We are currently redecorating our bedroom and one of the changes I wanted to make was to change the pendant light. When I redesigned our home, we had a full rewire done and I did the plans: a few hours on youtube and google and I had done my first electric drawings. I’m happy with everything bar the light in our bedroom – I made the silly mistake to put it in the centre of the ceiling, forgetting that we were having built in wardrobes. Doh. So the light hasn’t been in the middle of our bed and it’s the kind of detail that drives me mad. Having seen inside all the ceilings and floors of our house, I knew that we couldn’t pull the wire to the right position as there’s a floor beam for the loft in the way so, I designed a pendant light with a loop of cable. I wanted a vintage shade to go with the 1950s style of our home with a warm champagne colour to go with the colour scheme of the room. I found this beauty on eBay – the buyer was keen to point out that the tin of beans wasn’t included!
Now electrical fittings have changed sizes over the years and it’s always a bit of a headache buying retro shades as you then have to figure out how to marry them with modern compliant fittings. I got a lovely set of 3 metal green shades for our utility, loo and playroom on eBay and luckily my husband was able to drill bigger holes in them without damaging them. But you can’t drill glass. So I had the idea to use Sugru.
Glass shade from eBay + a packet of white Sugru + cable, ceiling rose and lamp holder from Creative Cables
I picked a lamp holder with a rounded top so it would be easy to pull tight into the original opening of the glass shade. I divided the Sugru into: one ball to fix it from the inside and one ball for the top/outside.
I rolled the first ball into a snake. I stuck it to the inside and pulled the lamp holder up tight.
I then covered the top with the second ball. The beauty is you can work with the glue until you’re happy with it. I put a tall glass underneath and checked it was all even and left it to dry overnight.
Voilà! And here it is up in our bedroom.
The ceiling rose is in the original (annoying) location but the hook is in the middle of the bed so the light hangs in the right place. Yay. The gorgeous ZigZag black and white cable is retro and matches the cable of our bedside lamps.
This is the another eBay listing photo of the shade on it’s original lamp. But look what a gorgeous pattern it throws now it’s detached from the ceiling! I feel like we’ve set it free.
Happy making!
Small print: The Sugru used in this post was kindly gifted by Sugru.
