Question on Medallions

When I had my house re-wired in 1974 the electrical contractor, who respected old houses and was a friend of my uncle, sent an older electrician who had been trained in Italy. The man was an artist–it was wonderful how he worked around moldings, medallions, and decorative woodwork.I guess there aren’t many like him now.

Interestingly his boss claimed to have rewired my house once before, in the late 30s. At his advise, we left much of the old wiring, which used BX and replaced the original (and very scary-looking) wiring from c.1905. I had read that early-20th Century wiring used uninsulated wires with ceramic knobs and posts, but the disconnected stuff inside my walls looks like cloth insulated bell wires that you wouldn’t think would stand up to 110 volts. Anyway, I’ve had no trouble at all with the remains of the late 30s wiring, except for a top floor fuse box that cracked and caused all sorts of weird intermittent problems before my current electrician found it and replaced it with a circuit breaker box.

Electricians can be butchers. When we renovated, I wept after seeing how our electrician chopped through plaster moldings to run his BX. Thank g** our GC was able to repair the damage. The wiring itself for a light fixture is very straighforward so perhaps consider having a plasterer or carpenter do the installation. I would also say, in spite of Bob’s optimism, that some of these medallions really are pretty fragile.

Many old canopies have a decorative brass pipe running through the center, hiding the threaded pipe that attaches to the box. These are MUCH easier to use than modern canopies, or even normal repros, because you can push the canopy down on the pipe, physically attach the light fixture to the box and then attach the wires. Lastly you push the canopy up and secure it over the wires, gas pipe, etc. I don’t know if anyone makes repros of these. In any case I treasure my old canopies. I hate having to make the electrical connection before hanging a fixture.

Not all medallions are that fragile. Last Summer, I removed the light fixture from my bedroom, in preparation for having a tin ceiling installed. The ceiling was in very bad shape and we didn’t want the mess of taking it down and replacing it. It turns out that the wide pan on the light fixture was holding up a sagging portion of the ceiling, which fell, taking the medallion with it. The medallion survived the fall in perfect shape. I was glad that I wouldn’t have to cover it with tin and could set it aside for future use elsewhere. I was NOT so glad about having to sweep up a lot of plaster moments before the tin ceiling installers arrived. It could have been worse–the ceiling section was considerate enough to wait until I was no longer on a ladder, under it, before letting go.

Anyway, the point of this long story was that you MIGHT be able to remove the medallion intact, if all else fails {although my suggestion would be to keep the old box if at all possible).