One Room Challenge Week Two | Let there be Light P.1
The title of this post is quite ironic as most of this was done right before Hurricane Ian decided to stroll by and knock everyone's lights out! (Oh guys, that was a good one, and you know it.) Anyway, power is back on just in time for me to pull this post together (thankfully, One Room Challenge extended the cutoff date), the kiddos are back in school and thankfully my parents arrived just in time for me to get some rest before starting on my first challenge: Lighting.
***WARNING: This is to inform you that what you are about to see is a failed attempt at a light fixture. This failed attempt will eventually lead to a successful attempt and this post is meant to encourage you to just keep swimming.****
The Plan
Right now there is a petrified wood plank topped with Christmas lights hanging over us at dinner time. I need lighting for functionality, directional, and accent. The light overhead will not supply adequate light for the entire room, so I will need some accent features, along with a directional light for my eventual plant throne. I also want to create visual continuity in the space so I will be painting the ceiling and bringing the current wallpaper pattern down to the floor. Due to not having power for two days, I decided to focus on just the overhead light.
The Color
I painted the ceiling Black Mocha by Behr, and I used Behr's spray paint in matte black for the lighting hardware I plan to install. As for the shade itself, I wanted to do a mixture of styles: something structurally Scandinavian, Afro-bohemian, and a little Wabi-Sabi. I got a woven wall basket, and made some paper mache bowls to add an organic texture to the lamp. I wasn't sure if I wanted that to be blue like my mood board, or if I want to give it a black coat as well, and use the accent of the blue on the chairs. I had some miniature paper mache bowls that my boys made along side of me so I painted both in blue and black for comparison.
The Build
While the ceiling paint cured, I got to work on the light hardware. I grabbed this FRIHULT mount from (you guessed it Ikea) and I gave it a few coats of paint.
The lampshade took a lot of planning, messing with scale, and choosing the right textures to go together. Trust me, I got it wrong a lot before I got it right. First, I made two paper mache bowls out of recycled egg cartons and molded them around a small plastic bowl, and the base of a large planter that is getting some loving soon.
Once the glue dried, I gave the surface of each a quick sand. Because I didn't make insert holes while these were still wet, I had to drill a 2" hole in the top of them with my hole saw so that they would sit on the base of the lamp and not the lamp rod. This will give you clearance on the rod.
The second component to this shade was a woven element (I got this basket from Hobby Lobby, but in the pictures below, the scale is off, and I needed something that was at least 24" in diameter, or to come up with a different idea.
Attempt two was to try and make an abstract woven structure out of rope. I don't have pictures for it because I could tell, I didn't think that through at all.
Attempt number three was promising. I made the shade bigger and deeper....and then I thought what if it blocks the light? So I fingered holes into it so that light could shine through it and well....can you guys tell I am spiraling out of control already??
Ok. Breathe. Focus. I can do this. Let's focus on what I did accomplish this week: I painted the ceiling, and added the wallpaper pattern from Jungalow down to the floor.
To Be Continued
I will try to get this light fixture remade and up before the end of week two and make a post about it later in the week!