Cheap industrial lighting to replace an ugly ceiling fan

We have new lights in the kitchen.  Behold, our DIY cheap industrial lighting:

We finally took down the big old ceiling fan over in the breakfast area and added this industrial-looking light.  We have a matching one over the kitchen sink to, which you’ll see soon.

This is SUCH an easy DIY.  All they are are modified work lamps from Lowes, similar to this:

Here’s how to make your own cheap industrial lighting:

1. Remove the clamp
   This is super easy, it just unscrews
2. Scuff up the metal with fine sandpaper
   Just enough so the spray paint will stick, not enough to have visible scratches
3. Spray paint the lamps with Rustoleum’s Metallic Iron
   It’s important to spray paint the outside and inside of course.  Just cover the cord on the outside, and the light socket on the inside with painters tape and spray away.
   (affiliate links above)

The best part was that the lamps themselves cost $14 each. The new canopies for $3 each. And then the can of spray paint was around $8. So for $21 each, we have new industrial-looking lights in the kitchen.

Of course, as everything in our old house, the ceiling fan was off-center to everything.  And we didn’t want to do any re-wiring of the house at the moment, so we just draped the cord into place and hung it from a screw hook in the ceiling that was centered over the breakfast table.  The cord was a little stiff and didn’t want to drape nicely or hang straight down since this light fixture is so light-weight, so we tied a very loose knot at the point of the drape and hung it from that.  It goes very well with the industrial-look, but might not look as good with other styles of lighting.

Way better than the ceiling fan, huh?

Many of you might know how to turn a plug-in light fixture into a hard-wired one, but before we started doing electrical work in this house, I had no idea how simple it was.  In fact, even when the Hubs said it was an easy thing to do, I was too afraid to have him do it for me.  So, for those of you who feel like I did, read how simple and non-scary changing a plugin light fixture into a hardwired one is.