Crystal chandeliers and high efficiency fluorescent bulbs:

[hedgehog]

Yea! They finally started to make compact fluorescent bulbs with chandelier bases!

Boo! They have a honking big base with big black printing on them, so they look ugly as hell on my chandelier.

Yea! My husband took a look and came up with a great solution: We have a crystal chandelier with small plastic sleeves below the light sockets so a chandelier bulb is meant to resemble the flame tip on top of a short candle. He took some 2 " PVC pipe, painted it gloss white and then cut it into 4 1/2" sleeves. Now instead of a chandelier with 5 skinny fake candles, I have a chandelier with 5 chunky fake candles. This chandelier is in use every evening all winter, so replacing 5 60 watt bulbs with 5 9 watt bulbs is quite a savings!