Cleaning Rope-Covered Glass

by Julie@Cut Off in the Keweenaw

Do you need to clean the glass on a rope-covered light fixture, lantern or candle holder, and the rope can't be removed? I have a tip for you.

cleaning rope covered glass, cleaning tips

It all started with the rattan rope pendant light we purchased for our stair landing. When we first took it out of the box, it had a cloudy film on the glass globe, and the shape of the globe prevented the removal of the rope. It was quickly apparent that trying to clean all the little areas of glass between the rattan pieces wasn't going to work. It just made things worse. Since I'm pretty obsessive about my house, I had to come up with an effective cleaning method if I was going to live with this light fixture. What I ended up doing worked like a charm, but you know what happened after the fixture was hanging for a while.

That's right. It got dirty again. Funny how that happens.

I keep canned air on hand to blow the dust off this fixture, but it sometimes needs a more thorough cleaning. Here's the method. After removing the globe from the fixture, I placed it in my bathtub and sprayed the globe liberally (inside & out) with Windex. I'm sure I could have used vinegar, but I had 2 reasons for not using it. (1) When I clean something with vinegar, I usually have to polish it quite a bit to get rid of streaks, and I couldn't do that with this rope-covered globe. (2) I didn't want the rope to smell like vinegar. Anyway, after spraying the globe with Windex, I rinsed it with a lot of warm water and allowed it to dry overnight in the tub.

I had dry rope and clean, streak-free glass the next day.

Here's the before and after.

Ah, much better.

I have a similar looking wire-covered candle holder with a rope handle that I also clean with this method. Hope this helps some of you.

NOTE: If you're concerned about Windex turning your rope blue, you could use Windex Vinegar Multi-Surface Cleaner. It's clear and doesn't smell like vinegar.