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Home โ€บ Decor and furniture

DIY industrial lamp to replace an ugly ceiling fan

December 24, 2013by Christina
If you ever wanted industrial lighting in your house, you probably noticed how expensive it was. I was on a mission to have some anyway, so we DIYed it. It's cheap and simple.
Project cost $21
Industrial kitchen light

We have new lights in the kitchen.  Behold, our DIY industrial pendant lamp:

Industrial-looking lamp with a glowing bulb in front of a kitchen window

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. Or like this work lamp on Amazon.

In addition to the lamp, you’ll need:

  • Spray paint (I used Rustoleum’s Metallic Iron)
  • Paper towel
  • Painters tape or masking tape
  • Optional: a canopy to cover the hole in the ceiling. Depending on what kind of lamp was already there, you may or may not need one of those.

Time needed:ย 1 hour and 30 minutes.

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

  1. Remove the clamp

    This is super easy, it just unscrews.

  2. Lightly scuff up the metal with fine sandpaper

    Just scuff enough so the spray paint will stick, not enough to have visible scratches. Be gentle, it’s easy to scratch this thin metal.

  3. Spray paint the lamps.

    I used and recommend Rustoleum’s Metallic Iron.
    We’re going to paint both the inside and outside. You can put the cord in a plastic bag if you have one and then use painters tape to seal the bag at the base of the lamp.
    I like to stuff some paper towels inside the light socket, and then put painters tape overtop of that just to be sure no paint gets inside there.
    Then spray with very light, steady strokes. It’s better to have several very light coats than just one or two thick ones.

  4. If you’re using this as a plugin lamp, you’re done!

    Just plug it in and hang it up. You could use cup hooks to keep the cords in place.

  5. Replace your current ceiling light

    Head over to this post for the very simple instructions for how to turn this plugin lamp into a hard wired one.

A dark industrial lamp hanging in front of window

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?

before picture of ceiling fan in kitchen, after picture of dark industrial lamp hanging over table

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.

Some other DIY lighting we’ve done:

  • Moroccan lanterns
  • Birdcage chandelier
  • Giant floral/snowball looking chandelier

Save this to your DIY board!

Just hover over the image and click “Pin”

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Tags: kitchen

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About Christina

I'm a full-time web developer with a dog sitting business, home renovations, and a blog on the side.

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  1. [email protected]

    It looks a lot better! Enjoy your holiday break!

    Reply
  2. Sarah

    Those lights look just like your style! And what a great price. Converting fixtures really is simple, isn’t it? I’ve hardwired plug-in lights and put plugs on hardwire versions. It’s nice to have that flexibility, especially in an old house when you may not have lighting where you need or want it ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Reply
    • Christina

      Yes, and it’s such a quick fix too (as long as there are no surprises…) ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Leena

    It looks so much better now! I love all things industrial.
    That ceiling fan was huge.
    Happy New Year!

    Reply
    • Christina

      Thanks, Leena! Huge and ugly. ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. Anonymous

    The renovation of the kitchen required the implementation of very unusual ideas. We can see that you managed to do something special and replace the old fan with the original lamp.

    Reply

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Hi, I’m Christina.

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