Thursday, April 7, 2011

Office Makeover Part 5: Pendant Light

The home office lighting situation was sad to say the least.  We'd made the mistake of replacing the pendant light with recessed lighting when we renovated 10 years ago.  Fast forward 10 years, and we're now trying to bring decorative lighting back into the home.  Fortunately, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Ballard Design have come up with an ingenious light that converts cans to pendants.  The shades that come with the light fixture are pretty generic, and because of the fixture, you have to use their shades.  However, a little bit of DIY and voila:

custom light shade in Thomas Paul fabric by Duralee

And here's how I did it:


Pull off trim (thankfully it's only glued on).  Cut fabric to size and make sure it fits.


Ughh, 1 inch too short!  Dilemma, do I use two pieces of fabric, which would mean two seams, or use one piece and cover the seam with some extra fabric?


Decided to have only one seam.  I didn't even try to match up the pattern because the seam will be facing the wall and you won't really see it.  Next step, spray glue the fabric and roll it on the shade.  Easier said than done.  I think the fabric stuck to my leg a thousand times, and managed to attract assorted hairs and fluff, yuck.


I did contemplate making matching piping from the thomas paul fabric, but fortunately the original piping was still intact, and matched the shade nicely.

And because the room is taking so long to finish, I thought I'd show you  a quick before and after.


Almost finished, but have a few more projects lined up.  Hardest part is deciding what is going to go where on the shelves.

3 comments:

  1. I love the design of the pendant light. It is very resourceful and looks elegant. Great job!

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  2. Thanks so much for the feedback, Czarina :)

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  3. I have these lamps in my bedroom, just got em for like $7 @ a thrift store brand new, and I loath the color white! Now I have more ideas to freshen up my boring bedroom! Thank you!

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