Would you spend 16 hours to save $929?

Well we DID.

But it wasn’t OUR money we saved or client hours WE spent. It was our time to with all the savings going directly to the client.

TLTR. We found the chandelier on FB Marketplace for a savings of $929. We spent around 16 hours driving to and from the sellers house, removing the crystals, hand cleaning each crystal, and driving to and from the clients house for delivery. The take away? It was TOTALLY worth it.

Let’s back up to the beginning.

After many texts back and a shared Pinterest board with pinned ideas, we found Susan her DREAM chandelier. Even better, it was spouse approved! The 29” round Clarissa chandelier from Pottery Barn with a ticket price of $1,499 with a hefty $150 shipping fee, with a grand total of $1,649.

Although it was within budget, the high ticket price still stung a bit.

For both of us.

One of Livlii’s core missions is to purchase second-hand whenever possible to prevent home furnishings and decor from spending over an average of 1K years in a landfill.

This was no exception. Susan and I agreed-unless I could find this EXACT chandelier- size- color, shape, brand, and in near-perfect condition, she’d settle buying it new.

Fast forward two months later, I’m on FB marketplace when I come across the EXACT. CHANDELIER. Yes! Exact.

And the best part? Besides the incredible price? The seller was just over an hour away. Making it totally feasible to purchase and pick up.

So back to the Susan I went to share my incredible find…

The bad news (wellllllll sort-of) was that she ordered the chandelier already. The good news? It hadn’t shipped out ot her yet. And PLOT TWIST. The chandelier was now on sale- instead of $1,499 ticket price Susan paid, it was on sale for $1,199.

So the way we saw it- Susan had two options.

OPTION #1: Susan calls Pottery Barn asking them to honor the sale price, discounting the product, saving her a minimum of $300 and we skipped purchasing the same chandlier from FB Marketplace

OPTION #2: Susan return the chandelier for full refund and we purchase the used one for a savings of $929.

We chose to pursue Option #2.

Timing was crucial. I immediately reached out to the FB marketplace seller to secure the sale while Susan reached out to Pottery Barn to initiate a cancellation and full refund. We agreed that the worst case scenario was the FB marketplace seller already sold the chandelier before we could buy it and that we’d revert to Option #1- where Susan could initiate and secure a refund of $300 to honor the sale price since the chandelier hadn’t shipped yet.

Susan called Pottery Barn and to our surprise, Pottery Barn refused to honor the sales price even though the chandelier had NOT be shipped yet. Not cool Pottery Barn. NOT. COOL.

So Susan decided to risk it and cancel her order completely. Her thinking was she’d cancel the order and then re-order it at the sale price if we couldn’t secure the FB marketplace chandelier. Pottery Barn agreed to refund her the full price with the exception of $150 she paid for shipping. After some convincing, Susan got Pottery Barn to agree to giving her store credit for the $150.

Success!

Kind of.

Now it was down to the FB Marketplace seller responding to my inquiry and selling us the chandelier.

Less than 24 hours later I secured a pick up and meet-up time with the FB Marketplace seller- who we will call “Ella”. And three days after that, Ella and I met up for the exchange. Almost an hour of talking, inspecting the chandelier, and together removing around 75 crystals by hand to reduce the chances of some crystals breaking, together we loaded the 32 lbs. chandelier into the back seat of my car.

Total selling price? $600!!!

Minus the few minutes spent writing Ella, the drive there and back totaled just under THREE hours. Thank you PA blue route for the awesome traffic on my commute home.

Fast forward to getting the chandelier OUT of my car. Due to the VERY heavy weight – Remember? It’s 32 lbs.!!!!! and the already 6 broken drop crystals, I felt it best to remove ALL the crystals.

WHY take the time to remove all the crystals from the chandelier?

• FIRST. It would prevent the chances of breaking more crystals. Need I remind you again this chandelier is 32 lbs.?!?!? With that kind of weight these delicate glass crystals are just begging to shatter.
• SECOND. It would be easier to lift- out of the car to clean and back into the car to get it to the client. PLUS the crystals cannot be on the chandelier when it’s installed so they needed to be removed anyway.
• THIRD. Every crystal needed to be cleaned. I figured it would be easier to clean each crystal when they are loose rather than toggled to the chandelier frame.
• FOURTH. I wanted to fully inspect the condition of all the crystals so I would know EXACTLY how many and what style crystal was cracked for replacement purposes.

TWO hours later, I removed EVERY crystal (about 564 crystals exactly) and loaded the chandelier frame and bins of crystals into the house. In doing so, I noticed tiny specks of white paint on the crystals and frame. The seller disclosed the chandelier was still hanging when the ceiling and walls were painted. My close inspection confirmed this.

SIX hours of hand-cleaning all 564 crystals twice along with wiping down all angles of the frame to remove dust and more paint specks, it was time to load everything BACK into the car and travel about THREE hours there and back to deliver the chandelier to the client.

And can we say? The final product look is AMAZING!

Check it out for yourself.

Sooooooooooo…would you spend 16 hours to save your client $929?

We think it was TOTALLY worth it.

Why?

The client saved money.

We were able to help the environment and enable our clients to buy second-hand without sacr0ficing on the quality.

We have yet another happy client who not only LOVES the final look.

I’d say that’s another Livlii WIN. WIN. WIN.