Recently, I decided to make a list of all the little annoying things in our house that have been bothering me. Instead of being irritated by them each time I saw them, why not simply tackle one every few days or so? It sounds so basic when I write it here, but for some reason the concept of a project-to-do-small-projects has eluded me until now. But suddenly, instead of internally grumbling to myself about entropy and everything falling apart, I can just add a line item to the list! And just like that - clarity. It's not that "everything is falling apart" - it's that this one panel in this one door has a crack that can easily be caulked.
Project #1 was to add a shade to the bare-bulb sconce that is on our first floor landing. The light is in a great place, and does some heavy duty illumination in our living room, so the shade had to be as translucent as possible. I also wanted to get as far away from the original shade as possible (the sconce started with a very dark orange glass shade that was hideous and that one day fell and broke into a million billion pieces).
My first thought was Amazon - but no dice. The market for half-shades that are held on by the bulb is scant, apparently. It was time to improvise! I used some 13-gauge wire to create a basic frame and the circle that would fit onto the socket.
The shade itself? This IKEA placemat, strategically wrapped around the frame and secured with a few wire twists.
So now we have a reasonably sculptural shade that hides the bulb without compromising light quality.
Here is a schematic for the wire frame. The light blue squiggles are the places where I used a very thin wire to secure the heavier wire either to itself, or to the middle socket-holder piece.
Of course, there's also the option to spray paint the whole thing a bright color. Maybe one day, when it ends back up on the "things bothering me" list!
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