without having to worry about getting electricians in to de-install chandeliers and then having them specially wrapped for insurance.Do not be surprised if your moving quote is an extra 10,000 dollars because you want to take 4 of your favourite chandeliers. Removalists who know their trade often have to have special wooden crates constructed to hang the chandeliers in for transit. If they turn up with just large cardboard boxes, insist that they do their job probably or your precious chandeliers will be damaged.

Individual chandelier parts are incredibly expensive. We had a removalist break a large bobeche off one of our chandeliers and the quote to replace that one piece was more than we paid for the entire chandelier - mind you we scour brocantes and antique fairs for bargains.