Howdy, Cowpersons! Earlier, I talked about how to repair your busted chandelier and I was thinking – while you have that thing down, you oughta give it a nice cleaning. Cleaning a chandelier is relatively easy (unless you got a fancy one – then you should get an expert to do it) and once you get it all spic and spiffy, you can just do a quick clean every now and then to keep it sparkling without hauling it down again.

Anyway, here’s how I clean my chandelier:

1. Turn off the light and flip the circuit breaker. Important! That is unless you enjoy the sensation of having electricity flowing through your body.
2. Take your chandelier down – carefully! Lay down a towel below in case any of those little bitty baubles come off when you are lowering it.
3. If you can’t take your chandelier down, just remove all the trimmings and other parts that can come off. Remember, though do not rotate your chandelier whe nit is hanging. That’s called “unscrewing” and it means CCCCCCCRASH!
4. Lay a thick terry cloth towel at the bottom of your sink. This will make a soft surface for your baubles and pendants.
5. Fill the sink with hot water and a mild detergent. The hotter the water the better – it’ll evaporate faster when drying and leave less spots.
6. Carefully wash your baubles and pendants in the sink and lay them on a towel to dry.  Rinse them well. We don’t want any soap scum on our chandelier.
7. Once everything is clean and dry, reattach it and hoist it back up.

Now, for in between cleanings, you have a couple options that don’t require you to disassemble the whole thing:

• Place a clean cotton sock over a feather duster and attach it to an extension handle. Spray the sock with a little bit of window cleaner and reach up there and clean the chandelier.
• Mix a 32 ounce spray bottle with one tablespoon of automatic dishwasher detergent, a fourth cup of rubbing alcohol, a third cup of vinegar and the rest with water. Spray your chandelier and wipe clean from a ladder or by using the extendo-matic you made above. Before doing this, you’ll want to cover your furniture with newspaper or a drop cloth. Otherwise it’ll get sprinkled with your homemade glass cleaner

Some more tips for cleaning your chandelier:

• When disassembling your chandelier, create a diagram of where the pieces go. It can be hard to remember and I bet you don’t have the manual for that thing anymore.
• When reassembling your chandelier, work from the inside to the outside. That way, you won’t be reaching through a curtain of baubles to get to the inner hooks.
• Polish and dry your baubles as you put them back on your chandelier.
• Don’t polish brass – just dust it!
• Never spray chemicals directly on your chandelier. Spray it onto your towel instead.

That’s all I’ve got for ya. If you have a tip, feel free to leave it in the comments below!

P.S. I got that picture off Flickr. It’s a chandelier in a Cuban palace – the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales – and it was taken by ahisgett.