Finished product:
Ok, so after moving houses, I needed a cool lamp to hang above my dinner table, but didn't have that much to spend and wasn't willing to sell a kidney. That left me with a problem, because apparently lamps are fucking expensive.
An idea was born. I'd make my own lamp. Not having any electrical or any other DIY experience, other than the occasional macaroni pictureframe, would make this fun. Possibly deadly, but mostly fun!
These babies are oldschool filament bulbs. They are selled as Edison bulbs and economically not the greatest choice, compared to LED's, but they are pretty, and I wanted pretty. Also, hip and vintage and more buzzwords. I got 6 of them in different shapes and sizes, and inspired by shitty pinterest, came up with an idea to hang them from a piece of wood. Beceause why the hell not.
Getting wood was waay easier than I thought. I just called a guy I knew, asked if he had a log for me to caress, and.. No. Seriously tho, I just called the first gardener in the phone book, asked if he had any sturdy branches or logs for me, and picked one up the same day. It was about 3 metres (9 freedom units) long, and perfect. Didn't even pay for it.
I call this piece: Modest Artistry.
I needed to make a plan, because my boyfriend asked for it, because he thought I'd for sure electrocute myself and burn down the house and the cats. He's a dramaqueen. I tried to pry loose a piece of toast out of a plugged in toaster with a knife ONCE, and he still thinks I don't understand the dangers of electricity. Pfrt.
The plan was quite simple. I bought some bakelite sockets, because they are nice and heavy and would pull the wire they hang from straight. Also bought some electrical wire obviously, both thin ungrounded ones and thicker ones with thread on the outside. You know, like the one hanging one your iron. Lastly, I needed something to clamp the wires together. I've tried some different things, and ended up using the bad boys above. Honestly it was easiest to just shove the three wires in these than to look for the wire clamps I saw online and wanted to use but couldn't find in the hardware store. Also bought heavy duty parachute rope, to attacht the whole thing onto the ceiling.
The threaded wire I'm babbling about. It's important to put some tape around it before you cut it, because boy, this thing really wants to get loose. I've cut it in 6 pieces of about a metre long, so it would give me enough length the play with.
I put some painters tape on the log, and measured out where I wanted the holes for the lamps. Drilled the holes, had some fun. Fun fact: the log wasn't completely dry on the inside yet, so the drill had a hard time going through. Nice burny aroma.
Some tools of the trade , in case you don't know how a wire exposing cutter thingy looks like.
I've exposed the inner wires on the iron-wire. Didn't need the ground wire, so cut it away, and bared the ends of the brown and blue wires.
Neat.
The sockets came with assembly required, so I did just that. This is the order in which you should work. It had a built in mechanism to unload the pull on the tiny wires.
Did this x6, ended up with a bouquet of sockets.
After threading each wire with socket through the log, we put the thing on two chairs, so I could see what it would look like and how far down the sockets would need to dangle. At this point, the cat decided he had urgent business on the other side of the table he isn't allowed on, and dramatically walked through an otherwise fine shot.
This is the boyfriend, kindly drilling holes in an ungodly sturdy ceiling. This is after measuring out exactly where the lamp should be, where the dinner table is going to spend it's life, etc etc.
This is how the wiring ended up on the finished product. I've learned that blue connects to blue and brown goes to brown. Easypeasy. 3 wires go in the connector, 1 comes out and goes to the main source in the ceiling. To make it perfect, I want to mill (?) a groove in the log so the wire falls in it and is totally invisible, but for now, this works. The white connectors annoy me, so they are going to be replaced with black ones.
Neat shot, with and overlooked ground wire I've cut away afterwards.
And the finished product. I know the guide is a bit messy, but so am I, so fuck it. To conclude a lot of rambling, I wanted a lamp, I made a lamp. It has some flaws but damnit, I love my creation like nobodies business. In total, this baby cost me around 60 euro's, which is, I dunno, 500 USD? I could look it up, but honestly, it's getting late and I want tot fix that loose hanging wire on the right side of the picture before I go to sleep.
Thank you for reading!