Friday, August 27, 2010

Repurposed Candlesticks

IMG_0907aAhhhh....I remember the day about 4 years ago when a floofy doo store was going out of biz. They had zillions of cool items that were usually out of my price range. I did get my husband to buy me wall candle holder thingy I'll show you one day- at full price. I love it, but it's probably too big for my home.

Please ignore ugly shade it's currently wearing. No time to shop at the moment.

Anyhew....when I heard they were going out of business, I zipped across town to the store that already had throngs of bargain goers there. I immediately found the wooden candlesticks I had been lusting after for about a year. However, I couldnt' afford them. BUT at eighty and ninety percent off, I certainly could now. I want to say the 24.5 inch one cost around 125 dollars? I two of them up and was about to get the third when a lady grabbed it right out from under me and tried to talk me out of the ones I had. No way! Now, I didn't have my cell on me and I had a handful of great deals. The line was tortuously long. I no children at that point, so I felt it was worth it to wait. Turns out the wait lasted 5 hours!!! There were only two registers. I could NOT believe it. But after you invest an hour or so waiting you figure you have to continue at that point. Do you know once I got home I realized that everything I had was actually sconce or candle related. Oddness.

So these gorgeous candlesticks have set around collecting dust for FOREVER bc I don't know where to put them. I have no fireplace. They are too tall to go on top of a peice of furniture.

But the other day, I had an ahha moment. The decorator hadn't even suggested it- I am surprised. I would make these suckers into lamps! Oh the sheer genius of it made me smile for days. Then I got to looking at my lamp kit and thinking about the height of the lamps. Man would I have to drill a long straight hole. I was guessing a 1/2" in diameter would be wide enough of a hole.

I called the fanciest woodshop we have in town and they gave me two names of people who might be able to use a drill press or a lathe. I then checked with a lighting store who said they didn't have any long bits. This surprised me bc they say they can make specialty lamps!? Who does this if they don't have a drill bit longer than 3"?

IMG_0908bThe other day I got impatient and I also didn't want to have to locate teh person I'd be calling up with lathe or drillpress and I wasn't sure how much he'd charge. So with a handful of levels and my new drill I eyeballed it. I was so proud of myself. I actually got past the skinny part of the taper in the candlestick without coming out fo the side. It was about 3/4" by 1". I began with a small bit. Then I tried a 1/2" one. Success! But unfortunately, I did not have a long bit in this size. Not wanting to spend money on one, I decided to just chance it and drill with the 5/8" bit since I did have a long one of those. That is when tragedy struck! My poor lamp. I could have cried. I came out fo the side. You can see the problem here.


It's a good thing I started on the shorter one and still have the other one left. I'm going to try to figure out how to repair this one or at least staple cord down to the side and face that part away from everyone. And, I will call the people the woodstore suggested for the next one. My other option was to cut the sucker in 1/2 or into 1/3s, but something in me just keeps avoiding that.

Now, I've never made a lamp before, but I'm here to tell you that once you have a hole in your object, it's pretty simple. The directions on the lamp kit tell you what everything is and what order to put it on in. It did tell me to tie and underwriters knot (hey I think the Girlscout Troop I was in did go over that once, but I was probably eating cookies and talking about boys when that bit of info was passed on). Too bad Mr. BK wasn't there. The man I married is a knot tyer tier, ---of forget it....the man I married knows how to tie some knots! Whenever buy something that he has to secure to the roof of his truck, I can hardly wait to get home. I want give any further detail, except to say if he were smart he'd try to tie more knots in front of me. LOL. Well, after a few minutes of searching I finally found a decent site for showing me how to tie this mysterious knot. Here is the link: click here to go there. It's pretty easy actually.

So, I am getting ready for company. Wish me luck as I try to paint a part of my house with my toddler here. It's low VOC or no VOC paint from Benj Moore. Did you know you can use flat in your kitchen and stuff now? Amazing! They made it wipeable. I like flat bc it hides flaws in the walls.

Have a great weekend.

No comments: