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

      This blog is about restoration and decorating of our MCM (formerly about our Little Victorian), and the homemaking in between.

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Little Victorian

Modern Homemaking

The desk lamp is redone!

September 6, 2012 Crafty, DIY, The Victorian

Thank you for all of your feedback on my vintage desk lamp redo!  Either of the choices would have been cute, but I’m very happy with it being matte black.  I love how the brass on the inside lights up when the lamp is on and casts a nice warm glow. 

Vintage desk lamp painted black by Little Victorian

I really liked the ideas that some of you had to add a touch of turquoise too, so that’s what I did.  Not only was it a great compromise, it let me fix the one flaw that was bothering me: the ugly brown cord.  Usually, a cord wouldn’t bother me much, but this one will be in full view since the wall outlet that the lamp plugs into is is a good 4 feet away from my desk.  So I wrapped it in yarn.

Wrap lamp cord in yarn by Little Victorian

Unfortunately, it is not turquoise.  It does have more green in it in person than in the pictures, but believe it or not, it’s the closest color Michael’s had to turquoise.  🙁  I made sure that the yarn would be wrapped in a way that it could be easily removed and re-wrapped when I do find a nice turquoise color. 

The yarn wrapping is really simple to do.  Just cut a piece about 6 feet long, and tie a basic knot around the cord, at the half-way (3 feet) point of your yarn.  Slide the knot up to the top of the cord and start wrapping.  I put a dab of hot glue on the cord about every 8 inches to help it to stay in place.  About a foot before your yarn runs out, just cut a new piece like the first one, knot it on top of the current yarn and keep wrapping.  For a while, you’ll be working with 4 pieces, which will make it go much faster.  When you get to the end of a string, just hot glue it down and keep going with the rest. 

vintage lamp with yarn wrapped cord by Little Victorian

It only took about 30 minutes to wrap the cord and about $2 for the yarn (there’s a ton left). 

As for this powder room project of ours…  I’ll give you just one example of how it is going so far: 

I told you about our great plans to spend all of Sunday and Monday working on it.  The first project was hanging the light fixture, but we forgot to buy a mounting box for it.  First thing Sunday, we tried to go to the store to buy one, but when we got in our car, the gear shift broke.  We messed with it for a while, but got nowhere, so we got in the other car, which started just fine but wouldn’t stay running.  Instead of powder room remodeling, the Hubs spent the day fixing the cars and I caught up on housework.  We did eventually get out of the driveway and manage to get the light hung, but that’s it so far.  Hopefully this Sunday will be better. 

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  1. Anne Lien

    September 6, 2012 at 6:18 pm

    I love how your lamp turned out! =D wrapping the cord is a genius little touch! Hope you find the turquoise color you love someday 😉
    Too bad you had some bad luck.. I wish you some good luck for this weekend!
    Xx

    Reply
    • Christina

      September 11, 2012 at 12:28 am

      Thanks Anne, and thanks for your suggestion for adding some color to it!

  2. onshore

    September 7, 2012 at 6:06 am

    Hey, that cord wrapping is really cool!
    Oh, too bad about the cars. Hope they work well now.

    Reply
    • Christina

      September 11, 2012 at 12:29 am

      Thanks Leena!

  3. Lisa

    December 31, 2012 at 12:57 am

    I would be afraid to wrap something like that around an electrical cord! Especially a used one, since you have no idea if it has any nicks in the insulating plastic.
    It might not be a safe idea.

    Reply
    • Christina O

      January 6, 2013 at 2:00 pm

      Thank you for bringing that up.

      One bonus of buying an old house is that we have learned a whole lot about electrical work. If the cord had been in less than ideal shape, I would have rewired the lamp myself.

      So, don’t worry, it’s condition was examined and there is actually no danger in wrapping the insulated cord in yarn. 🙂

  4. Jesse

    September 14, 2013 at 6:49 pm

    Fantazzles – just what I needed. hot glue, that’s the missing link I wasn’t thinking of! i’m bout to wrap up all my cords, and was considering friendship bracelet style.. but ugh! this is much better. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Christina

      September 16, 2013 at 1:36 pm

      Glad I could help, Jesse! It’s way easier than friendship bracelet style.

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