Tuesday, February 9, 2010

First project in the new house

The first thing I wanted to do when we moved in was to take the fan out of the kitchen and put in a cool chandelier. I looked for weeks online for a cool light fixture was was looking at spending at least 200 bucks for something that wasn’t even really like I had wanted in the first place. I wanted a chandelier with a big drum shade, or something that was contemporary with a little retro mixed in. I just kept thinking that I should just make something rather than spend a bunch of money on something else. So, I did.

I talked Jared into going to the Habitat for Humanity Restore, store. It’s a great place to find stuff for working on the house for really cheap. They have some new stuff, but mainly it a lot of used items that have been taken out of homes and sold for charity.We have found some really great things there before, so I thought I’d see what they had as far as lights go. Here is what I found….

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This piece would have been added onto the bottom of a fan for lighting. You can see the pull string hanging out of the bottom. I think what I liked about this was the roundness of it. It has several ball shaped finials, and ovals frame each blub. Minus the finish color, it looked a little retro, and contemporary at the same time.

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And this piece was old and in need of rewiring. It looked very industrial. So it has the ceiling mount on the far right, a long arm for the light to hang from, and then a couple of metal plates that would have set on top of whatever fixture it may have had at one point.

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Here are all of my tools. A couple of needle nose pliers, my light ensemble and my can of Chrome spray paint.

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Now I meant to take a picture of the fixture before painting, but I got to excited and forgot. And if you doing something like this, always feel free to improvise. Can you see the two ball shaped pieces at the end of the extension rod? Those are wooden beads. I needed something to cover up some threading, and the beads holes where the right fit and they blend with the rest of the fixture.

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Okay, I wanted something to cover the sockets where the bulbs were and toilet paper rolls fit perfectly. I took some of my fabric that I had bought for my curtains and covered the rolls with the help of the hot glue gun. 197

The 20 in drum shade had to be ordered and as sad as it was for me, they are not cheap. It was the major majority of the price of the chandelier. So, here is the finished product!

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With my curtains in the background. I paid, I think 90 bucks for the shade ( crazy right?) Every other one I found though was at least 200. The fixture parts were 15.00, and the can of spray paint, about 4.00. So, grand total 109.00. May not be a bargain (shade, I mean) but I really like the way it turned out with my pretty blue paint.

FYI, I wanted to add that if you ever feel compelled to try the spary paints with the super shinny finishes, (chrome, gold, copper). The say that they dry to the touch in an hour, but the heat from you hands dulls the finish some and you have to repaint again.

3 comments:

Grandma A. said...

I can attest to the fact the the cool lamp looks very cool. You are so talented Jamie!

Heidi said...

I had my doubts when I saw the first picture, but it looks great! Good work!

thomalee said...

Wow! You are so impressive. The house is looking great...we need to come see it