Cleaning Your Chandelier

By Chan Boldene

You’ve been putting it off for weeks, months even. You look up at the masterpiece of a chandelier that adorns your dining room, and the glass crystal jewels in your once elegant, once brilliant chandelier have lost their luster. They no longer sparkle when you flip on the light. The dirt and grease and grime and gunk of the long winter months and hot summer days is starting to show on your beautiful lighting fixture.

But you also realize that cleaning it could potentially be a major undertaking. You think about hiring or ordering one of your kids to do it, then realize that he’ll break something if he’s left with the glass alone for too long. So, then you decide to break down and grab a rag to clean it yourself. Okay, where do you start?

Take a few minutes to plan. Grab a small ladder, a drop cloth, a bucket of warm water, some detergent (what you use to wash dishes should be fine to clean the hanging jewels), an all purpose cleaner and/or metal polish, and a couple of clean rags, and a drying towel. The fastest way of cleaning all of those hanging glass pieces is to remove them the chandelier first and soak them in water.

If your chandelier has glass crystal jewels, you can use warmer water than if you have plastic crystals. Water is your best friend and will take most of the manual labor out of your cleaning schedule.

Now that the crystal pieces are soaking in the bucket of water, you have more open space to clean the stems and the metal. Clean the metal well. Be thorough. Step off the ladder and take a look at your job before you rehang the jewels. Take your time as you don’t want a wise guy to remark, “you missed a spot.” They will anyhow, but you can lessen that possibility with this step.

Now comes the fun part. With your rag, clean each jewel separately and place them on the towel. Most will only need a wipedown after they have soaked in the water for ten minutes. After you have a dozen or so cleaned, dry each one so that they’ll shine like they were new, then hang them (or wait to hang them altogether). If you hang a few crystals at a time, you’ll feel you’ve accomplished something faster.

By the time you’re done cleaning all of the pieces and have rehung them, your bucket of water should be thoroughly dirty. So, to prevent this grime buildup in the future, you need to spend a few minutes a week dusting the chandelier.

Dust that fixture and you’ll keep the brilliance and sparkle of your glass jewel crystals (as well as the metal stems). It’ll look clean and fresh, like you’ve spent hours cleaning and polishing the chandelier weekly. No one needs to know the truth. - 23546

About the Author:

Mr. Chan Boldene is a technical writer and writes about many topics. Read more of his blog at Shine That Chandelier. For more information on additional Chandelier subjects, visit Chandeliers