Real house lighting

Our real dining room is finally starting to come together.  I still need to replace the bench with a settee on one side of the dining table, but I finally got curtains, (almost) finished the chairs and replaced the lighting.

When we moved in, we had this icky (and way too small) brass and yellow glass chandelier.

I removed the globes and painted it black a few days after moving in to tide me over until I found a new one.  We finally replaced it with a home-made light last week.  I first saw the one we chose at Suacy Glossie (it's also on a few other blogs).  Here is my finished version:

It's made out of a round paper shade, a cord set and coffee filters.

We already had the shade and cord, but to buy them new from IKEA is only $9.  It takes about 350 coffee filters (I underestimated and had to go back to the store twice--when it looks like you only need about 50 more, you probably need over 100), and those cost less than $4. 

It's one of the easiest projects ever.  To add coffee filters to the shade, grab each one from the inside, pinch the base together, apply hot glue to the outside of the base while it is still pinched and stick it to the paper shade.

Since our original chandelier was hardwired, I just cut the cord to the appropriate length, hardwired it in and then draped it across the ceiling so the light would be centered over the table.  So, without already having the supplies, this project would cost about $14 and takes about 3 hours.  I totally recommend it.

Christina

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