another industrial pendant to complete the set

One of the first art lessons I still remember is the one in which we were introduced to the fact that in nature, things often occur in odd numbers (plant leafs, flower petals, etc.). It was an introduction to the Rule of Odds, which is used often in art and design to keep your brain interested and engaged, and you can find it in art from ancient Japan through the Renaissance all the way up through current day.

At the end of a previous lighting post, I mentioned that the idea for a certain spot in our house was to eventually have three hanging pendants for balance. That's the Rule of Odds at play in our living room.

Light number 1 was a five-cent frosted pendant.

Light number 2 was a metal cage light made with salvaged parts. (I've switched out the light kit since the original tutorial to accommodate a standard-sized Edison-style lightbulb.)

And this, the third, is was originally a plastic cage light, like this one, purchased used for 50 cents at Bring (but I've seen them similarly priced at the Habitat ReStore).

I hung it from a coat hanger in the yard and sprayed with gentle layers of primer, aluminum finish, and flat black spray paint to give it the look of aged metal.

Here are all three together at last:

I have them all hung by hooks from the ceiling. 

My original hope was to hard wire them all together, but since I lack the practical expertise for that, the cords run bundled down the edge of the window frame and are turned on and off via a power strip. I hope to get the curtains rehung to hide them a little better soon.

I've seen a few lighting solutions lately that involve swooping black cable and exposed bulbs and while I love the look in a loft space (like the one Brooks designed on DesignStar), it's not practical with 8-foot ceilings. I'd likely accidentally hang myself.

Okay, now you know what you need to know to diy three pendant lighting fixtures on a teeny tiny budget. Of course, if you have a bit more money you want to spend, you can buy industrial metal light cages:

1 Satco 90-1310 Lamp Cage

2 Metal Lamp Guard - Black

3 Vintage Drop Light

4 Industrial Wire Bulb Cage

And if the price isn't much of an issue:

5 Wire Cage Industrial Pendant

6 Vintage Industrial Cage Light

7 Metal Cage

8 Wire Cage Light

9 Early 20th Century Cage Lights

But in my house, I'm likely to spend the $1000 per fixture on that last link towards the mortgage or something else really practical, and hang up the diy version instead. How about you?

Thanks for reading!

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I'm Crafty!

Junkin' Joe at the Cottage Market

new chairs for thanksgiving dinner : under $25

Our beautiful dining room table was wedding gift from one of my sets of parents. It has now filled two too-small kitchen dining spaces with its gorgeous girth.

When planning to have the in-laws over for Thanksgiving dinner this year, our lack of comparably solid, beautiful chairs became more noticeable. Up until now, we've had a folding chair and four little Ikea Stefan chairs I bought on clearance three years ago. Cute, yes, and mostly serviceable, though as a salesperson pointed out, built to support the weight of your average Swede. A climbing toddler can topple one of those suckers without even trying (although he does try, and frequently).

I headed to the Habitat for Humanity Restore and the Goodwill (toddler in tow, for topple-testing!), and found two solid-wood-constructed, heavy-duty chairs. Both were half-price on different sale days, and they didn't match. Different upholstery, different wood finishes and different builds. My mission? To make them look a little more like a "set".

Before: Stained upholstery, battered finishes.






After: New upholstery, new finishes.






To replicate this project:

1) Remove extraneous padding (like the back pad on the first chair, which was held in place with staples and hot glue) and toss.




2) Turn your chairs over and remove the screws that hold the upholstered seats in place. Set aside the screws, and take the seat off of the chair

3) If the chairs have been previously re-covered, remove the excess layers of fabric and staples. Set aside the seats and the screws.




4) Stretch new fabric over the seats. Turn face down, fold fabric edge under to prevent fraying, and shoot a few staples along that edge of the new fabric, making sure the staples go through all layers of fabric and into the wooden seat bottom. Pull tightly, and tack down the opposing edge in the same manner.

5) Repeat for other two edges. At corners, some people use a "package fold" but I don't prefer the square-ish edges this leaves. Instead, I make about a dozen tiny folds and overlaps, sort of gathering the fabric with my fingers as I staple. Set seats aside.

6) Sand or de-gloss the chair frames outside, then paint with a spray-paint/primer in one, using even strokes and building up several light layers. These dry more quickly than a single, heavy layer, and also leave a nicer finish.

7) Let dry / cure / air-out for a couple of days. Then bring back inside and reassemble to the newly upholstered seat bottoms.

Ta-dum! New dinner chairs. The kiddo loves them, and so do I!

You can find the fabric here, courtesy of Spoonflower (more about that in a future post). It's meant to be a stuffed animal kit.

The spray finish is a color called oil-rubbed-bronze, a brownish black with a very subtle gleam of metal flake. It's a satin finish.












Any questions about my process? Leave them in the comments section below and I'll do my best to answer.


(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)



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