Hello All! It's been a steamy 105+ the past few weeks here in lovely Altus, OK but that didn't make staying inside and unpacking any more enjoyable. Everything is pretty much finished and I'm ready to tackle some projects I have in mind.
First up: the Breakfast Nook in our kitchen. It currently has this light fixture:
Which is actually quite nice especially compared to what we had in our old house. I felt that it didn't flow well with my dining set and overall feel I wanted for the room. Plus I had this lamp shade I had scored from West Elm for $20 when it was going out of business a few months ago:
I wanted to hang it but wasn't sure how our landlord would feel about me completely switching out and rewiring the lighting in our home. So I thought it might be easy to just change out the glass bowl of the chandelier and simply replace it with the shade! Easy right? Just unscrewing a few things and screwing them back together.
Wrong.
The holes of the two fixtures are not the same size, so I couldn't reuse the parts from the chandelier to hold the shade in place. This required me to use my brain and think of a way to rig the two together.
After much pondering and a few missteps this is what I came up with:
Basically I screwed all the pieces together to make something of a thread, nut, washer, sandwich. These supplies are cheap (less than $5 for all) and readily available at Home Depot or Lowes. Just don't look in the lamp department for 20 minutes like I did, I found everything in the hardware section.
I used my Dremel Tool with the cutting wheel bit to cut the treaded rod down to a smaller size then pieced everything together. I reused the rod from the original chandelier to help keep my new thinner and longer rod from tilting from one side or another.
Without Shade
With Shade
Success!
I think it turned out pretty good. I had to turn the shade upside down to hide the bulbs, so it still tilts a little to the side because it's top heavy. I like the way it looks though and it was an expensive, easy way to change the look of the room.
What do you think? I feel like the room could still use some warming up, any suggestions?
What tips and tricks do you have for switching things up in a rental home? I could sure use them!
7 comments:
LOVE IT! Great idea...wish I could do that to mine. But with an antique brass chandelier it isn't happening.
I love drum shades and really like how you have the old ceiling tins mixes w/ your modern. A rug in a geometic-trellis?- pattern that picks up the colors of the ceiling tiles, simple linen floorlength curtain panels, flowers on the table and you're good to go!
OMG I like your new fixture so much better. Great style.
I like warming things up with area rugs. I love color too so I tie things together by just making evertything as colorful as possible with maybe leaving one color to be more dominant to tie things together.
I love what you have done so far with your place...it looks great! The lamp idea is awesome...I would have never thought of that! :)
I think an area rug with either some texture or a warm color would add to the room. Also perhaps some simple curtain panels?
I sure love the shade! I found a similar drum shade on clearance at TJ Max. Good to know the obstacles you encountered and the tweaks you made.
Meredith
Love the change. I was thinking of putting a shade light over my eat-in area.
Great project! I was just needing this for a planned lighting upgrade.
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