And another lighting diy

Another diy

another lamp diy

Ooh and
this bent arm chandelier diy.
Must check out all this lady's diys.

Lighting ideas

Here are some things I've seen that are different from what we have been talking about but I think would work and are not heinously priced. I would be ok with anything here. This is assuming we couldn't find an affordable/appropriate version of the brass/white ball thing we've been discussing.

1. CB2 - oversized equator pendant lamp. I think that's quite nice actually. $199.

2. All Modern Larkin - 4 lights 32" $199. Handsome.

3.  All Modern Periwinkle 8-ball chandelier. 31" $300. 

4. One of the few examples of modern candelabra style that I don't mind. All modern Cardinal 9-light chandelier 36" $460

Brendan Ravenhill Hood chandelier. Expensive but cool.

CB2 Radial Chandelier. 30" $299

DIY tutorial here

Froy Schermer ceiling lamp white 36.6" max, $399

An example of our kind of house with the ball fixtures. I like it a lot. I like this mismatch a lot. The 1-tier one should be easy to diy, no?

HangoutLighting Etsy shop makes cluster chandeliers. You choose cord color, number of balls etc.

Kichler 42121. Not cheap. I think nice ones of these are not just placeholders. 

Kichler 43680 Danika chandelier 

Laboratory 4 light Mini chandelier 44" $378. Very specific but I like that it's kind of a knockoff of the following

$16,100 from BEC Brittain, sold at Matter

Can I Build the Light Fixture I Can't Afford?

I saw this light fixture at a pricey store down in Tribeca recently and I love it!

Sadly, the price is $9500.

So, it occurred to me that I might be able to build one like it myself, except that it has some pretty hard to reproduce features.  Like this...

I especially love the way the arms are positioned. Each of the five arms has a solid brass ball at its proximal end and the bottom hemisphere of the ball has holes all over it. Instead of using an articulating system, the arms are positioned by resting one of those holes onto one of five pegs emerging vertically from the central orb.  It is a slightly arbitrary system - you have to just pick a hole and see if you like it, but with no ability to make micro-adjustments.

The shades are attached to ball shaped swivels that move on only a single axis. 

It seems pretty custom...  But I'm motivated and I went in search of the parts I would need.
Here is what I found:

A 5.5" diameter brass ball for the center orb ($90 from Grand Brass): 

1.5-1.75" diameter solid brass balls for the ends of the arms ($8-$18 each from Grand Brass):

They have one 1/8" threaded hole already.

The tubing is the easiest part to find ($6 per foot at Grand Brass) - need to choose between 1/2" and 5/8". 

It will need to be threaded, but that should be relatively simple.

Swivels from mylampparts.com for the distal ends of the arms (~$6 each):

And for the pegs, these things from mylampparts.com:

The hardest part to duplicate, it turns out, is going to be the lamp shades.  I can't find a similar lamp shade anywhere.  Here are some options I came up with though:

$12 from Ikea - I could just use the shade.

overpriced on ebay.

approx. $30 each on ebay.

approx $30 each on ebay.  I think this one is my favorite.

All totalled, the parts threaten to add up to around $500-$600 plus whatever labor costs.  That isn't cheap for a DIY project, but I don't have to buy them all at once.  I could start with the components needed to make just one arm and if that doesn't work then there is no point doing more. 

So, yes, it is involved.  It would require some machining and some brazing and a lot of polishing, but I think it might be a fun project to try.  Before I start, if I start, I will want to go back to the store and look at the original one and try to more accurately gauge the size of the tubes, balls and center orb -- but I'm pretty sure I can get everything I need except the exact shades. 

CL Find: Brass and Frosted or Smokey Glass Globe Chandeliers

A pair of these are on CL for $400.  

Would they do the trick for our living room?  

We could replace the globes with identical shape/size globes in frosted glass like these from Grand Brass for $17 each (i.e., another $102 + tax per fixture).

I think I prefer the frosted glass - smokey glass seems very 70's, like marbled mirror tiles.

Framing Rorschach Plates

I recently saw a set of Rorschach plates framed and hung in a very fancy little interior design shop down in Tribeca.  They looked fantastic and they are deep in my Indicia of Authority aesthetic.

Sadly, the price was out of my range, but probably reasonable for people who shop Tribeca. But no matter, I have begun looking for my own unframed set and I'll have them framed myself.

Setting aside the choice of frame stock and matte color, there are three basic ways to frame Rorschach plates: flush inside the frame; matted in the frame with the matte covering the edges of the plates; floated in a matte in a frame (listed in order of the cost of the frame job). 

I found examples of all three:

Flush in Frame

Flush in Frame

Flush in Matte in Frame

Flush in Matte in Frame

Float in Matte in Frame

Float in Matte in Frame

Here they are again: