The first project came about because we wanted a large-scale light and couldn’t find any that were big enough, contemporary enough, or affordable.  It seemed like a relatively easy project… and it was!

It’s simply a wood frame made of 1/2″ square pieces of hardwood covered in fabric with a piece of vellum on the bottom to diffuse the light.

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Our second lighting project came about because the living area just had a flood light in a socket plugged into a cord which was wrapped around and hanging from the sprinkler pipe.  It was not easy on the eyes – looking at it or the light it cast.

Surfing around the internet we found a piece called 85 Lamps by Droog Design, a Dutch firm, which is actually part of the MOMA collection.  It seemed a bit excessive, both in terms of number of lightbulbs (yes, 85!) as well as cost ($3000-$4000 depending where you look).

After a ton of hours searching for red wire, appropriate sockets, and an affordable source for 19 lightbulbs we had everything we needed.  Assembly wasn’t too difficult: wire up socket, attach to power source, repeat 18 more times, then figure out how to hang from ceiling.

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There are 25W bulbs x 19 = 475W.  It’s actually not as bright as you think, but it is on a dimmer because it does produce more light than we want.

Both these projects were very satisfying.  They are very functional yet we still enjoy looking at them (albeit with some changes in mind).

A few more pics of the final project – didn’t take any during construction: