I’m sure many of you remember the polished brass and antique brass of years gone by. When I started in the lighting business nearing 40 years ago, polished and antique brass were very popular and almost all traditional homes had brass lighting fixtures. Polished brass is still a beautiful finish but lighting manufacturers stopped supplying it about 12 years ago, but trust me, it will be back just as chrome has returned and is hot, hot hot.

Now enter “gold”. The past couple of lighting markets has offered new gold finishes but this year, it’s off the chart. I hate to bore you but you must know how many gold finishes are offered. To save time and print I will only list the name of the gold finish, you just need to put the word gold after each. So, here goes: winter, capital, antique, burnished, champagne, guilded, brio, satin, heirloom, Peruvian, white, mystic, Etruscan, matte, Havana, painted, brushed, sun, medallion, satin, vintage, modern, gold leaf, vibrant, French and finally just plain ole gold. You might want to read the list again, there will be a pop quiz at the end.

All joking aside, the golds are beautiful and we have many of the finishes mentioned, hanging in our showroom. You will also see all of these finishes on our online store. Often manufacturers are mixing the golds with other metal finishes such as black, nickel, white and bronze. Now for the quiz…

Some of my readers have asked about the cousins; Shirley Mae and Erma Sue. They are robots as in Roomba vacuums. Well, they are doing well and in our home they are kept busy. Erma Sue was cleaning the downstairs and overheard Jim telling me there is actually an Erma Sue electric lawnmower. Shhhhh, I said. Silence from downstairs. I tiptoed down and found Erma Sue sulking. I do all I can to stay on the girl’s good side but once again, I’m in the dog house. Shirley Mae could care less, Erma Sue is very sensitive. My good friend Elva, received Susie Q for Valentine’s Day. I hope she manages to stay out of trouble, Elva that is.