Perils of eBay

Not too long ago we bought a new sofa for the living room. This resulted in some rearranging, since the new one had a different footprint than the former. A floor lamp we had in the corner no longer fit there, and since we really did need a light in that corner, Lisa decided a swag lamp would be the best way to go. Only swag lamps aren't too common at Lowe's and Home Depot these days, except for some truly ugly retro-70s things that are trying to make a comeback. No problem--eBay is the solution to all problems of this sort.

Big mistake, or brilliant choice, depending on how you view it. Right away, Lisa stumbled across something heretofore unknown to us--grape swag lamps. Back in the 60s and 70s, a company called Eames Era produced lamps made from Lucite balls clustered together to resemble a grape bunch. Some lamps are small, some are huge. Some are hideous (green and blue grapes, some even a kaleidoscope of colors). Others, namely the red, purple, amber and white grapes, look pretty nifty. So we started bidding on a few. And losing. We quickly found out that the ones we liked were in high demand-- these lamps haven't been produced in years, and some went for more than our budget could handle. After Christmas, the pickings got pretty slim--most of the lamps up for bid were blue and green, which we didn't want. Then, a little over a month ago, a red lamp showed up. We were pretty determined to jump on it. It came with no greenery, but we could replace that with a quick trip to Hobby Lobby. The description indicated the lamp was the largest of its type, and in "nice condition." I checked the seller's feedback--he had 50 or so positive responses, with one neutral that only complained of delayed shipping. Looked good. So we bid. And we won.

Shortly after our auction closed, three negatives showed up on his feedback. Then a couple of neutrals, all complaining about poor communication, slow shipping (or not shipping items at all) and items arriving broken. Uh oh. The guy didn't respond to our emails. We started to get concerned. Finally, after almost a month, we got a terse email apologizing for the delay and promising our lamp was on its way. And sure enough, the lamp arrived a couple of days later.

It had been shipped with a sheet of bubble wrap simply tossed over it--it's a miracle the lamp didn't break in transit. Shoddy packaging indeed. And it stank. The box reeked of cigarette smoke, and the lamp itself--it just smelled wrong. It had something of a greasy film over the entire thing, like it'd been hung in a fry kitchen for the past 30 years. It was grimy. And it wasn't the largest of its type--which takes a single, standard bulb inserted in a conical hollow amidst the grapes. Instead, it took three mini bulbs--think night light or chandelier--that were wedged deeply in the midst of the Lucite grapes and difficult to get to. But the cord and swag chain... hoo boy. The chain was grimy and almost rusted through all along its length. The cord consisted of two different electrical cords spliced together with electrician's tape, and when Lisa tried to plug the thing in, sparks shot out and the circuit breaker tripped. Needless to say, it was not as advertised in our opinion, and the jerk got negative feedback from us.

But in for a penny, in for a pound. I went to Home Depot and bought a swag kit, plus some chandelier lamp sockets, low wattage bulbs and such. A trip to Hobby Lobby landed us some very nice faux grape vine/leaf bunches (50 percent off sale!). I spent several hours stripping the wiring out of the grape bunch (it was built to never come out) then ran the whole thing through the dishwasher for a good degreasing. I removed the branch of "driftwood" anchored at the top of the lamp and cleaned it separately to remove the cigarette stench. Then I spent several more hours rewiring the whole thing, essentially building a new lamp with four sockets hidden within. Here's the result:



Despite my initial misgivings due to the awful condition it arrived in, the refurbished lamp looks pretty darn good. The kitsch factor is mitigated by the fact that to the right of the lamp is a suspended wine rack that spans the length of the kitchen/living room, and we've already got artificial grapes and vines hanging from that (if you want to designate that kitsch, so be it), so this works nicely as an extension of the theme. Even with four lights, it doesn't put out as much light as we were hoping, and I'm not comfortable putting higher wattage bulbs (both for heat generated and energy consumption reasons). Ideally, we'd like one of the large lamps with space inside for a single, large florescent bulb, but I suspect it'll be a while before we venture back to eBay for one.

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